主播大秀

Sources: Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives

The learning activities for the 'Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives' theme are based on the following stories. You can use the extracts as they appear on this page, or follow the links to read the full stories.

A Holocaust Survivor's Search for the Truth

I snatched the papers away as the man handed them back to my mother and, to my utter astonishment, saw that I had been in a concentration camp. My real name was Jona Jakob Spiegel and my mother's name had been Elsa Spiegel, born 1909 in Vienna. I had been brought to England on a bomber. We all stood there dumbfounded, and I became hysterical. I had heard about these terrible places and couldn't accept that I had been involved. My mother kept repeating that it was a very long time ago and that I was only a baby. I shouted at her, 'Why couldn't you tell me before? I always find out from other people.'

Survival at Auschwitz

Franz said, 'I was so happy in earlier days and still cannot believe what has happened to my family. I was born in Berlin and, after graduating as a teacher from college in the city, I was able to obtain a teaching position at a primary school in the city. I married Juli, a classmate in my secondary school days, and in a few years we had a family of a son and a daughter, who would be nine and seven years old now. My father was a watchmaker and also ran a small jewellery store with the help of my mother. For a time, life was very happy and fulfilling for our family...'

D-Day and Belsen Concentration Camp

It was so terrible we cried ourselves to sleep for many nights in our tents two miles away. We had been through the war but this was something so terrible that it took some time for us to come to terms with what we saw...

The Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp

At the time, some politicians and religious leaders criticized the British Army for not doing enough to relieve the suffering of the prisoners. As one who was there, the task before us was the like of which nobody had any knowledge or experience. Neither had we the slightest idea of what we were to discover. All of us were in a state of utter shock - young soldiers (most were in their 'teens or early twenties) as well as senior officers... What SHOULD you do when faced by 60,000 dead, sick and dying people? We were in the army to fight a war and to beat the enemy. What we were suddenly thrust into was beyond anyone's comprehension, let alone a situation which could have been organised and effectively planned for.

'Ich Habe Kranke!' (I Am Sick!)

But in years since, I have felt that above all it should not be forgotten. Some people - too young to have been in the war and with the scepticism bred from a life of comparative peace - have pretended that the Holocaust didn't happen, perhaps because they find such stories impossible to believe. I was there - I saw dreadful things. I saw souls on the point of or actually dying, and even after all these years I can still hear the mournful sound of those voices calling out, 'Ich habe kranke!'

Letter from Lubeck: After Belsen

I shall make no excuse for saying something about our experiences there. I feel it is the duty of those who have actually witnessed these places to say out loud what they have seen - all the more necessary because the facts are almost incredible to those who have not witnessed them. ... I could go on, but to describe the place properly would demand great detail. Let me say simply that Belsen is the most horrible thing I have seen and I hope that we shall see this thing can never happen again. I cannot help feeling that we bear a share of responsibility for these happenings. Remember the complacencies of the pre-war years? The job of helping to clean up the mess was perhaps the best job we have done since we came out here; certainly our most constructive job. It was very interesting and many-sided. One little job BHQ had to do was to mass-produce about 100 babies' cots! I had to switch the equipment repairer from mending vehicle canopies to producing little mattresses for these cots!

Fleeing from East Germany to England

At the station, Mother told me that I would have to look after Walter, which made me quite proud. After all, I was only 14 years old myself. Presently the train came in, and we had to say goodbye. It is impossible to describe one's feelings on paper, when one kisses one's mother for possibly the last time, and neither can I imagine a mother's feelings when she sees number three and four go, four of her children for whom she had lived, suffered and cared, going into the world without friends or relations. ... About a month later we had to go to school, and to my great surprise I was put with children aged ten and eleven, who at once began to treat us like Germans, even though we continually used the first English word we learnt, which was 'refugee'. They began to call after us, just like children had called after us in Halle, only instead of mocking us as Jews, they called us Germans. This was a great blow. That we had been sent away from home for being Jews was no fault of ours, now we were teased and mocked as Germans and that was not our fault either.

Back to top