Vincenta Bukowski was born in 1913 in Wrzesnia, Poland. She was raised Catholic, and her faith in God and Jesus Christ helped her survive through the traumatic and horrific years she spent in a concentration camp. The Germans occupied Wrzesnia in 1941 when Vincenta was 28...
Steen was born in Odense, Denmark to Magna and Axel Metz. He was not brought up in the Jewish faith as Odense did not have a Jewish community, temple, or school. Instead he participated in the Lutheran religion which was Denmark's official religion. For Steen, the war...
My parents and brother left Germany in October 1933 for Denmark after my father received an eighteen month permit to work for a subsidiary of his company. In 1935 they moved to Belgium and finally settled in Amsterdam, Netherlands (Holland) in 1936. I was born...
Leonard was born in Dresden, Germany in 1923. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a housewife and amateur pianist. He had one younger brother, Gert. Leonard spoke German at home and had a secular education until he was 15 when he was...
Josef was born in 1918 in Krakow, Poland. He was born and raised in a traditional Jewish home. His mother was a housewife and helped his dad run his gift shop business. He had two brothers and one sister. Josef’s father died in 1938, one...
[caption id="attachment_650" align="alignright" width="300"] Hella Wartski (second from left)[/caption] Date of Birth: 1929 Hella Wartski and her family were arrested by the Hungarian and German soldiers in April of 1944 in her hometown of Uzshorod, Hungary. They were then sent on a terrifying transport to Auschwitz. She...
Fani was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. She was the only child of David and Rachel Davidowitz. In 1943, Fani’s family was moved to the ghetto in Brno. She was there for 2 ½ months before her family’s deportation to Auschwitz. Fani’s grandfather told her when they...
Erna Rosner was born in 1935 into a conservative Jewish family in Krakow, Poland as Erna Zuckerman. In 1939 the Germans occupied Krakow. Almost immediately, the persecution of the Jews began. For the first time in her life, Erna felt fear. In 1941 the Germans...
Cesare was born in Napoli, Italy. His Jewish mother, Margit, was a Hungarian ballerina and his Roman Catholic father, Pasquale, was a famous orchestra director and music composer. They baptized Cesare and brought him up as a Catholic. In 1938, the Italian government issued anti-Semitic...
Before the war, Anneliese had a comfortable childhood in a small town in Czechoslovakia. In 1940, Anneliese and her family were relocated to a Jewish ghetto. In 1941, the Gestapo took Anneliese’s parents. She never saw them again. In 1942, the remaining Jews from her ghetto...