Jewish Survivor: Helena Jonas Rosenzweig Testimony

You are watching Jonas Rosenzweig, a Jewish Survivor, Aid Giver, from the Holocaust.

Holocaust Survivor: Ester Fiszgop Testimony

Holocaust Survivor: Margaret Lambert Testimony

Lest We Ever Forget! Holocaust Survivor Helen Colin | Full Testimony

This is a full-length testimony preserved in the Visual History Archive. Copyright USC Shoah Foundation.

Holocaust Survivor Rae Kushner

Jewish survivor Rae Kushner describes when the Soviet Union occupied Poland after World War II, Kushner, along with the few family members that survived the Holocaust, left Poland to look for refuge in any country that would open its doors. Finally, reaching Italy Kushner waited over three years in a displaced persons camp before immigrating to the United States.

Rae Kushner's testimony to the Holocaust is preserved in the Visual History Archive.

Remembering Holocaust Survivors

The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies humans have forced upon their fellow man. We are resolved to never forget the horrors, but we also remember and celebrate the lives and accomplishments of those who survived.

We salute those like Elie Wiesel, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as an author, lecturer and educator, as well as Simon Wiesenthal, who dedicated his life to pursuing perpetrators who escaped justice./>

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day we remember those who died as well as those who survived and made our world richer with their stories, knowledge and talent.

Why Are Holocaust Survivors Poor?

Research shows that 1/3 of the 100,000 holocaust survivors that live in the United States, live in poverty. 50,000 of those survivors live in the New York Metropolitan are, and 52% of them are poor and their average income is $18,000. Hanan Simhon, vice president of Holocaust Survivor Services at Self-help, stated, “It’s a shocking statistic… They tend to be very isolated, losing their families during the war and then either did not or could not have children. Many started working in menial jobs because they did not have the language kills. Today they are in their 80s and 90s and it is beyond difficult to make ends meet.”

Holocaust Survivors Fighting Poverty

An estimated one-third of Holocaust survivors in the United States live at or below the poverty line, according to The Blue Card, a non-profit organization.

Holocaust Documentary - History & Story of Holocaust Survivors

The Holocaust, was a genocide in which approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi régime and its collaborators. Some historians use a definition of the Holocaust that includes the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to approximately eleven million. Killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories.

Susan Pollack: I Can’t Forgive

British Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack lost 50 members of her family, including her parents, in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. She recently gave evidence at the trial in Germany of a former SS guard Oskar Groning, who is charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews at Auschwitz.

He has admitted moral guilt but denies the criminal charges against him.

HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi spoke to Susan Pollack about her experiences in Auschwitz and Belsen before her liberation by British troops. She says she cannot forgive those who contributed to the Holocaust and believes we must continue to ask how and why such a crime could be committed.

Release date: 19 Jun 2015

Thousands of Holocaust Survivors Are Living in Poverty, Says US Adviser

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: There are more than half a million Holocaust survivors worldwide and some need urgent help to live a dignified life, says an adviser to the US secretary of state

A substantial number of the 500,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide are suffering from poverty and need urgent help to live a dignified life in their last years, an adviser to the US secretary of state said on Wednesday.

"It's really unacceptable that those people who in their youth suffered so grievously should have to live out their declining years in deprivation, isolation and poverty," Stuart Eizenstat, special adviser on Holocaust issues to John Kerry told AFP.

"In New York City alone, of the 60,000 survivors, 50 per cent are in that state. In Israel about a third are, and in the former Soviet Union countries upwards of 85-90 per cent are in poverty," he said on the sidelines of a conference in Prague.

"All the surveys indicate that substantial percentages of those (survivors) are living in poverty or near poverty," Mr Eizenstat added. » | AFP | Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Jewish Survivor Zelda-Rivka Hait Testimony

Holocaust Survivor Ellen Brandt Testimony

France to Pay $60m over Nazi Rail Deportations

Jews, many of them Polish, getting off the train in Pithiviers,
central France in 1941

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The French government will pay the money to Holocaust survivors in America who were transported using its trains 70 years ago

France has agreed to pay $60 million in compensation to hundreds of American survivors of the Holocaust who were deported to Nazi death camps using the country's trains.

The money will also be available to thousands of descendants of those who were transported on freight cars belonging to the French state rail company SNCF.

It follows a long legal battle after the US state of Maryland barred SNCF from bidding for contracts on a $3 billion transport project there.

There are around 250 survivors in the US who will be eligible for the reparations. They could receive up to $100,000 each, and spouses or heirs of survivors who have since died could get several tens of thousands of dollars. » | Nick Allen, and agencies | Friday, December 05, 2014

A True Inspiration! Alice Herz-Sommer: Pianist and Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Dies Aged 110

Alice Herz-Sommer, who has died at the age of 110. She spent
two years in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

THE GUARDIAN: Concert pianist said that optimism and discipline helped her survive two years in concentration camp

Tributes have been paid to Alice Herz-Sommer, a renowned concert pianist who was believed to have been the world's oldest known Holocaust survivor, after she died in London at the age of 110.

She was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague at a time when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and endured the city's ghetto following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. She then spent two years in Theresienstadt (Terezín) concentration camp, where nearly 35,000 prisoners perished.

In an extraordinary life, which was the subject of film nominated for the best short documentary at next Sunday night's Academy Awards, she counted Franz Kafka as a family friend when she was young and carried a devotion to music that sustained her in the camp.

She died in a hospital on Sunday morning after being admitted on Friday, according to her family. Her grandson, Ariel Sommer, said: "Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside.

