Mr. David Jacobs was born in Tomaszów, Poland. He grew up within the small town, and soon joined his father in working at their family tailoring shop. At age 18, when the war broke out, Mr. Jacobs was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he served as a slave labourer. Mr. Jacobs traveled across Europe
Freda Rosenberg is a Holocaust Survivor from Radom, Poland. She survived the full weight of the war years, passing through a number of ghettoes and camps, including Auschwitz Birkenau. When the Red Army was approaching, she was forced on a death march, which she recounts in detail here. Surviving that ordeal too, Freda was liberated
George Berci was born March 14, 1921 in Szeged, Hungary, and when he was a toddler his family moved to Vienna. They stayed there until 1936, when the family returned to Hungary. By this time antisemitism was obvious on both sides of the border. Hitler took Austria in the 1937 Anschluss, and Admiral Horthy took
Kurt Leuchter was born February 6, 1929 in Vienna, Austria. He grew up there in the 1930s and remembers well the dark days of the Anschluss, when the Nazis marched in. Restrictions began to set in, and then the real brutality was unleashed during Kristallnacht. Kurt recalls seeing the synagogue burned, and remembers his father
Marguerite Quddus was born December 4, 1936 in Paris, France. Her parents had fled Russia at the time of the revolution in order to escape the pogroms that were devastating Russian Jews. Her grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo Eliashev, was a well known kabbalist, and he made his way to Palestine with some family members, while Marguerite’s
George Kutas survived the Holocaust in Hungary. In this brief video segment he discusses the evolution of antisemitism in Hungary during the war years, prior to the 1944 deportations. While most Hungarian Jews who were deported were sent directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau to be murdered – including much of George’s extended family – George was put
Angi Orosz was born December 21, 1944, in Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of a handful of Jewish babies born in the camp who was able to survive. Her mother Vera Bein gave birth to Angela in that terrible place, and as Angi says in her testimony she speaks to honour her mother’s determination and fight to survive,
Georgette Brinberg was born June 10, 1938 in Villerupt, France. Her parents had emigrated from Poland in the 1920s, looking for opportunities. They began their lives in France in Villerupt, a border town in the northeast known for the metal trades. When the war began and the German blitzkrieg fell on France, Villerupt was heavily
Alex Hacker was born in Budapest, Hungary on May 7, 1926. His father was a successful businessman in the vegetable oil business, and because of that – as well as Hungary’s alliance with Nazi Germany – Alex and his family and the Jews of Hungary in general were shielded from the immediate brutality of the
Judah Samet was born in Debrecen, Hungary on February 5, 1938. He attributes his wartime survival to his mother, whose brave actions brought Judah and his siblings through the war. Hungary’s Jews had been insulated from the worst horrors of the Shoah for most of the war, but all that ended with the German invasion
Margaret Newman (nee Kaufman) was born March 29, 1923 in Satu Mare, Romania. She was the second child in a family of eight children, and as the eldest daughter it was her job to maintain a respectable and observant household. When Satu Mare and the surrounding region were annexed by Hungary, life became more complicated
Avraham Peter grew up in the city of Lodz, Poland, where he was born August 12, 1926. His parents had their own factory/business and the family was living a good, observant life, and the young Abe attended a Jewish school, and was raised in part by his grandparents. Anti-Semitism was a reality in 1930s Lodz
Thursday, April 8 was Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a day to remember and reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust, where six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims – Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others – were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. At
March 19, 1944 marked a turning point in Hungary’s wartime history; it was the day that Nazi Germany began a direct military occupation of its onetime ally, Hungary. Life for Hungarian Jews, which had been deteriorating under the previous regime, took a dramatic turn for the worse as discriminatory laws gave way to ghettos and
This past Wednesday, January 27, was Holocaust Remembrance Day. On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated by the Soviet Red Army, and in subsequent months other camps were liberated by the Allies. International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the end of the genocide that resulted in the deaths of
