Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp in which she was briefly imprisoned during World War II, Halina Silber said she thought all hope was lost and miracles were an impossibility. But the decision of one man, the Nazi industrialist Oskar Schindler, who came to put Silber's name on his now-famous list and protect her and 1,200 other Jews at his factories during the Holocaust, changed the course of her life.
"Schindler, with his kindness, gave us help ... and most important, he gave us our dignity," she said. "For us, he was an angel sent by God to save us."
Born and raised in Krakow, Poland, Silber said in 1939, when she was 10, the Germans invaded Poland and, shortly thereafter, the education of Jewish children was stopped. She said she remembers vividly the fear and anxiety of her parents at the situation. In 1940, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Her parents decided to move from the city to a village nearby, called Slomniki, where Jewish people could live for a brief time. In 1942, the Germans began to liquidate the Jews in similar Polish villages, and word came that they planned to resettle the Slomniki residents, she said.
Her mother packed her suitcase and told her what to do next. She said she was to take off the Star of David patch, a symbol denoting the fact she was Jewish, from her arm, a removal which was an offense punishable by death. Her mother said to hitchhike back to Krakow and volunteer in the labor camp where her brothers and sisters were already working, and to say she was three years older than she was.
Hilber said she remembered stepping into a truck on the road to Krakow and looking back at her mother waving at her.
"Little did I know this was going to be our last goodbye," she said. The next day, Germans surrounded the village and all the Jews there were deported. Her parents and two siblings were murdered by the Nazis at the Belzec extermination camp.
When she arrived at the labor camp, she said, she was asked for her identification. She couldn't provide it and was jailed for a few days. She said she was still thinking of a way to get back to her parents when the Gestapo told her she would be accepted at the camp. Shortly thereafter, a German officer informed her she'd been chosen to work at Schindler's enamelware factory in Krakow.
Silber said at first that she had to carry pots and pans to be baked. The weight and heat associated with her job made her fearful for her survival in the factory. One day, Schindler approached her and, to her surprise, asked if she'd like instead to clean the offices of the factory.
"I was very touched by his kindness and thought I was lucky," she said. But as she came to learn more about him, she realized she was no exception.
Another worker was at her post when a machine stopped working, Silber said. After her manager said she'd have to explain what happened to Schindler, she began to cry in anticipation of severe punishment. But Schindler just told her not to worry, that they'd get the machine fixed, Silber said.
Another time, a Polish and Jewish worker got into an argument over a business deal, Silber said. The Polish man threatened the Jewish man he'd turn him over to the Germans, a virtual death warrant for the Jewish man, she said. When Schindler found out, he told the Polish man he didn't care what happened in the business deal, but that the man would regret it for the rest of his life if he turned the Jewish man in. The Polish man then apologized and said he wouldn't turn him in.
When the polish factory was closed, Silber said she and others were taken to Auschwitz. The first day, she and others were told to go to the showers. People there told her it could mean they were about to be murdered.
Instead, she and the other prisoners had their hair shaved and their clothes and possessions stripped from them.
Schindler intervened a few weeks later and had a list of people, the eponymous list that is the title of Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie, to retrieve from the concentration camp to take to his new ammunitions parts factory in the Czech Republic.
Schindler told his workers, most of whom had no experience making the parts to be produced at the factory, they'd be safe at the new factory, she said. He gave them extra rations purchased with his own money and yarn for extra clothing.
After the war ended, the factory closed and Schindler's life was in danger, so his former workers helped him escape, she said.
People may question just how or why Schindler decided to defy Adolf Hitler's orders and risk his career and his very life to save them, Silber said. The best answer was that he simply could not endure injustice.
Overwhelmed
Bert Gold, who attended the memorial service, said Silber's talk left him feeling overwhelmed.
He said both of his Hebrew school teachers growing up were Holocaust survivors and their stories of those events left him with sad memories, not the kind of uplifting story Silber had to tell.
Warren Better, a Beth Sholom member, said he found Silber and her story remarkable.
Better had lost family in the Holocaust, and Silber's talk had him in tears.
Dr. David Summers attended the event with his wife, Lorna, and their daughter, Noah.
Noah Summers said she is among the last generations to be able to hear the stories firsthand from Holocaust survivors, though it's up to her generation to pass them on so that people will never forget what happened.
David Summers said standing up and doing the right thing is as important as ever, particularly in a world where cultural relativists sometimes seem to believe that because everything is OK, nothing is wrong.
Though he and his family are Christians, Summers said a group such as the Nazis would have to come through him and his family first before they would let something like the Holocaust happen again.
