https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj Made with fortitude en-us 2018-03-05 17:53:34 UTC 2026-02-01 08:43:53 UTC hello@padlet.com 917050 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238282400

]]> 2018-03-05 18:50:35 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238282400 917050 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238289652 2018-03-05 19:00:18 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238289652 917050 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238297475 On an Auschwitz station platform in 1944, Helga Weiss and her mother fooled one of the most reviled men in modern history, Josef Mengele, and managed to save their lives. Not long into her teens, Weiss lied about her age, claiming she was old enough to work for her keep. Her mother persuaded the Nazis under Mengele's command that Helga was in fact her daughter's older sister, and she was sent to the forced labour barracks and not the gas chamber.]]> 2018-03-05 19:11:32 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238297475 917050 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238300404 The story is one of many recorded in a concentration camp diary that was sold to publishers around the world at the Frankfurt book fair. Her book is being read by many people, to learn more about the devastating story in her shoes. She is also a postwar painter, although it is overlooked because of her very famous diary. ]]> 2018-03-05 19:16:13 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238300404 917050 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238304688 2018-03-05 19:22:56 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/238304688 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239285961 Helga is one of only 100 children to survive Auschwitz out of the 15,000 sent there from the concentration camp at Terezín, north of Prague. Altogether, between 1941 and 1945, she and her mother were sent to four camps: Terezín, Auschwitz, Freiberg and Mauthausen.]]> 2018-03-07 17:31:34 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239285961 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239288466 2018-03-07 17:35:48 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239288466 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239289133 Helga with her parents, Irena and Otto, and her paternal grandmother, Sophie]]> 2018-03-07 17:36:52 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239289133 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239290213 2018-03-07 17:38:40 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239290213 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239290666 Helga's first day at school, 1936. ---------->

]]> 2018-03-07 17:39:26 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239290666 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239293546 2018-03-07 17:43:59 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239293546 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239295810

]]> 2018-03-07 17:47:10 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239295810 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239299241 https://youtu.be/N8_bZbTrbaA]]> 2018-03-07 17:52:29 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239299241 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239329017 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/22/helga-weiss-diary-nazi-death-camp
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/16/schoolgirl-who-fooled-the-nazis]]> 2018-03-07 18:40:21 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239329017 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239345248 In December 1941, soon after Helga's 12th birthday, the authorities came for the family. They were sent to Terezín, a walled 18th-century garrison town, also known during the war by its German name, Theresienstadt. Many of Helga's uncles and aunts were sent there too. Terezín was essentially a vast camp used as a transit hub for tens of thousands of Jews sent to Auschwitz and Treblinka.]]> 2018-03-07 19:04:14 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239345248 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239346330 One of Helga's happier sketches shows the girls gathering round a food parcel, jostling to see the contents. But the first drawing she made is a jolly picture of two children building a snowman – she smuggled it through to her father who sent back a crucial message: "Draw what you see."
She took his advice and began to record life in the camps. The pictures show queues for food; a bleak, basic washroom; a girl ill with tuberculosis; the crowded waiting room in the emergency clinic; people on stretchers; bread transported in a hearse marked "Welfare for the young".]]> 2018-03-07 19:05:55 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239346330 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239348746 Helga and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, where they joined the notorious queue as they arrived: older women and mothers with young children to the left, those deemed able to work to the right. To survive, it was essential to end up on the right. Prisoners who knew the fate that lay ahead on the left whispered warnings: "Don't say you are too young, don't say you are ill – say you are able to work. Don't say you belong together, that you are mother and child," remembers Helga."She resolved to say she was older than 14; her mother would pretend to be younger. In fact, the SS man didn't ask questions and sent them both to the right. "He pointed – I don't know if it was luck, fate, a miracle.

]]> 2018-03-07 19:09:51 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239348746 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239350884 2018-03-07 19:13:11 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239350884 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239353230 Her 10 days at Auschwitz were worse than the three years at Terezín, but Helga suspects it was harder still for her mother. She remembers being outside, shaved head freezing, and Irena reaching over to cup her bare scalp. It was all the comfort she could offer.]]> 2018-03-07 19:16:51 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239353230 https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239353975 From Auschwitz, they were sent to Freiberg, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp, where they worked as slave labour for five months, polishing aeroplane parts. Then came a 16-day transport by rail to Mauthausen in Austria. Irena was so weak she could hardly stand and both suffered from frostbite, lice and constant, raging thirst. Rumours flew about the war's end and some women escaped, but Helga couldn't be sure her mother was fit enough to try. In one four-day period they had nothing to eat but two potatoes, half a cup of tea and two spoons of sugar.]]> 2018-03-07 19:17:59 UTC https://padlet.com/917050/akj6bzi3npxj/wish/239353975