Arek Hersh

Arek was born and brought up in Poland, the son of a boot-maker for the army. He had four siblings and was brought up in the Jewish faith in a tight-knit, loving family. He remembers going to the park in the summer, ice-skating on the river in winter and singing solos in the choir. Arek went to a Jewish elementary school and a mixed secondary school.

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Eve Kugler

In New York in five years I lived in three different foster homes. I did not believe that I would ever see my parents again. Our family was reunited in New York in 1946. We started again with nothing except the Jewish beliefs and values that the Nazis could never take from us.

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Renee Salt

I was born Rywka Ruchla Berkowitz in Zdunska-Vola, Poland, in 1929 and lived with my parents and younger sister. My father was an accountant and my mother a housewife. We had a very comfortable lifestyle. Ours was a very large, well-known family, as my father was one of eight children and my mother one of four.

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Mala Tribich MBE

We observed all the festivals but my father was not a regular synagogue goer. I attended school from the age of six, and we had a large family of uncles, aunts, and cousins, who we visited and spent holidays with. But on 1st September 1939 life changed drastically for us. The Nazi invasion started with the bombing of Polish towns.

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