"Much has been written about her, but to those of us who knew her best, she was our dear 'Gigi'. She loved us, laughed with us, and cherished music with us.

"She was an inspiration and our world will be significantly poorer without her by our side. We mourn her loss and ask for privacy in this very difficult moment." » | Ben Quinn | Sunday, February 23, 2014


THE GUARDIAN: 'Life is beautiful': A renowned concert pianist and a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Alice Herz-Sommer has packed a lot into her 103 years. And despite the tragedy of losing most of her family in the Holocaust, she remains resolutely optimistic, she tells Alan Rusbridger » | Alan Rusbridger | Wednesday, December 13, 2006

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Holocaust survivor dies aged 110: Alice Herz-Sommer, who lived in London and was originally from Prague, was confined in a concentration camp in Germany during the Second World War » | News agencies | Monday, February 24, 2014

DIE WELT: Älteste Holocaust-Überlebende mit 110 gestorben: Während des NS-Regimes wurde Alice Herz-Sommer in Theresienstadt interniert, wo sie für das ganze Lager Klavierkonzerte organisierte. Ihr Talent rettete ihr das Leben. Nun ist die Pianistin gestorben. » | AFP/dpa/KNA/cbo | Montag, 24. Februar 2014

LE FIGARO: La plus vieille survivante de la Shoah est morte » | Par Lefigaro.fr avec l’AFP | lundi 24 février 2014

YNET NEWS: Oldest known Holocaust survivor passes away: Surviving through music and optimism: Alice Herz-Sommer, a pianist forced to play concerts for Nazis and subject of an Oscar nominated short subject documentary, dies at the age 110.‬‬ » | Michal Margalit | Sunday, February 23, 2014

A few precious moments with Alice… More wonderfulness with Alice Herz-Sommer. We had such an overwhelming response to our 1-min video of Alice, the 109-year old Holocaust survivor, who shared her optimistic philosophy of life, that we looked for more footage to share about this wonderful, amazing, wise, strong women.

Here's an interview with Anthony Robbins from a year or so ago -- and it's a little treasure: we can hear Alice talk about her ideas, and philosophy of life; there are archival photos of the Holocaust years, and Alice as a younger woman. We can also see Alice playing piano.

Alice survived the concentration camps through her music, her optimism and her gratitude for the small things that came her way - a smile, a kind word, the sun. When asked about the secret of her longevity, Alice says: "I look where it is good."

This film is life-affirming in its deepest meaning.

Life is short. It's a gift. Remember what's of value.

To cherish life, to be loved. And mostly: To have love in your heart.

Join our community where Everyone Matters! here


Alice Herz-Sommer – The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life – Official Trailer
The Lady in Number 6 is one of the most inspirational stories ever told. 109 year old, Alice Herz-Sommer, the world's oldest pianist and oldest holocaust survivor, shares her views on how to live a long happy life. She discusses the vital importance of music, laughter and having an optimistic outlook on life. This powerfully inspirational video tells her amazing story of survival and how she managed to use her time in a Nazi concentration camp to empower herself and others with music.


NickReedent.com »

Holocaust Survivor Miriam Reitzenstein’s Testimony

This testimony from Jewish Survivor Miriam Reitzenstein is from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. She is a member of The "1939" Club.

Holocaust Survivor And Her Amazing Story

Etta Katz is my step-grandma. She is a holocaust survivor. She persevered from two notorious concentration camps: Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. This feature covers her life pre, during and post-war. There's an entire generation of survivors that will be extinct in the next decade or so. Before we know it, video interviews will be the only medium to watch, listen, learn and share this tragic, but inspiring story.

Please Meet is a short video documentary series. The concept of this series is to interview unique individuals that inspire thought, creativity, action, etc. The influencers who are interviewed range from celebrities to a guy selling Streetwise in the freezing cold in Chicago. Everyone has a story, a dream and I want to share their stories with you through my lens.

Helga Weiss: An Interview with a Holocaust Survivor
Helga Weiss was transported to Terezín concentration camp at the age of 12. She tells Nicholas Shakespeare how she came to write – and draw – the most moving child’s-eye testimony since the diary of Anne Frank.

Read the article here

World's Oldest Survivor of Auschwitz Death Camp Dies at the Age of 108
FOX NEWS: WARSAW, Poland – The oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp — a teacher who gave lessons in defiance of his native Poland's Nazi occupiers — has died at the age of 108, an official said Monday.

Antoni Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern Polish town of Debno, according to Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum.

After invading Poland in 1939, sparking World War II, the Germans banned anything beyond four years of elementary education in a bid to crush Polish culture and the country's intelligentsia. The Germans considered the Poles inferior beings, and the education policy was part of a plan to use Poles as a "slave race."

An underground effort by Poles to continue to teach children immediately emerged, with those caught punished by being sent to concentration camps or prisons. Dobrowolski was among the Poles engaged in the underground effort, and he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz in June 1942. » | Associate Press | Monday, October 22, 2012

Auschwitz Survivor: 'What I Told the England Squad'
BBC: England players have been visiting the Nazi death camp Auschwitz in Poland ahead of Euro 2012.

They met Zigi Shipper, who was interned in a ghetto from the age of 10, then taken to Auschwitz when the Russians drew near.

When he arrived in Auschwitz he saw guards trying to rip babies out of mothers' arms, shooting them if they resisted.

Disabled people, women, children and babies were sent to the gas chambers.

His friends saw their parents, brothers and sisters being taken away to be killed. (+ video) » | Friday, June 08, 2012