In researching testimony I chose to write about Eva Kor’s. Eva and her sister Miriam were taken to Auschwitz II- Birkenau from a Ceheiu which was a Romania ghetto in the 1940’s. Eva’s story starts out in Port, Romania where she was born and raised with her family before the holocaust. Eva had two older sisters Aliz and Edit who were murdered during the Holocaust along with her parents. The last time Eva saw her father and sisters were when they arrived in Auschwitz. Eva and Miriam were with there mother until a man asked if they were twins. There mother said yes after asking if that was a good thing and then they were taken away never to see her again. Once taken away they were brought to a barrack for twins were they were kept until liberated.
In school Eva encountered a hard time because she was Jewish and the other children knew they could get away with blaming things on her. An example of this is when a group of boys put bird eggs on the teachers chair so she would sit on them. This joke caused the teacher to become upset and ask who had put the eggs on the seat. The children replied that it was the dirty jews referring to Eva and Miriam. The teacher then punished them without investigating what had really happened. Also within the classroom there were examples like if you kill two jews out of five how many do you have left.These events in the school shows how antisemitism was present in young children and lessons. As talked about in class many schools had lessons that were directed to teaching children how awful the Jewish people were compared to
One of the new laws was that Jews could not hire anyone that was not Jewish. This was difficult for Eva’s family because they ran a farm that had employed people that were not of Jewish nationality. Thus, Eva’s father Alexander had to let them go which lead to him trying to work most of the farm himself with the help of the children. This situation was present in more cases than just Eva’s. In class this was discussed upon after watching Schindler’s list when he was stating that Jews were the cheapest and he could hire them because he was German. The reason for this law was because as discussed in class Jews were seen as less than and were dehumanized through German laws. The Germans also incorporated laws requiring Jew’s to have special papers to travel. This was to keep them from leaving the area and fleeing to other countries. In Eva’s situation it kept her from seeing her grandparents because she could not travel to visit them. This was difficult for her mother because she could not see her mom and dad due to the laws. While in class we discussed the special papers needed to travel and how difficult they were to obtain. This example expands upon that because it shows that the Germans would not even allow someone to just leave to visit family and them come back in a few
Furthermore, in 1940 when the Germans and Hungarians took over Romania, Anna’s life began to change. The Seelfreund family was now subjected to the Hungarian government. In the first year once respected Jews were now treated with humiliation. In 1942, all the young men, including Anna’s father were sent to Hungarian Labor Service. Only the old people, the women and children were left. According to Anna after receiving only one letter from her father, he was never heard of again.
Alicia was reunited with her mother and they returned to this community, where they lived for about a year. She also found out that her youngest brother Herzl had been taken away and killed. Alicia would work at these fields and get food, she would bring some back to her mother who, because of poor health, was resting in seclusion most of the day.. One day they met a nice old man that was sort of an outcast from the rest of the community. He let them stay with him and another Jewish family that he was taking care of in his shack.
The majority of the Jews were working in shops all over. Many of the Jews were persecuted. They weren’t allowed to do certain jobs. One instance in the book a mother wrote about her son, who desperately wanted to be a chemist. The mother was outraged, because many people were saying that they wouldn’t hire a Jewish chemist.
rules were set by the Germans. Jews were confined to their homes for three days
With the amount of anti-Semitic activity in Germany, no Jew was safe and Helen realized this quickly. In order to protect her child he had to give her to family to keep her safe. “There we said goodbye as casually as possible and gave these strangers our child.” After this moment, Helen’s fight for survival to see her child once again. Finding a place to hide became very difficult as no one wanted to host a Jewish family due to the fear of the Nazis finding out. “People were understandably nervous and frightened, so the only solution was to find another hiding place.”
Elli Friedmann has returned 50 years later for a ceremony to the spot where she was once liberated by the American army. Living during the Holocaust, she has chosen to give us her story.
Adolf Hitler was a German. He got arrested for doing ilegal things within the government of Germany. After Hitler was free from prison he went back to work in the government of Germany. Hitler slowly made his way through the German government. While worked his way to the top he created laws and changed things to make everything he was going to do legal. Once Hitler made it to the top he started to kill Jews and other undesirables. Hitler wanted all the Jews and all the other undesirables gone he wanted to make them suffer. He had made the plan of the Holocaust to get rid of the undesirables.
Through selection at the extermination camps, the Nazis forced children to be separated from their relatives which destroyed the basic unit of society, the family. Because children were taken to different barracks or camps, they had to fend for themselves. In the book A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, the author describes the relief he felt when reunited with his mother after the War.
At first, the Jews were not able to leave their house “for three days under, penalty of death” (Wiesel 10). After, the Jews were not able to “own gold, Jewelry, or any valuables” (Wiesel 10). A few days late, all Jews were forced to wear a yellow star. Because of that, the people were able to recognize who was a Jew or not one. After implementation of the yellow star, a new edict removed them the right to “frequent restaurants or cafes to travel by rail, to attend synagogue” (Wiesel 11). Slowly the Jew lost their right as a human being. Later on, all Jews were force to live in two ghettos that was created in Sighet (Wiesel 11). A few week after the creation of the ghettos, Elizer and his fellow Jews were forced to abandon their house and forced into extremely crowded wagons. Within a few months, the Jews slowly lost their rights, belongings and even their
Ofer, Dalia, and Lenore J. Weitzman. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. 1. Print.
When her rounded the first group of Jewish people he told then it was a “protective custody”. He held about 27,000 people in the concentration camps. Another message was sent to the country by burning all the Jewish books. If you were a Jewish doctor or lawyer in this time your clients were taken from you. German synagogues were burned as well as the Jewish store.But the Jewish people could not flee the country but yet had to stay and live in fear that they might be next.
The Nazis put the Jews on a small, crowded ship, as they ran away from the Russians and Americans. As they were on the ship, the Jews overheard that the Nazis would throw them overboard. Since there was a ladder on the ship, the Jews started to climb off of it, so they could escape. Olga was ahead of Irene, and as Irene was about to climb down, the SS took the ladder away. Irene fell into the water because everyone was trying to flee off the boat.
In addition to the harsh feelings shown toward the Jews by the non-Jewish community, this film shows the cold relationship between the different groups of Jews.
They all had to live in the Warsaw ghetto (“Children’s Diaries”). Halina, another child survivor, tells us what happened to her while in hiding. Halina and her family went into hiding with a friend of her mother in a basement (“Peabody”).... ... middle of paper ...
Many racial and ethnic groups are treated cruel, which contributes to the problem of discrimination. The inhumane treatment inflicted onto different racial and ethnic groups is provoking horrific violence around the world. The film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, gives us an insight to the cruel treatment endured by Jewish people in World War II. Jewish people were taken from their homes, separated from their families, and placed in concentration camps where they were expected to die. They were exposed to extreme levels of abuse, such as starvation, physical beatings, and emotional torture. The fear and terrorizing the soldiers used on the Jews is shown in the scene when Lieutenant Kotler catches Shmuel eating a cookie: “Are you eating? Have you been stealing food?