Stefania Podgorska's Mistakes

The Holocaust, yet another unpleasant time in history tainted with the blood and suffering of man. Human beings tortured, executed and starved for hatred and radical ideas. Yet with many tragedies there are survivors, those who refused to die on another man’s command. These victims showed enormous willpower, they overcame human degradation and tragedies that not only pushed their beliefs in god, but their trust in fellow people. It was people like Elie Wiesel author of “Night”, Eva Galler,Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser, and Solomon Radasky that survived, whose’ mental and physical capabilities were pushed to limits that are difficult to conceive. Each individual experiences were different, but their survival tales not so far-reaching to where the fundamental themes of fear, family, religion and self-preservation played a part in surviving. Although some of these themes weren’t always so useful for survival.

In The Story of Blima: A Holocaust Survivor, author Shirley Russak Wachtel presents scenes depicting the worst that human beings are capable of, and the best. She skillfully contrasts her mother’s suffering at the hands of the Nazis with the loving treatment that Blima receives from three strong women. In the course of the story, Blima receives loving support from her mother; from the labor guard, Gizella; and from her sister-in-law, Ruschia.

As a mother your biggest mission in life is to be a protector and everything that your children will ever need and that’s exactly what Sonia was. June 30, 1941 Nazis gained control of the town Zhetel, a small town in Poland that Sonia and her family resided in. The Nazis immediately began to persecute the Jewish population. On July 23, 1941, the Nazis executed 120 prominent Jews. Among those innocent lives was Sonias brother. On February 22, 1942, the Germans ordered that all the Jews in Zhetel be forced into a ghetto called among these names: The Zdzięcioł Ghetto, Dzyatlava Ghetto or Zhetel Ghetto. Two months later they rounded up and killed about 1000 Jewish residents. After this first slaughter, on April 30, a few dozen people escaped from the ghetto into the nearby woods and began to organize into partisan groups. On August 6, 1942, the Germans began the final liquidation of Zhetel. Sam, Sonias husband, was rounded up in a mass sweep of the town and locked together with hundreds of other Jews in the town's synagogue. In the middle of all the confusion, he and a few others hid for about two days and nights. Once it was quiet, they escaped into the woods and joined up with the Jewish Partisans. Meanwhile Sonia hid with her two children in a hiding place her husband established soon after World War 2. They would stay there for three nights with other friends and family until the Nazi massacres

The holocaust was a tragic time which involved the killing of Jews to create a ‘pure race’ in Germany. Jacob Boas analyzes the stories of five young Jewish children through the book “We Are Witnesses,” who were forced through the hardships of war. Through the perspectives of David Rubinowicz, Yitzhak Rudashevski, Moshe Flinker, Éva Heyman, and Anne Frank, the struggles of the five children are clear as they try to hold on to their ideals while still fighting for their lives. “We Are Witnesses,” by Jacob Boas adopts repetition and diction through the eyes of David Rubinowicz, imagery using Yitzhak Rudashevski, repetition and imagery via Moshe Flinker, repetition with Éva Heyman, and repetition and syntax by Anne Frank to brandish how Jewish

When Irene Safran was only twenty-one years old, her carefree life ended in the face of the Holocaust. Born to two Jewish parents as one of ten children-- four girls and six boys in all-- in Munkachevo, Czechoslovakia around the year 1923, her world changed in early April 1944 when she and her family were transferred to a Jewish ghetto. For the next year, Irene's life was a series of deaths, losses, and humiliations no human should ever have to suffer, culminating, years later, with a triumphant ending. Her story is proof that the human spirit can triumph over all manner of adversity and evil.

Survival in Auschwitz written by Primo Levi is a first-hand description of the atrocities which took place in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. The book provides an explicit depiction of camp life: the squalor, the insufficient food supply, the seemingly endless labour, cramped living space, and the barter-based economy which the prisoners lived. Levi through use of his simple yet powerful words outlined the motive behind Auschwitz, the tactical dehumanization and extermination of Jews. This paper will discuss experiences and reactions of Jews who labored in Auschwitz, and elaborate on the pre-Auschwitz experiences of Jews who were deported to Auschwitz and gassed to death on their arrival, which had not been

In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupy Hungary. Not long afterward, a series of increasingly repressive measures are passed, and the Jews of Eliezer’s town are forced into small ghettos within Sighet. Soon they are herded onto cattle cars, and a nightmarish journey ensues. After days and nights crammed into the car, exhausted and near starvation, the passengers arrive at Birkenau, the gateway to Auschwitz.

One of the most memorable events about World War II was the holocaust. Most people remember the many lives that were lost in this massive genocide. Although many lives were lost a few were able to survive and share their experiences in those harsh times. Many non Jewish people helped in anyway possible such as Stefania Podgorska. During the holocaust Podgorska kept resistance by hiding and providing for Jews in the most necessary times.

