Anita Lasker-Wallfisch remembers when she was selected to be in the Auschwitz camp orchestra and when the orchestra would play for the SS.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch had a lucky moment while being processed at the Sauna in Auschwitz-Birkenau.  One of the girls processing her asked her what she did prior to landing in that place of unspeakable horror. “I played the cello,” she answered. That surreal conversation, not far from the gas chambers at Birkenau, would save her life.  As a member of the Auschwitz women's orchestra, playing the cello meant respite from heavy labor.  

Edgar Wildfeuer of Argentina speaks of his forced labor assignment in carpentry for the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) Corporation in Auschwitz.

Shaul Hazan, who worked as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, describes what he witnessed at the crematoriums. He details not only the gruesome cleanup, but also the process the Nazis used to administer the gas.

Shortly after the Germans fled Auschwitz, well-meaning Russian liberators provided food to children. Tragically, some would die from eating too quickly. Yehudit Sadeh was suffering from dysentery, which proved fortuitous because it prevented her from eating. She describes how a doctor took pains to nurse her back to health until she could walk again and catch a transport back to Czechoslovakia. 

Jewish survivor Ina Rabner of Brazil remembers the selection process she and the other women prisoners underwent upon their arrival to Auschwitz. She also recalls how, amidst the terrifying process, she saved her sister from execution, hiding her sibling’s graying hair from Mengele.

Jewish survivor Nissin Soriano of Argentina recalls the intake procedures he experienced in Auschwitz. He describes the shaving, numbering, and disinfecting processes.

Bobbie Downs saw firsthand how genocide affects people when she taught Sudanese refugees in Cairo, and she will expand on this knowledge when she joins survivors, educators, students and thousands of others to attend the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27.