Ernst Verduin

Ernst Verduin was 18 when he was shipped from Amsterdam to Westerbork before being sent on to Auschwitz in September 1943. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau he was first selected for the gas chamber but then somehow managed to leave the "gas chamber group" and join the group selected for slave labour. "An SS-officer protested loudly, but I didn't care...

Read full story.

Barbara Maria Frankiss

Barbara was born in 1938 and her earliest memories are of fleeing with her family to relatives in Kovno but once the Germans entered the town they returned to Warsaw. Her other memory took place in the Warsaw Ghetto. She recalls being forced to eat by her grandmother to keep up her strength.

Read full story.

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.

Read full story.

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.

Read full story.