Stories tagged "Concentration Camps": 30
Stories
A Case for Release
"They had applied for immigration, and they had quite a low quota number, but it seemed like people that had higher quota numbers were being called to immigrate, and they weren’t. And eventually my grandmother [father's mother] figured out that…
Journey's End
"I believe they [Carl, Selma, and Ilse Simon] only were there [at Westerbork] a night or two before they were sent to Poland, to Sobibor concentration camp. And on the 21st of May, they were asphyxiated. And my mother and her sisters did not find…
Arrested
"Well, as it turns out, the Nazis were eradicating Jews at that point in all their occupied countries, as well as in Germany. And in 1943--I believe it was May 18-- they [Selma, Karl, and Ilse Simon] were arrested, and they were sent to Westerbork,…
Saschenhausen
"There was a knock at the door, and the Gestapo had said they wanted to see my grandfather. I believe he was still in bed. Well, they followed my grandmother into their bedchambers, and he got dressed hastily. They said he had to come with them. And…
Dachau
"So my father rode back to his house. And when he got there, my grandmother told him that my grandfather had already come home once, and she told him to go back out because they Gestapo had been by looking for him, and they wanted to arrest him. So…
Seeing and Not Seeing
"[A friend of mine] could recall that the American track team, which blitzed with Jesse Owens for the '36 Olympics, had two Jewish dash men that they would not allow to participate because the Germans didn't want them and they…
Liberation of Buchenwald
"As we rode into Buchenwald, I can remember thinking: 'There is no place as horrible as we have been told — no atrocities — we should turn around, stop wasting time, go back to Eisenach and establish our Battalion Headquarters.' But we continued and…
Approaching Buchenwald
"When one explores the hall of memories, some moments cannot be forgotten or dimmed by the passage of time. I remember the day — clear and sunny — riding in a convoy into Eisenach, Germany, on April 11, 1945, as World War II was ending; and a…
Christmas Gift in Luxembourg
"I know in northern Luxembourg, just before going into Germany, we had gotten some Christmas packages after the bulls were stopped and turned around. And we got a chess set, and I learned how to play chess." Editor's Note:Witnessing the inmates in…
Aunt Yvonne's Liberation
"She knew that the Russians were coming. The Russians were the ones that liberated Auschwitz in January of 1945. And they knew they were coming because they heard on—from the underground inside the camp that the Russians were coming this way. …