"Schindler, with his kindness, gave us help ... and most important, he gave us our dignity," she said. "For us, he was an angel sent by God to save us."
Born and raised in Krakow, Poland, Silber said in 1939, when she was 10, the Germans invaded Poland and, shortly thereafter, the education of Jewish children was stopped. She said she remembers vividly the fear and anxiety of her parents at the situation. In 1940, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Her parents decided to move from the city to a village nearby, called Slomniki, where Jewish people could live for a brief time. In 1942, the Germans began to liquidate the Jews in similar Polish villages, and word came that they planned to resettle the Slomniki residents, she said.
Her mother packed her suitcase and told her what to do next. She said she was to take off the Star of David patch, a symbol denoting the fact she was Jewish, from her arm, a removal which was an offense punishable by death. Her mother said to hitchhike back to Krakow and volunteer in the labor camp where her brothers and sisters were already working, and to say she was three years older than she was.
Hilber said she remembered stepping into a truck on the road to Krakow and looking back at her mother waving at her.
"Little did I know this was going to be our last goodbye," she said. The next day, Germans surrounded the village and all the Jews there were deported. Her parents and two siblings were murdered by the Nazis at the Belzec extermination camp.
When she arrived at the labor camp, she said, she was asked for her identification. She couldn't provide it and was jailed for a few days. She said she was still thinking of a way to get back to her parents when the Gestapo told her she would be accepted at the camp. Shortly thereafter, a German officer informed her she'd been chosen to work at Schindler's enamelware factory in Krakow.
Silber said at first that she had to carry pots and pans to be baked. The weight and heat associated with her job made her fearful for her survival in the factory. One day, Schindler approached her and, to her surprise, asked if she'd like instead to clean the offices of the factory.
"I was very touched by his kindness and thought I was lucky," she said. But as she came to learn more about him, she realized she was no exception.
Another worker was at her post when a machine stopped working, Silber said. After her manager said she'd have to explain what happened to Schindler, she began to cry in anticipation of severe punishment. But Schindler just told her not to worry, that they'd get the machine fixed, Silber said.
Another time, a Polish and Jewish worker got into an argument over a business deal, Silber said. The Polish man threatened the Jewish man he'd turn him over to the Germans, a virtual death warrant for the Jewish man, she said. When Schindler found out, he told the Polish man he didn't care what happened in the business deal, but that the man would regret it for the rest of his life if he turned the Jewish man in. The Polish man then apologized and said he wouldn't turn him in.
When the polish factory was closed, Silber said she and others were taken to Auschwitz. The first day, she and others were told to go to the showers. People there told her it could mean they were about to be murdered.
Instead, she and the other prisoners had their hair shaved and their clothes and possessions stripped from them.
Schindler intervened a few weeks later and had a list of people, the eponymous list that is the title of Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie, to retrieve from the concentration camp to take to his new ammunitions parts factory in the Czech Republic.
Schindler told his workers, most of whom had no experience making the parts to be produced at the factory, they'd be safe at the new factory, she said. He gave them extra rations purchased with his own money and yarn for extra clothing.
After the war ended, the factory closed and Schindler's life was in danger, so his former workers helped him escape, she said.
People may question just how or why Schindler decided to defy Adolf Hitler's orders and risk his career and his very life to save them, Silber said. The best answer was that he simply could not endure injustice.
Overwhelmed
Bert Gold, who attended the memorial service, said Silber's talk left him feeling overwhelmed.
He said both of his Hebrew school teachers growing up were Holocaust survivors and their stories of those events left him with sad memories, not the kind of uplifting story Silber had to tell.
Warren Better, a Beth Sholom member, said he found Silber and her story remarkable.
Better had lost family in the Holocaust, and Silber's talk had him in tears.
Dr. David Summers attended the event with his wife, Lorna, and their daughter, Noah.
Noah Summers said she is among the last generations to be able to hear the stories firsthand from Holocaust survivors, though it's up to her generation to pass them on so that people will never forget what happened.
David Summers said standing up and doing the right thing is as important as ever, particularly in a world where cultural relativists sometimes seem to believe that because everything is OK, nothing is wrong.
Though he and his family are Christians, Summers said a group such as the Nazis would have to come through him and his family first before they would let something like the Holocaust happen again.
