Brief Excerpts - In the Words of Survivors
"When I spoke of the horrors that had taken place no one believed me. So, I found refuge in silence, I never mentioned it. But every night in my dreams, I went back to Auschwitz."
Gabriel Benichou photo full text
"We had to be counted in the courtyard every morning no matter how we felt, no matter what the weather, rain or cold or snow or wind. Sometimes the count lasted for hours until they got it right. But it could never be right because some of us had already died."
Leah Laskowski photo full text
"Our struggle to survive was not just from day to day, but from hour to hour, minute to minute."
"I am often asked, sometimes with barely disguised suspicion, ‘If you and your Jewish mother lived in Germany during the Nazi time, how come you survived?’ We survived because at critical moments there always appeared in our lives people who were willing to take great personal risks on our behalf."
Marianne Gerhart photo full text
"I smile but I do not laugh. My son was raised in a home where laughing was a crime. There are days when I wonder what I am doing here."
"I don’t know what kept me going. The past was gone. There was no future. I wanted to live so badly and be able to go back and tell my story."
William Lowenberg photo full text
"Our doorbell rang, and there stood my best friend’s brother in full Nazi uniform. The Boy Scout troop in which he had been active was a disguised Nazi den. It was the first of many disappointments in people I had thought I knew."
"In my portrait I am wearing the jacket I wore in Auschwitz. It was my shield. I put a cement bag under the coat so the water would not seep through. When we were liberated, I kept the coat."
"Most of my relatives and friends perished in death camps. I survived but lost my previous capacity for love and happiness."
"In reality, I was born twice. The first time was November 25, 1918, in Lyda Lithuania... On May 11, 1945, I was born for the second time."
"On April 1, 1940, at age fourteen, I ended up all alone in a ghetto that was closed off and totally isolated from the exterior world."
"I waited and waited but no one came back. I never had any news. I don’t know how my father, my grandfather, my aunts, cousins, uncles died, in what conditions they died, where they died or when they died. I never found out."
Marcel Jabelot photo full text
"I remain an eyewitness to a tragic era. Things are always veiled in a shadow that never left me. It is unforgettable, haunting… I am and remain uprooted, bruised."
