survivor testimonies summery by Amanda Eiler

The first Holocaust survivor testimony that I watched was of a man by the name of Mayer
Adler. He was born October 6th 1929 and was ten when the war began. Mayer and his
family lived in a small town in Hungry. The first of the war that he recalled was the news in
1941, that some areas were starting to be evacuated and talk about being deported. Mr.
Adler recalls big bomber plains flying over head and many Jew’s passing through with horse
and buggy. When the news came that the Germans would be coming to bring them to the
“work camps” soon, Mayer’s father strongly stressed his belief that it would be best for the
family to stay together so they can help one another. At this point Mayer started a trend of
listing to his instincts and not so much what he was told. Mayer decided to leave before the
Germans arrived, but ended up turning himself into the ghetto 12a in attempt to save his
family. From there they were transported by train to Auschwitz. He stayed there for some
time switching groups, unnoticed by the guards, and sticking with the “healthy looking men
who were in their middle thirties”. It was this strategy that got him out of Auschwitz and
also through many more camps; also kept him alive. He states that he was in Auschwitz
running around switching from group to group for about six weeks. Throughout the
testimony I counted six different camps that Mayer had gone through. All of there names
were not clear to me but camp number four was in Munich possibly called Munich. Camp
number five he said was a number “like seven or seventeen”. When the camps were
liberated he was so week and sick that he was taken to a hospital and cared for by an
American doctor. He was in the hospital for about eight to ten weeks. Mayer found some
cousins and spent some more time in Europe before ending up in America. While in
America he got a High school education and in 1951 was drafted into the Korean war and
shipped back to Germany. After the war he returned to America and stayed. Mayer Adler left
us with his lesson learned from his hardships as am I. It is a lesson that one truly has to
believe in to understand. His words to pass along, “you just have to go on with life you can
never give up, and hope that things will turn out, and somehow they do turn out.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCgCsi7daH0&p=1DEE787E7468D11C

The second Holocaust survivor interview that I viewed was Fela Gipsman. Fela was born
September 5th 1926 in Poland. She was born into a very well to do family. Fela had a live in
maid and book keeper. Her father traveled a lot to buy goods and sent them back home.
Fela’s uncle owned an oil factory and her mother helped with both businesses. The first Fela
heard about the war was when she heard the news at the age of thirteen in 1939 that Hitler
was going to invade Poland. From there things continued to get worse for the Jews. One
night there was a knock on the Gipsman’s door; they were told that an order was put in for
one hundred girls and their only daughter was to come with them. Fela’s father cried,
pleaded and tried to pay them instead. All of his attempts failed. From home Fela was
brought to the first camp which was Blahamad. This camp was, at this time, just a holding
cell. Form there Fela was sent to Shoutslow. This camp was not a concentration camp, but
an actual working camp. Fela spent the whole time of the war inside this camp with one
hundred and nineteen other girls. No one else ever came and none of the girls were ever
moved. For about a year she was able to write her family and her family sent her food
because the food at the camp made her sick because of some stomach problems that she
had. After a year this communication with Fela’s family stopped, she believed that this
happened because around the same time they were sent to a ghetto and could no longer
have the privileges of doing so. Fela was in this camp for two and a half years. she believed
that this camp was one of the worst and had no idea of any other camps being any different
or worse. After Fela and many others were liberated, she had found out that her family had
been sent to Auschwitz and did not survive. “We went trough a lot, we came to the United
place (United States) which we are very grateful; for us it is the best country in the world.”
She goes on to tell her children, “never forget what happened remember you are Jews and
keep the children in Jewish schools and keep the tradition alive.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M1JkwuQWkM&p=1DEE787E7468D11C

In both testimonies I found many similarities in the short time before they were taken away.
After the first news in both towns, Jews were slowly stripped of there rights. It started with
Jews not being able to attend public school, a nightly curfew, food started to become scarce,
all Jews had to be identified by an arm-band, businesses were taken and then they, the Jews
themselves, were taken away. The camps were very similar too. Both talked about very poor
living conditions, manual labor, regular beatings, and threatened with weapons. With all the
similarities there were also a few differences. In the first interview that I viewed Mayer
describes a time were many wanted to die and commit suicide, also he saw many people
brutally murdered, and in every camp he was in it seamed that over crowding was a major
issue. Fela was not exposed to this same face of this war. This would have to do with the
camp that she was placed in. I wonder if this had anything to do with Fela being in one of
the earlier camps and in a richer community. Though, her family was certainly not shown
any mercy.