Mary Cogan Story
Mary Cogan was four when the drama of World War afflicted her family and all the residents of hotin, a village then in the Romanian region of Bessarabia. It was late 1939. The Nazis forced everyone to leave their homes. Jews, Gypsies, were grouped. They would go to a concentration camp . " We lined up to form a convoy. Currently when someone asks me to tell my story to the ground head towards death. We all knew that this was the end, we knew we were going to the slaughter, "recounts Mary. Indeed. As the weeks, children, elderly and disabled, became weak from lack of food, began to fall like dominoes fragile . Her grandfather was one of the first. Despite his attempt to stand up, one of the soldiers took him out of the group and shot in cold blood in the head and chest, despite the clamor of the people. "That was the first contact I had with death," Mary says with distressed voice.
TRYING TO SURVIVE
After several months of walking and having been a short time in two concentration camps, finally settled in the Mogilev, now Belarus. That air of gloomy gallows ground, would become her new home. There were so many inmates that Mary could barely sit . People did their needs where she slept . "The conditions were inhumane, very terrible. It was a matter of waiting for the death or survival of miracle. "
In the concentration camp people fed with potato skins stealing the trash cans of the Nazis. " Such was the hunger that we had that was a treat for us to eat them," she recalls. Dirt came to an end point . Scabies began carcomerles legs and arms. Lice began to go their bodies. Mary 's grandmother could take no more. One morning she was found dead. They spent eight days until her body was removed. "I had formed a group of bodies that could lead to just the masses of graves ," she says .
ESCAPE FROM DEATH
These events impacted terribly Mary, but the real horror came in late 1944, when close to their camp installed a Nazi gas chamber. Death stalked closer than ever. She was sweating cold, the time had come. "Death came , death came ! ' Shouted my mom. ' Try to escape and God ' , never tired of repeating. And so it was . One night she said, ' it's time ' ." I was so scared , but we did. We crawled. Barbed wire fences tore us back and we bled the chest by contact with stones." We crawled without talking, trying not to breathe , without looking back. With the firm look to the horizon. I do not know if you have advanced hundreds or thousands of meters, I know it was only until dawn, in search of the desired for freedom.
In October 1944, Mary and her mother escaped from that camp. After dodging fences and land mines came to a small town where they infiltrated a freight train that led to Chernobyl. There a Jewish association and the International Red Cross recognized thanks to her father who was looking from Peru . Peruvian soil trod on December 22, 1948. Mary they started a new life. He studied dentistry, married and since then it bears the name of her husband Philip Schneider. She has two children and two grandchildren. One of a group of people called charities. Her mother, who thanked her to stay alive, died in January 1995 .
"I love this land with all my heart and am eternally grateful to this, because Peru gave me freedom. Below this floor are my parents and probably soon also rest my husband Philip and I, " culminates .
TRYING TO SURVIVE
After several months of walking and having been a short time in two concentration camps, finally settled in the Mogilev, now Belarus. That air of gloomy gallows ground, would become her new home. There were so many inmates that Mary could barely sit . People did their needs where she slept . "The conditions were inhumane, very terrible. It was a matter of waiting for the death or survival of miracle. "
In the concentration camp people fed with potato skins stealing the trash cans of the Nazis. " Such was the hunger that we had that was a treat for us to eat them," she recalls. Dirt came to an end point . Scabies began carcomerles legs and arms. Lice began to go their bodies. Mary 's grandmother could take no more. One morning she was found dead. They spent eight days until her body was removed. "I had formed a group of bodies that could lead to just the masses of graves ," she says .
ESCAPE FROM DEATH
These events impacted terribly Mary, but the real horror came in late 1944, when close to their camp installed a Nazi gas chamber. Death stalked closer than ever. She was sweating cold, the time had come. "Death came , death came ! ' Shouted my mom. ' Try to escape and God ' , never tired of repeating. And so it was . One night she said, ' it's time ' ." I was so scared , but we did. We crawled. Barbed wire fences tore us back and we bled the chest by contact with stones." We crawled without talking, trying not to breathe , without looking back. With the firm look to the horizon. I do not know if you have advanced hundreds or thousands of meters, I know it was only until dawn, in search of the desired for freedom.
In October 1944, Mary and her mother escaped from that camp. After dodging fences and land mines came to a small town where they infiltrated a freight train that led to Chernobyl. There a Jewish association and the International Red Cross recognized thanks to her father who was looking from Peru . Peruvian soil trod on December 22, 1948. Mary they started a new life. He studied dentistry, married and since then it bears the name of her husband Philip Schneider. She has two children and two grandchildren. One of a group of people called charities. Her mother, who thanked her to stay alive, died in January 1995 .
"I love this land with all my heart and am eternally grateful to this, because Peru gave me freedom. Below this floor are my parents and probably soon also rest my husband Philip and I, " culminates .