Leslie Fazekas was born on September 28, 1925, in Debrecen, Hungary. He grew up in a middle class family in the well-assimilated Jewish community, alongside his younger brother. He did well in school, and was preparing to go to university, just as wartime anti-Semitic restrictions were beginning to be felt in Hungary. But his
Helena Hirschl (nee Beinhacker) was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1928. An only child, she grew up in a well-to-do assimilated family, and her father was in the construction business. Helena remembers the prewar period in largely positive terms. She was unaware of the hatred bubbling beneath the surface; she had friends and liked school,
Eva Olsson grew up in Hungary, born into a Jewish family in Satu Mare, Hungary. She remembers the family’s Hasidic traditions, and the poverty and simplicity of her early life. Like other Hungarian Jews, Eva was comparatively isolated from the war raging all around them; they heard rumours and such, but as Hungary was allied
Mendel Good was born in March,1925 in Nowy-Sacz, Poland, which was a very religious and mostly Jewish city. He had a happy family and it was big and close. Mendel had two brothers and a little sister. After the Nazi invasion, Mendel stayed in camps from the age 14 to the age of 21. He
This week Crestwood was visited by Hedy Bohm and Leonard Vis, who spoke to Ms. Young and Mrs. Winograd’s respective grade 8 classes about their experiences during the Holocaust. The grade 8 classes have been studying the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and discussing the social and
Amek Adler was born April 20, 1928 in Lublin, Poland, and he grew up in Lodz. After Nazi occupation in 1939, his family escaped to Warsaw and then to Radom. In 1943, Amek was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and from there he survived the brutality of a series of work camps. The end of the war
Freda (Franka) Kon is from Lodz, Poland. Freda and her family had been a nice, normal life when the tragedy of the Holocaust descended upon them. They were put into the Lodz Ghetto, where they would stay for the next four year, condemned to slave labour and starvation. But as a young woman, in a
Miriam Frankel was born in Dunajska Streda, Czechoslovakia, in 1927, and raised in Italy. After expulsion from her childhood home in Italy, she was trapped in Hungarian-occupied Czechoslovakia for the next four years. Her father was taken to a forced labour camp; the family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Surviving two additional concentration
Magda Hilf was born in Maly Kevesd, Czechoslovakia, in 1921. Her early years consist of many fond memories, with family and friends and books, all in a rural setting. After 1938’s Munich Accord, the situation changed: when the Hungarians took over her region, the restrictions began. Her father lost his business, and he and so
Mark Lane was born in 1929 in eastern Czechoslovakia, in the village of Olenovo. In 1939, with the division of the country, the area was ceded to Hungary. The family began to struggle, dealing with the rising anti-Semitism and the restrictions that began to be imposed on their daily lives. In the spring of 1944,
Martin Baranek was born August 15, 1930 in Starachowice, Poland. His was a small family, just him, his mother, his father, and his younger brother. In his early years, he was often bullied at school for being a Jew: anti-Semitism was a fact of life in Poland. Martin was 9 when the war started; as
Nate Leipciger was born in 1928, in Chorzow, Poland. He survived the Sosnowiec Ghetto and the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Fünfteichen, GrossRosen, Flossenberg, Leonberg, and Dachau. Nate and his father were liberated in May 1945, and Nate immigrated to Canada in 1948. Nate came to speak at Crestwood in November 2013, when he was interviewed by
George Fox was born in Berdichev, Russia (later Poland) in 1917, where he lived with his family. The Nazis forced his family into the Brzeziny Ghetto, where they remained until its liquidation in 1942. George was sent to the Lodz Ghetto until 1944, and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was liberated by the US Army after
Lenka Weksberg was born in Tacovo, Czechoslovakia, in 1926. In 1944, the entire family was deported to the Mathesalka Ghetto in Hungary and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her mother and brother were murdered. Lenka survived a slave labour camp in Geislingen, and Alach, as well as a death march. Lenka was liberated by the US
John Freund came to us courtesy of the Azrieli Centre in January 2013. John is from Czechoslovakia, where he was living a “golden life” with family and friends. When the Germans invaded, that situation changed quickly. John survived the Terezin camp with his family. From there, John and his family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where
