Personal Narrative: The Holocaust

The sun rose high in the sky beating down on everyone. A loud, ear piercing bell sounded. The soldiers that were watching over us

I am and SS officer. I was stationed at Auschwitz. More Jews were coming in every day. There were eighty to a cattle cart. There were so many families that had to go separate ways from one another. I had killed mothers and the babies and weakest of the men that couldn’t work. It was horrible, I do say. If I could say no I would never do it again. I loved my country and Hitler at the time, so I was willing to do whatever it took to get noticed. I was then stationed at a woman’s concentration camp. They all had gotten shaved, had no gold teeth, and had had tattoos on their arms. It was their identification code. They were so skinny it was just skin stuck to the bones. They looked like corpses, but alive. I wonder how many died soon after.

The next few moments of my life after my arrival to Auschwitz happened in rapid succession and yet I know if I live a hundred years I will never forget a single second. Although I don’t know if I will live. We didn’t know the place to which we came, but I know only too well what it is

Imagine living in a completely different world then you do now. Where you are kept in a confined space with no one and nothing to do. That’s what the jewish people of 1933 to 1945 suffered with. Concentration camps were everywhere, there was nowhere to go or hide. The Holocaust had an atrocious impact on jews and they will never be thought of the same After the camp, many were grateful for what they had and no longer took anything for granted. Each article shows a different way of how Jewish people were treated badly but each shares the same message. After the holocaust was over everybody was grateful for what they had.

What would your account of the Holocaust be? The Holocaust was a unique event in twentieth century history which, evolved between 1933 and 1945. Beginning with discrimination; then the Jews were separated from their communities and persecuted; they were treated as less than human beings and murdered. While the Jews of Europe were the Nazis’ primary target, many millions of other people were also imprisoned, enslaved and murdered. These people included Roma, those with mental or physical disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, trade unionists, political opponents, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. The Nazis did not act alone. They were supported and assisted by people from within the countries they occupied across Europe. Most countries stood by while the Nazis and their accomplices carried out the mass murder of the Jewish people. Thus, in 1941 there were about 11 million Jews living in Europe; by May 1945 the Nazis had murdered six million of them. One-and-a-half million of these were children.

The Holocaust was the murder and persecution of approximately 6 million Jews and many others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January of 1933. The Nazis thought that the “inferior” Jews were a threat to the “racially superior” German racial community. The death camps were operated from 1941 to 1945, and many people lost their lives or were forced to work in concentration camps during these years. The story leading up to the Holocaust, how the terrible event affected people’s lives, and how it came to and end are all topics that make this historic event worth learning about.

Anxiety washed over the poor boy. It was dark, darker than Zerdek had ever know. With each second that passed, a low mumble could be heard from the corner. Something or someone else was here with him. Wherever here was. He shut his eyes thinking about the light. Thinking about anything that would make it seem like he was back at home. Home. He tried to remember the faces. He tried to remember each of the tree top building. Yet it was a blur. Everything that had happen with-in the last few hours, day, months was a giant blur from him. He had no concept of time. A click came from afar, as light came barreling in. Zerdek let out a low growl as he covered his eyes, unable to adjust to the light quickly enough. Arms reached out and pulled to two

“All right, stay for the night, but in the morning, go to Spaskoy village; rumor is that Stundists* Church takes orphans. Keep Chaim quiet; I do not want neighbors to know that we are hiding the Jew.”

My father said I was safe here in Paris. But after the Nazis came, nobody was safe. I am the youngest of three children in my Jewish family. My Polish father was a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, which is amazing. I grew up speaking French just like my sisters did. Mom says it’s safer in Paris than in the poor town she grew up in. But everyone on the street just stares at me as if I were a curse. I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t listen. I would have told my parents about how the people looked at me if I had the courage; I was too embarrassed. The school that I went to was special, funded by the Rothschild family, my parents said. My dad reassured us by telling me that we would be safe away

“Sort through the clothing; valuables in one pile, rags in another. Keep anything for yourselves and I’ll kill you myself” the Nazi barked. Although I wouldn’t call my job enjoyable, I was able to avoid the wrath of the Nazi’s, for I couldn’t mess too much up, if I got cold, I could dig my arms into the piles of clothes, but my favorite part was working with Josef, my work companion. One day, Josef found a piece of bread in a coat pocket, and he quickly ate it, but not quick enough, for a Nazi soldier shoved his foot on the small of his back, pushing him to the ground. “Did you not know how to listen?” the Nazi shouted “I said I’d kill you myself, and that’s exactly what I’ll do” A shot rattled through the air, but his words rattled me. “I said I’ll kill you. I said I’ll kill you. I said I’ll kill

I told the Jews “Stop, we are 42 miles in and only 8 to go”. I saw many Jews collapse after we stopped. The Jews started going to the buildings to rest, and I said don’t get comfortable we are leaving in two hours. The hours passed quickly and it was time to

A central role in this judicial proceeding was played by eyewitnesses, who during their testimonies created a very intense and emotional atmosphere in the courtroom. In this trial testified 44 male and 25 female eyewitnesses, among them also Lithuanian Jews, who survived the mass atrocities during the Holocaust. Historian Faraldo claimed that the antifascist memorial policy allowed “different feelings and narratives to be expressed.” Similarly, historian Lisa Kirschenbaum noticed that these war narratives “drew on experiences remembered by individuals while providing those who lived through the war with compelling and uplifting frameworks for narrating – and therefore remembering – their own experiences.” Many eyewitnesses, who saw the scene of a crime, and survivors, including those who crawled out from the death pits, could remember in the courtroom very exactly the names,

I woke up and hoped my furnace was working and was ready to be put on full blast. It was a frigid cold day, the coldest it’s ever been. The weather man called for the temperature to be -59 degrees. I walked outside and the air made me feel like I couldn’t move. It was that cold.

The pain had spread over me, I feel nauseous, tired, and dehydrated. Every inch of my body ached, I just want to go home, but I wouldn’t dare step out of line like the audacious and mutinous Jew earlier. I’m planning on staying alive for as long as I can. Every now and then a Jew would fall behind, and I’d hear a gunshot. Dead bodies overflowed the paths in which we dragged our feet along. People were collapsing on the ground trying hard to get back on their feet. A shorter man ahead of me was talking to another guy with pants ripped at the knee, he said “ we are heading to a concentration camp somewhere in

It felt as if the cold was piercing through my blanket. I tried to warm up in my sleeping bag by moving around, but without being able to make a fire in the tent I couldn’t get warm. Somehow my friend had already fallen asleep, but as I lied awake I could hear the creaking of trees in the wind. I had to go outside because I could