Survivors of the Holocaust

Many people have heroes, but some heroes go unnoticed. One of my favorite parts of history is during WWII. Those people who went through what they did, and yet still survived, to me that is really amazing! I have a lot of sympathy for those people who did, in fact, die because of Hitler and his supporters' actions. Some people may think that they know a lot about the Holocaust and the Jews, and I am sure that might be true, but just to inform those of you who are curious and want to know more, this Web page might help you.

The Jews were not the only group tortured and persecuted during the Holocaust. Although Jews might be the only ones that people think of, there were others that were spat on, had to go into hiding, and escape under dangerous circumstances. There were those such as the handicapped, homosexuals, and the unhealthy ~ no matter what race, color, or age. The Polish, gypsies, prisoners of war, Russians, Catholic priests, Slavs, and Jehovah's Witnesses were also groups that were tortured and persecuted. These are just some of the groups of people who were mistreated.

Gassing chamber disguised as showersJorge Láscar from Australia [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Why did people try and escape from the concentration camps? Neither Jewish people nor anyone else were allowed to practice their religion, say what they wanted, or do what they wished. When the Nazi party and the Gestapo, otherwise known as the Nazi secret police, believed that the Jews or anyone in the concentration camps was doing something wrong or in hiding, they would put them in the gas chambers and ovens. The prisoners would sometimes be shot into open graves. The Nazis also would use some of the unhealthy persons for medical experiments to test different methods of surgery and also to test different types of medication for the "perfect race." The "perfect race," according to Hitler, was a race called the Aryan race. Hitler's definition of the Aryan race was a person whose background was anything except Russian, Jewish, Slovakian or another race Hitler didn't approve of or think highly of.

When the people arrived at the concentration camps, they had all of their possessions seized. Heads were shaved. Shoes, teeth, and eyeglasses were all taken and put into piles. The hair from the prisoners' shaved heads was used to muffle the sound of the gunshots.

After the people arrived at the concentration camps, everyone was separated into two main groups. One group contained women and children and the other consisted of men. After that, they were separated by health and age. The old, unhealthy, and handicapped were killed immediately. The young and healthy were kept alive to help. Help meant working long and hard hours, acting as slaves, and, last but not least, hardly getting any food.

A few of the thousands of wedding rings the Germans removed from Holocaust Victims to salvage the gold.Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. T4c. Roberts [Public domain]

Very few of the people who went into the concentration camps or hiding tried to escape. Out of those who did try to escape, most were caught, but those who were not caught have shared their stories for a long time. Some of these stories I would like to share with you. These stories can get fairly suspenseful and one reason why I think that they are so suspenseful is because of the known consequences. One of the following stories didn't have such a happy ending. On September 15, 1944, a Polish-Jewish couple were caught and executed in front of other prisoners who were forced to watch. Another story is that of Jeannine Burk who was forced into hiding at a very young age. The following story of her in hiding is her exact words.

"Belgium was supposed to be neutral during the war, but Adolph Hitler ignored that and invaded Belgium. There was a movement where you could inquire about hiding Jews...hiding children, and my father did that. He had a place for my brother to go; he had a place for my sister to go, and he found this place for me, and he took me on the streetcar to a woman's house, and the reason that I keep saying "this woman" is I don't know her name.

The only people that knew her name were my parents. I was a little girl then. They took me to the house--my father actually--he brought me into the house, and that was the last time I ever saw my father.

I was hidden for two years. I never went outside. I was not allowed to go outside because I didn't belong to the family, and the woman who hid me sacrificed a lot to take me. Because had the Nazis discovered she was hiding a Jew, whether it was a little girl or an adult it didn't matter, they would have killed her on the spot. Of course, as well as me. I was allowed sometimes to go out in the backyard, but for the most part that was my home for two years.

I was never mistreated--ever! But I also was never loved, and I really lost a great part of my childhood--simply because we were Jews."