Vittorio Foa introduce una importante riflessione sulla specificità della Shoah. Il genocidio perpetrato dai nazisti è stato un prodotto della modernità, non un barbaro retaggio del passato. I progressi della scienza sono stati utilizzati non per migliorare la vita dell’uomo ma per produrre la morte.

Miriam Lichterman talks about the celebration of the Jewish Holiday, Simhat Torah, at her synagogue and at her home in prewar Warsaw, Poland. She remembers the cooking and especially the baked goods prepared by her mother for Simhat Torah following the observance of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Régine Jacubert est née le 24 janvier 1920 à Zagorow (Pologne). La famille part pour la France en 1930 et s’installe à Nancy. Réfugiée à Bordeaux avec les siens en 1940, elle rentre seule à Nancy où elle travaille. Le reste de sa famille est arrêté et interné. A Nancy, elle échappe à la grande rafle du 19 juillet 1942 et passe clandestinement en zone Sud. A Lyon, où elle a trouvé un travail, elle entre dans le mouvement de résistance Combat, en janvier 1943. Arrêtée en juin 1944, elle est interrogée à la Gestapo, notamment par Klaus Barbie.

Adolphe Kornman est né le 18 octobre 1927 à Paris. Il grandit dans le Marais. Il assiste à la rafle du Vélodrome d’Hiver en juillet 1942 et, en octobre, la famille trouve un passeur qui l’achemine en zone non occupée. Un temps réfugié avec son père en zone italienne, à Nice, il finit par quitter la ville quand celle-ci est envahie par les Allemands en septembre 1943. Grâce au réseau de la Sixième, Adolphe Kornman franchit la frontière suisse en mai 1944. Il y demeure quelques mois, dans différents camps, avant de rentrer en France, après la libération du territoire.

Kurt Messerschmidt remembers reciting a challenging piece of Latin in the classroom making his Hebrew teacher and Non-Jewish teachers very proud and surprised.

Eva Hayman remembers when her family found out about the Kindertransport orchestrated by Sir Nicholas Winton. Eva and her sister were a part of the 669 children who were rescued by Winton from Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Dutch rescuer and aid provider Jacobus Van Der Geest worked with the US armed forces as an interpreter and provided medical care to wounded American soldiers returning to the USA. Van Der Geest remembers helping a wounded soldier see the Statue of Liberty.

Even after the Holocaust, other genocides and ethnic cleansings have occurred and still continue. Peter Wolfram reflects on the importance of tolerance to prevent such atrocities from happening, and so people around the world can one day live peacefully together.

On October 5th 1938 German law required all Jewish passports to be stamped with a large and red letter “J,” for Jude, Jew in German.  M. Austein remembers having to exchange his Austrian passport for a German passport with the letter, “J.”

Livia Bitton-Jackson remembers arriving to Auschwitz as a young girl with her mother and an aunt. Before they entered the camp Livia was stopped by infamous SS physician Josef Mengele.

In October 1943 the Danish underground helped transport over 7,000 Danish Jews to Sweden. Esther Chalupovitsch remembers the night her family escaped Nazi controlled Denmark on a fishing boat to Sweden.

Anita Hirsch recalls when an aid worker helped her escape the Brzesko ghetto in Poland. Anita remembers hiding from the Gestapo who knew that she had escaped.

In October 1941 the Nazi’s started to transport Jews from Vienna to ghettos in Easter Europe. Regine Cohen remembers when she and her family were deported from their home in Vienna to a ghetto.

Abraham Bomba remembers arriving to the Treblinka extermination camp and the selection process for the gas chambers.

Thomas Blatt remembers his participation in the uprising that took place in the Sobibor death camp in Poland on October 14, 1943, and relates it was led by camp prisoners, Aleksandr (Sasha) Pechersky and Leon Feldhendler. He describes the mass escape of the camp prisoners as a result of the uprising.

Gerard Friedenfeld remembers when the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland. He was only a child when his father was arrested with groups of other men. Later the Nazis ordered all other Jewish women and children to leave their homes.

Giulia Spizzichino, who gave her testimony in Italian on March 25, 1998, speaks about the Ardeatine Caves Massacre that took place outside Rome on March 24, 1944. In one of the worst massacres in Italy during World War II, over 300 Italian men were shot, in retaliation for an attack on SS personnel by resistance fighters. The previous day, the Patriotic Action Group (Gruppi d'Azione Patriotica, or GAP) set off a bomb that killed 33 German soldiers marching on Via Rassella. Hitler made an order that within 24 hours, 10 Italians were to be shot for each dead German.

Sol Liber explains his involvement as a resistance fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which took place beginning April 16, 1943. Along with his fellow ghetto inhabitant, Hakiva Leifer, he fought in the Warsaw ghetto until his capture and eventual deportation to the Treblinka II Death Camp, Poland, in May 1943.

Ernest James speaks of his participation as a United States soldier in the battle for Aachen, Germany, in October 1944. He explains how the United States armed forces surrounded Aachen and forced the German armed forces to surrender. It was October 21, 1944.  

Freddy Diament remembers participating in the revolt at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. He recalls hearing rumors that SS personnel were going to gas Jews in the camp. So a group of prisoners decided to fight the Nazis, rather than just be killed by them.

In 1941 more anti- Jewish measures were implemented and intensified in Nazi Germany including ration cards, forbidding Jews to emigrate and deportations of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. Gerda Haas was a nurse at a hospital in Berlin  when her mother was deported to the Riga ghetto in Latvia in late 1941.

Agnes Adachi speaks about peace and how we must speak to our children because they are so important in creating a peaceful world.  

Arie Van Mansum was only in his early 20’s when he helped rescue Jews in the Netherlands. He describes why he chose to risk in life in order to hide and rescue Jews. Arie was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Fred Ostrowski talks about the arrest and deportation of Jews of Polish origin from Germany to Poland on October 28, 1938. He remembers the journey from his hometown, Essen, Germany, to Zbaszyn, a border town in Poland. He relates that he and his mother were placed in the home of a Polish family shortly after their arrival Zbaszyn and notes that his father was in Lódz, Poland, at the time.  

Tania Fink was only five years old when she and her family were captured by German soldiers and sent to Bergen Belsen concentration camp. She remembers what the camp looked like including the prisoner bunks and barbed wire fencing that surrounded the camp.  

Leo Bach explains how humanity has a responsibility to stop atrocities like the Holocaust from happening again.

Elizabeth Bader remembers her grade school in Nazi Germany and recalls her first teacher being relieved of his duties because he was too friendly with Jewish families. Elizabeth also reflects on how the Nazi’s ideologies were taught in the classroom.

November 2 marks the 70th anniversary of the mass deportation of the Karachai people, who Soviet authorities accused of having collaborated with the Germans during World War II. Over 70,000 Karachais were transported in cattle cars in deplorable conditions from the North Caucasus to Central Asia, beginning on November 2, 1943.