Holocaust Survivor Stories & Photos

Family Search
Registry

Sophie Was Eight Years Old Living in Lodz, Poland in 1939
First person story just published!

Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust · Five Milion Forgotten ·Survivor Stories and Diaries

Krystyna was a rather spoiled teenager, when the war broke out in Poland. She was upset because she had to leave her affluent boarding school in Switzerland. But, she soon found courage beyond her years. The young lady who was destined for the good life spent her youth first in the Polish Resistance, then in a German prison. I Am First a Human Being: The Prison Letters of Krystyna Wituska By Irene Tomaszewski - available at Amazon.com.

Wiktor - The Art of Survival - "Opening the envelope, Julian Siminski felt a chill."

Irek - From the Underground "Irek" was his code name. But most people knew him as Tadeusz Borowski. Only the Polish resistance fighters knew him by his pseudonym.

Polish Translation:"Irek" byl jego pseudonimem. Wiekszosc ludzi znala go jako Tadeusz Borowski. Ale dla czlonkow ruchu oporu byl "Irkiem" z pseudonimu, a w rzeczywistosci podporucznikiem Armii Krajowej. Po polsku (bez polskich znakow)
Po polsku (z polskimi znakami ISO-8859-2)

Forgotten Survivors - Polish Christians Remember the Nazi Occupation - Compiled and edited by Professor Richard C. Lukas. Individual stories of 28 Christians who lived through the horrors.
"She was only a little girl when she began to see how much the Nazis could hate. Today, Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride devotes most of her time and effort to visiting schools and telling her story to the children, many of whom are the same age she was during the time of her forced labor."

Jan Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust by E. Thomas Wood
This is an amazing - almost hard-to-believe - true story of a Polish officer smuggled into Great Britain and then the United States to plead for help for the Jews. Read more from The New York Times, July 2000

Number 1067 - Diary
Because it was so late when we returned to our barracks at the end of the workday, our "dinner" would be set aside for us outside in metal bowls. During the winter, the top layer of the soup would freeze and we would have to break the ice to eat it. [read more]

Kidnaped and Deported - ...in Occupied Poland. Later, the Germans applied forced deportation for work. They kidnaped young men and women in the street, in the marketplace, and in front of churches on Sundays. [read more]

Stalin - Worse than Hitler? Christopher Gladun "We now know that during the war, Stalin actually killed more of his own people than Hitler killed during the Holocaust." Norman Davies ...the focus is on a lesser-known, even suppressed, part of history: Poland's suffering during Soviet occupation. It is estimated that as many as 2 million Poles were deported to the USSR, and that half perished in exile; Soviet occupation was brutal as 100,000 Poles were murdered, including 27,000 Polish Allied officers at Katyn and elsewhere. Between 1945-1955, tens of thousands died at the hand of the Stalinists in Poland. My mother was tortured by the NKVD and her entire family deported; my father was one of the few survivors of Katyn where all his comrades were murdered. Their story is shared by many Poles, but it is a story, which is little known in the West. I have spent several years translating and researching my family diaries, letters, photos and documents, as well as conducting personal interviews. Diaries and Chronology		Story of Teen-Agers: He was was a skinny teenager in war-torn Poland when Julian Bilecki and his family helped hide 23 Jews in an underground bunker, saving them from Nazi death squads. More...
		She Hid Jews Inside a German Officers' Villa -Irene was a teenager when the Nazi attack on Poland changed her life forever. She was separated from her family, escaped twice from incarceration, and was captured and raped by Soviet soldiers. Her most difficult predicament was also her noblest: she saved the lives of 16 Polish Jews, hiding some of them literally beneath the noses of the German officers. More...
		Dutch Teenager - Toine de Rond The verdict was three years of hard labor in a strafarbeitslager - for listening to the wrong radio station in Nazi-Occupied Holland. Dutch Version
		Eva Choma Pencak - Catholic Holocaust Survivor Born in Bilgoraj, Eva Choma was a young single woman when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. She spent the next several years as a forced laborer in Nazi-occupied Germany.

French survivor describes his months of hell in concentration camp Mittelbau Dora in Nordhausen

April 4, 1945: "We smelled an odor. ....there was a rumor that the Nazis were keeping prisoners in a labor camp. Something was telling me that the odor had something to do with the prisoners...

Justice is Swift - True short story
by Czeslaw Deminet from his collection.
Even women digging potatoes in the fields are attacked.

American Citizen in Poland
George Ostrowski - He Faced the Germans Twice - First in the Polish Army and Then in the American Army

Real Courage - Women and Children of Valor

"P" for Polish - ...like all Poles, was forced to wear the letter "P" for identification.

Jan Komski, Washington Post Artist and Survivor of 5 Concentration Camps

Growing up Black in Nazi Germany By Hans J. Massaquoi

One beautiful summer morning in 1934, I arrived at school to hear our 3rd-grade teacher, Herr Grimmelshauser, inform the class that Herr Wriede, our schulleiter (principal), had ordered the entire student body and faculty to assemble in the schoolyard.

Home | Holocaust Pictures | Holocaust Heroes | Holocaust Books
Five Million Non-Jewish Victims | Concentration Camp - Auschwitz

Story of Teen-Agers: He was was a skinny teenager in war-torn Poland when Julian Bilecki and his family helped hide 23 Jews in an underground bunker, saving them from Nazi death squads. More...