12 Quotes from Survivors to Read on #HolocaustRemembranceDay
On January 27, the global community spends time reflecting for International Holocaust Remembrance Day — the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp.
There will be a time, far too soon, when we’ll have no survivors to tell their firsthand accounts of the Holocaust. Remembering the lessons of the Shoah — and the millions of Jewish lives lost — will be essential to shaping a better future.
At the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati, we commemorated the day with “Prayer Interrupted: Music in a World Turned Upside Down,” a concert that explored the lives of Jews in and around the Holocaust. Now, read the words of local survivors that describe the experiences they had during the Holocaust.
You can share your reflections about International Holocaust Remembrance Day on social media using #WeRemember.
1. “Through the steam, I saw a sign: ‘Auschwitz.’ I didn’t know what it was, but a minute later, I found out.” Henry Meyer, Local Survivor
2. “They said separate: children, men, women, and the older people. Me and my sister were separated with the young ones. I had my little sister in my arms, and one of the SS came over and picked up my little sister and gave her to my stepmother. He pushed me to the other side.” Bella Benozio Ouziel, Local Survivor
3. “They brought us into Auschwitz. I could see the chimneys burning, smell the smoke. I did not think about it. They gave us tattoos: 33076. I did not have a name anymore; just a number.” Sara Polonski Zuchowicki, Local Survivor
4. “I was a little girl. I had done nothing to nobody, and I had to go there.” Wellesina McCrary, Local Survivor
5. “One of our friends we knew from the ghetto, Danka Joskowicz — she ran to the barbed wires. I yelled to her, ‘Don’t go to the barbed wires! You will get electrocuted.’ She said, ‘What should I have to live for?’” Rozalia Nowak Berke, Local Survivor
6. “The smell was awful — things like that, you do not want to talk about it. Because the pain and memory of suffering comes back to you. You cannot deal with it.” Eva Gryka Kohan, Local Survivor
7. “She was beautiful, my little sister. You cannot imagine how beautiful she was. They mustn’t have looked at her. If they had, they would never have killed her. They couldn’t have.” Charlotte Delbo, Local Survivor
8. “The Holocaust manifested the veneer of civilization so thin and fragile that repetition was possible.” Sam Kaltman, Local Survivor
9. “There were five defining moments in my life and as I look back, each provided a lesson which taught me how to live my life, and hopefully teach others as well. [One of them was the] last week of January 1945. Meeting the first Soviet officer after escaping from the Auschwitz death march. Seeing him made me realize what freedom means.” Werner Coppel, Local Survivor
10. “My family was in the Warsaw Ghetto. We wrote to them in code for a while and secretly sent them money. Then, we received a letter saying they were living in a cabin in a camp. And then the letters stopped coming. We never heard from them again. I later found out the camp they were in was Auschwitz. I’ve never forgotten them.” Stephanie Marks, Local Survivor
11. “The SS guards pushed people with their [rifles] from both sides, and the crowd surged forward. As I searched for my father with my eyes and tried to catch up with him, I felt the firm grip of my mother’s hand on my arm. I knew she and I had to stay together — that going after my father would only separate me from my mother too.” Anna Brunn Ornstein, Local Survivor
12. “Everybody, every human being has the obligation to contribute somehow to this world.” Edith Carter, Local Survivor
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ABOUT THE NANCY & DAVID WOLF HOLOCAUST & HUMANITY CENTER
The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center exists to ensure the lessons of the Holocaust inspire action today. Located at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, HHC educates more than 180,000 community members through its educational initiatives, innovative programs and partnerships.
