Surviving Auschwitz Children Of The Shoah

*Surviving Auschwitz* tells the moving and inspirational story of three young girls who survived Auschwitz, Adolph Hitler’s most notorious death camp. With dramatic photographs, Tova Friedman, Frieda Tenebaum, and Rachel Hyams document the story in their own words.

In the waning months of World War II, a Soviet regiment entered Auschwitz-Birkenau, Adolph Hitler's infamous concentration camp, and found seven thousand prisoners on the brink of death from illness and starvation. Among them were three young girls from a town in central Poland called Tomaszow Mazowiecki. Before being deported to Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, Rachel Hyams and Frieda Tenenbaum had already survived the Jewish ghetto in their town and two slave labor camps. Now, thanks to their Soviet liberators, they survived the Kinderlager, the children's barracks at Auschwitz that were nothing more than a holding area for the gas chambers. When the regiment's commander, Marshal Ivan Koneff, discovered the children--their limbs thin as toothpicks, most of them unable to walk--he broke down and wept. The date was January 27, 1945. Tova was 6, Rachel 7, and Frieda 10. A quarter century ago, on the 50th anniversary of their liberation, Tova, Rachel and Frieda first told the world about their Auschwitz ordeal. Today, on the 75th anniversary of their liberation, they tell their stories again--although Rachel, who died in 2008, can no longer tell her story in person. It is to her, along with the million-and-a-half children who died in the Holocaust, that we dedicate this edition of Surviving Auschwitz.

In the waning months of World War II, a Soviet regiment entered Auschwitz-Birkenau, Adolph Hitler's infamous concentration camp, and found seven thousand prisoners on the brink of death from illness and starvation. Among them were three young girls from a town in central Poland called Tomaszow Mazowiecki. Before being deported to Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, Rachel Hyams and Frieda Tenenbaum had already survived the Jewish ghetto in their town and two slave labor camps. Now, thanks to their Soviet liberators, they survived the Kinderlager, the children's barracks at Auschwitz that were nothing more than a holding area for the gas chambers. When the regiment's commander, Marshal Ivan Koneff, discovered the children--their limbs thin as toothpicks, most of them unable to walk--he broke down and wept. The date was January 27, 1945. Tova was 6, Rachel 7, and Frieda 10. A quarter century ago, on the 50th anniversary of their liberation, Tova, Rachel and Frieda first told the world about their Auschwitz ordeal. Today, on the 75th anniversary of their liberation, they tell their stories again--although Rachel, who died in 2008, can no longer tell her story in person. It is to her, along with the million-and-a-half children who died in the Holocaust, that we dedicate this edition of Surviving Auschwitz.

"I set out to find a group of people who, like me, were possessed by a history they had never lived." The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Helen Epstein traveled from America to Europe to Israel, searching for one vital thin in common: their parent's persecution by the Nazis. She found: • Gabriela Korda, who was raised by her parents as a German Protestant in South America; • Albert Singerman, who fought in the jungles of Vietnam to prove that he, too, could survive a grueling ordeal; • Deborah Schwartz, a Southern beauty queen who—at the Miss America pageant, played the same Chopin piece that was played over Polish radio during Hitler's invasion. Epstein interviewed hundreds of men and women coping with an extraordinary legacy. In each, she found shades of herself.

Gripping and inspiring, these true stories of bravery, terror, and hope chronicle nine different children's experiences during the Holocaust. These are the true-life accounts of nine Jewish boys and girls whose lives spiraled into danger and fear as the Holocaust overtook Europe. In a time of great horror, these children each found a way to make it through the nightmare of war. Some made daring escapes into the unknown, others disguised their true identities, and many witnessed unimaginable horrors. But what they all shared was the unshakable belief in-- and hope for-- survival. Their legacy of courage in the face of hatred will move you, captivate you, and, ultimately, inspire you.

Describes the life of Eva Mozes and her twin sister Miriam as they were interred at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, where Dr. Josef Mengele performed sadistic medical experiments on them until their release.

Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. Now dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship. A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all.

Holocaust survivors who were children during the Nazi persecution wrote this collection of memoirs. Each story bubbled up spontaneously, without an interviewer's guidance; hence these represent the most permanent memories of their authors' childhood experiences. This book provides a rare vantage point to look into the diverse lives of children during the Holocaust.-Both professionals and adult survivors have often said, "The children were too young to remember."-They could not have been more wrong about that. " I was struck by the fact that the stories were not bitter, they did not seek revenge. I found the underlying thread in the purpose of the stories to be gifts to the world, given in the hope that the stories and the anthology would contribute to other children not having to suffer such events in the future." Paul Valent, M.D., Melbourne, Australia author, Child Survivors of the Holocaust (1994, 2002)