My father took me on a streetcar. This memory is etched in my mind because it is the last time I ever saw my father. We rode to the end of the line. I remember getting off with him. I remember walking what appeared to me to be a long distance. He knocked on a door and a woman answered. I went inside. That was the last time I ever saw my father.

I lived inside this house for two years. Occasionally, I was allowed to go out in the back yard. I was never allowed to go out front. I was never mistreated. Ever! But I was never loved. I lost a great part of my childhood simply because I was a Jew.

The Nazi used to love to parade. When they used to parade, everybody on the street had to open their doors to watch. The lady I was staying with had to open her door and watch too. She would hide me in the outhouse. I was petrified. I did not know exactly what I was afraid of, but I remember being absolutely petrified. An outhouse is small, and I would retreat to the farthest little corner. There was a crack in the front of the outhouse. I thought that if I could see them parading outside they would be able to see me.

I remember one time pushing open the outhouse door and crawling on my hands and knees after this cat. I grabbed the kitty and pulled it inside with me. I wanted partly to protect it and partly to hold onto something because I was so alone and so scared.My life as a hidden child was...how can I say it...I had no toys. The only fresh air I got was when I was allowed to go in the backyard. I made up imaginary friends because I had no one to play with. I do not remember being hugged and kissed. That was my life for two years.

The rest of the story was told to me afterwards by my sister. My brother was twelve years older than I was. He had already been hidden in a Christian home for boys. My older sister was eight years older than I was. She could not be easily moved because she had a bone disease, osteomyelitis.

Some neighbors snitched on us. One morning at 5:00 o'clock the  went through the neighbor's house, jumped over the brick wall and pounded on the room where my parents were sleeping. They broke down the door. The Gestapo took my father and threw him in the truck. They wanted to take my mother, but she wouldn't go. My mother told them, "You can shoot me here, but I will not leave my daughter." The Gestapo pulled the blankets off my sister and saw that she was in a body cast. The officer said that they would be back later for them. And that is what they did.

By some miracle my mother made one last phone call to a Catholic hospital, and they agreed to take my sister. An ambulance came to get her. The Germans used to take over hospitals for their own use. However, the one place they would not go was the isolation ward. The nuns felt that it would be better for my sister to risk contracting a disease rather than to risk letting the Germans find a Jewish child. My sister lay in bed in the isolation ward for two years. And that was the last I saw her 

 

  Hungary was a staunch ally of Nazi Germany. As such, the Germans did not, at first, invade the country, but urged the government to deport its Jews to concentration camps. The Hungarian government was not willing to send its Jewish citizens to their deaths, but did pass many discriminatory laws against them. Young men were sent to forced labor camps. Lilly was able to continue her studies at the local Jewish high school until her seventeenth year. 

   

    By 1943, the Hungarian government realized that their German ally was losing the war. Hungary, therefore, tried to break its alliance with Germany. In a fit of rage, Hitler ordered his armies into Hungary. In 1944, German troops occupied the entire country, and with the help of Hungarian collaborators, began deporting local Jews to concentration camps.

   

  Lilly and her family were rounded up and herded into a sealed-off ghetto where they were kept for two months. The Germans began sending the Jewish residents of Debrecen to the Auschwitz death camp. Towards the end of June, Lilly was put on a train going to Auschwitz. The train could not get through, because the tracks had been bombed in allied air raids. The train was instead diverted to the Strasshoff concentration camp in Austria. There, Lilly was forced to work to the point of total exhaustion. Food was scarce, and those who couldn't work were murdered.

When the camp was liberated in April 1945, eighteen year-old Lilly was barely alive.

Period 3

 Date: 5/9/17 

 

 

     Diary of Jeannine Burk,

 

I was a hidden child, hidden in a woman’s house for two years, from the age of three to the age of five. As I was hiding in the woman’s house, I did not know her name but I will forever be grateful to her. The memory of my father taking in the street car to the place he found for me to stay will forever be etched in my mind. We drove to the end of the line, we got out of the car and from what I remember, we walked such a long distance to a woman’s house. Once we got to the house my father knocked on the door, I walked inside. That was the last time I saw my father. May I remind you I lived in this woman’s house for two years and in those two years I was never allowed to go outside the front yard. I was only allowed to occasionally go out to the back yard. I was never mistreated in anyway; I was never loved either. The fact that I’m a Jew made me lose a great part of my childhood. As a hidden child I had no toys, nothing to play with. I remember one time opening the outhouse door and crawling on the floor, only on my hands and knees trying to get a pussy cat. I grabbed the kitty and pulled it inside with me for two reasons. One because I needed and wanted something to  hold onto , I was so lonely and scared. 

Chaim Blachman

 

My name is Chaim Blackman. I grew up in Lodz, Poland.  My father owned a hardware store. I helped my dad in his hardware store.  I had three brothers and one sister. We lived in a non-Jewish area of the city.  I worked in my dad’s store every day after school. I would help him repair everything from shoes to appliances. I was 12 years old when the Germans invaded Lodz. I’ll never forget that day I September 1939. 

We were forbidden to practice our religion, wear yellow stars and we weren’t allowed to work. The living condition horrible it was overcrowded, unsanitary, no heat people froze to death in the middle of the roads, there was little to eat. I felt scared that we were all going to die from freezing or exposure. I was lucky enough to get a job at a hospital. But my luck ran out I was rounded up and sent to a death camp.   I felt terrified that we were all going to die. This was in 1942. I eventually sent to work as a slave labor in a German run munition factory. I worked day and night. I was lucky to survive. 

  I remember waking up every morning thinking will I make it or not. 

Jews were subjected to have curfews. We were forced to wear the yellow star. Mostly every jew was distant. More of the jews were forced to live in a rundown part of the city. Part of the conditions were no heat, food, or medicine. I seen people die from starvation and diseases. 

Germans were constantly harassed by jews. Most people lived in the ghettos . Jews were randomly seized on the streets. I seen some kids would try to sneak out and scavege food for there families or even medicine. Sadly i was gunned down by a german soldier at the ghettos gate in 1940. I was 16.

      When hitler came to Italy I was almost 5 years old and my family was evacuated to a small town of montecatini. A month later all the Germans started gathering all the Jews for the deportation for death camps in Portland and Germany. On November 5,1943 the members of the fascist militia and the Germans ss found my parents, my little brother and me. November 9 they put us in a overcrowded, unsanitary cattle car in Florence.

     My train arrived in auschwitz on November 14,1943 immediately when I arrived, I was sent to the gas chambers and I was murdered. 

    I watched people i care about slowly suffer & to soon die. I remember cleaning burnt bodies & seeing my mother's face. All I could remember was the fight we got into right before we got picked for selection

    I remember when selection day came. Me & my family were selected, & fear filled our faces. We stepped on the train & my father held me close. My mother looked at me both in sadness and frustration, as the last thing we said was “i hate you”. I wanted to apologize but i was just too stubborn. She tried to talk to me but all i did was turn away.

    When we got to the camp it was cruel. Once stepped into the camp i could smell death & burning flesh. Me and my family were quickly put to work. I wasn't fed my first meal until two whole days later. One day i was put on dead body extraction, and that's when i saw my dead mothers face. I wanted to cry, but i knew I couldn't attract attention to myself. Soon after i could feel & see me and my father slowly starving to death. Then suddenly one day SS guards began realising us quickly, while they started burning the camp.

     Once we were realises, we were all weak. After only a few miles many people collapsed and died, including my father. A few days later, American troops found us and started bringing us back to health. Sadly many of us still died due to ro lack of nutrients. I live today but I remember my parents and friends dead face, and it haunts me everyday.