During the duration of World War II, the Jewish people of Europe were subjected to such inhumane actions at the hands of the Nazi party. Ellie Wiesel, in his memoir Night, describe this demoralizing treatment in great detail. As the reader delves deeper into Wiesel’s experiences, the dehumanization of the Jewish people becomes greater and greater. First, they were stripped of their possessions, then their names, and finally their dignity, and though the Nazi tried to finally stripped them of their humanity, they were unsuccessful.

Each of these histories reveal a story of suffering that is endured by both Gentile and Jew, but also a story of humanity and salvation. In Five Chimneys: A woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz, Olga Lengyel tells of her family assisting other Jews fleeing the Nazi military. Later, after her own ordeals in Auschwitz, she was saved by citizens in a small Polish village. An essay written by Vera Laska is included in Women and the Holocaust: Different Voices, which is an anthology of essays about women in the Holocaust. In addition to the many stories of survivors and rescuers, I am using several scholarly articles

Irena got a pass from Warsaw’s Epidemic Control Department, which allowed her to legally visit the Ghetto daily. Then, between 1942-1943, she snuck children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safe hiding places, and found non-Jewish families to adopt them. The youth only knew Irena by her code name “Jolanta”. She had to persuade many parents to part from their children, which was a very difficult and dreadful task. Irena later recalls, “In my dreams, I still hear the cries when they left their parents.”

Roma Nutkiewicz’s book re-tells events of what she went through from her childhood, leading all the way up to the end of the Holocaust. Roma shares her personal account of what living in the Nazi-era was like. Roma explains how in her early years she was just like any other child. She never saw herself or her family to be different from other communities, because everyone surrounding her was Jewish. Until World War II started. Not to long after Germans started to move into Warsaw, Poland where she lived and everything in her life changed. In the beginning it started with curfews, then she needed her identification cards at

Ellen Cassedy’s memoir, We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust, charts her journey to her family’s past and her own reckoning with what she finds. As she explores her own family’s Jewish past, she struggles to learn Yiddish and gets to know the broader cultural landscape that is contemporary Lithuania, the place where her family came from. As she sets off to study Yiddish and connect with her Jewish forebears, her uncle Will, a holocaust survivor, gave her a slip pulled from his pocket and told her to read it. It was a sheet that had been folded and refolded multiple times which spoke about a day in the Shavl ghetto. It was a sheet that made her personal conquest into an exploration of Lithuania, on how Jews and non-Jews are confronting their Nazi and Soviet past in order to move forward in the future. The sheet read “On November 5, 1943, a kinder-aktsye, a roundup of children, had occurred. Soldiers were snarling dogs and bayonets had rampages through the narrow streets, ripping apart walls and floors in the search for every last child. A Jewish policeman stood at the ghetto gate as the sons and daughters of the ghetto-hundreds of them-were shoved into trucks and driven away, never to be seen again” (Cassedy, 2012, p. 51). Here she

The Holocaust is a very large topic with many subtopics within, which many people have never heard of. One in particular is the Hidden Children of the Holocaust. Like a majority of individuals, I never heard of this topic before, until I started my inquiry work. Hiding children during the holocaust was an effort to save thousands of children’s lives. The children were hidden in different ways, either with false identities, underground, and with or without their parents. The children with false identities were allowed to participate in everyday life activities, like attend school and socialize with children their age, which in the long run this lead to less emotional and mental issues. However, the children that were hidden and not allowed to leave their hiding spots often faced boredom, pain, and torment. Some children were capable of being hid with their parents while other children were not. Depending on the situation the child was in, depends on the effects it had on the child during this time. In this paper, I will be discussing works by two scholars, Natalia Aleksiun’s Gender and Daily Lives of Jews in Hiding in Eastern Galicia and Judy Mitchell’s Children of the Holocaust. Aleksiun’s article talks about the daily lives of Jews in hiding and also about how they prepared their hideouts. Aleksiun’s article mainly focuses on children that were hidden with their families. In Mitchell’s article, he focuses on the hidden children and gives examples/survivor stories on what it

Between 1933 and 1945, 11 million people were murdered in the Holocaust, of this six million were Jews and of this, 1.1 million were children. Of the nine million Jews who lived in Europe before the Holocaust, an estimated 2/3 were murdered. Despite all these odds and statistics, Vladek Spiegelman managed to survive, and then share his story with his son, so he could share their story with the world. Another reason that Vladek Spiegelman is a good subject to write a biography on is, his personality. He seems to have to sides to him, Vladek Spiegelman before war and Vladek Spiegelman post - war. We get to see the impact and affect the Holocaust had on it’s victims, with our own eyes. Moreover, Vladek Spiegelman is an inspiration and a reminder of the potential dark side to human nature. Thus, writing a biography on Mr. Spiegelman is informative, moving and above all, inspirational.