Five Holocaust Survivors From Around the World Have Recorded their Stories for Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center s Survivor Stories Experience Theater: Zigi Ariav Nimrod Zigi Ariav was born Szulem Czygielman in Lublin, Poland, in 1926. His mother, father and twin brother, Avraham, decided to leave Lublin while it was still possible in 1940, and head to the smaller town of Belzyce, where they would be less conspicuous. During the September action of 1942, his parents had a plan. The family would split up in the hope that some of them would survive. However, as Szulem soon learned, his father had been murdered. He found his father in a pool of blood in front of the synagogue along with many others. Szulem and his brother buried their father with their own hands, along with 149 others that were shot on the spot. His mother decided he was safer in Warsaw. He boarded the train and arrived there first as Henryk Gorski, then after the murder of his twin brother, became known as Jerzy Eugeniusz Godlewski. He lived with Poles, spoke Polish, joined the Polish Home Army, trained as a Polish resistance fighter and was critically wounded while fighting in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After liberation and months of recovery, he joined the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization in the British Mandate of Palestine, and prepared fellow survivors to fight while they were awaiting to leave for Israel from Marseille. Once in the new Israel, he joined the infant Israeli air force, fought in all the major wars and distinguished himself as a member of the aeronautic and defense community under his fourth and final name, Nimrod Ariav (affectionately known as Zigi to his friends). After a successful business career, he retired in his late 70s. Renée Firestone 1924 Renée was born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia. She had an older brother named Frank and a younger sister named Klara. Her father was in the textile business and a cobbler, and her mother was a milliner (before marriage). The family was not very religious. 1938 Uzhorod was given to Hungary by Hitler. Quickly, the Jews in the town were reduced to second-class citizens. Renée s father, Mauritius was put on a forced labor battalion, but was eventually released. Early 1940s Frank was arrested and taken to Munkacevo for questioning, where he was tortured in a prison. Mauritius and Julia (Renée s mother) negotiated his release, but he was soon taken to a Hungarian forced labor camp.
April 1944 Renée, Klara, Mauritius, and Julia were deported to Auschwitz II- Birkenau. Julia was killed upon arrival. Renée and Klara remained together. Fall 1944 Renée was moved from the Hungarian Women s barracks to the Terezin barracks. She was separated from Klara, who was taken to Dr. Münch s experimental Hygienic Institute, where she died. December 1944 Renée was taken on a death march and then transport to Liebau concentration camp (a sub-camp of Gross Rosen). May 1945 Renée was liberated in Liebau by the Red Army. She and two other women from the camp made their way back to Czechoslovakia by hitchhiking. They ended up in Budapest, where survivors were congregating. Here, Renée found her brother Frank. He had escaped from the forced labor camp and survived the war as a partisan. 1945 Renée and Frank found out that their father was very ill and in Theresienstadt. With the help of Frank s friend from the labor camp, Bernard, they took him from Theresienstadt to Prague, where he received medical care. He died soon after. 1946 Renée married her brother s friend Bernard Firestone. Their daughter Klara was born shortly thereafter. 1948-present - Renée, Bernard, and Klara moved to the United States, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Renée became a well-known fashion designer. They still live in Beverly Hills. Renée has been very involved with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and started the outreach program at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. * Interesting note: Uzhorod was the next city over from Munkacevo, so Renée and Fritzie Fritzhall grew up in very close proximity and have very similar experiences of the beginning of the war. Both were deported to Auschwitz in April 1944 (perhaps even on the same transport). Both were taken on death marches to Germany and liberated by the Red Army. Both returned to Czechoslovakia haphazardly (not through any organization by the Red Army etc.) Eva Kor Even in a tiny farming village in Romania, the Holocaust found Eva Mozes Kor. Eva, born Jan. 31, 1934, was brought up in a very religious household with two older sisters and her twin sister Miriam. The Mozes family lived and worked on their large farm in Portz, and they enjoyed a life full of the warmth of family. However, when Hungary annexed the slice of Romania where the Mozes family lived, they faced intense anti-semitic harassment from students and neighbors. Classmates who were once friends now spit on Eva and called her names. Taunting youth often surrounded the Mozes house and threw food and rocks at it for hours. They were the only Jewish family in the village. Eva and her family were forced to move into the Cehei ghetto in Simleu Silvaniei, Romania, in 1944, where they stayed for about two and a half months. The ghetto had no housing facilities, so they family made a tent out of sheets, which the Nazi
commandant would order them to tear down and rebuild in the rain to torment them. In May, they were squeezed onto cattle cars with the rest of the ghetto and sent to Auschwitz. Eva remembers her father saying his morning prayers even as they arrived at the camp. On the selection platform, Eva and Miriam were immediately recognized as twins and separated from the rest of their family, who was taken to the gas chambers. They were taken with other twins to a special barrack, where Dr. Josef Mengele housed subjects for his medical experiments. When Eva came upon the corpses of three children in the latrine on her first night in Auschwitz, she made a silent pledge to do everything in her power to make sure she and Miriam would not end up on that filthy floor. Mengele gave the twins injections, drew large amounts of blood, and meticulously measured their body parts and photographed them, often for six to eight hours at a time. One injection left Eva gravely ill. She was separated from Miriam and left to die in the sick ward. She remembers Mengele saying sarcastically, Too bad, she s so young-she has only two weeks to live. Determined to prove Mengele wrong, Eva battled the high fever and five weeks later was reunited with her sister. That winter, the approaching Soviet Army triggered the Germans to send the majority of camp inmates on death marches to lands that were still under German control. The Soviet Army reached the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, where only the children, elderly, and sick were left behind, Eva and Miriam were first sent to a convent in Katowice, Poland, to recover, and from there traveled with other survivors in Minsk, in the Soviet Union. A woman named Mrs. CsengerÍ, who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz and was a friend of Eva s mother and the mother of twins herself, took care of Eva and Miriam until they made it back to Romania and were reunited with an aunt and a cousin. In 1950, Eva and Miriam moved to Israel. Eva served in the Israeli Army for eight years. Eva married Holocaust survivor Michael Kor in 1960 and joined him in Indiana and had two children, Alexander and Rina. She dedicated herself to raising awareness about Mengele s Auschwitz medical experiments, and in 1984 she created Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors (CANDLES) to unite the survivors and lobby for the release of Mengele s files. In 1995, she founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Ind. That same year, Eva made a profound personal discovery: she had the right and power to forgive the Nazis, though she would never excuse their actions. By exercising the power, she says she freed herself of the burden she had carried for 50 years. Eva still speaks around the country and the world about her experiences, urging healing through forgiveness. Anita Lasker 1925 Anita was born in Breslau, Germany into a well-off Jewish family. Her father was a successful lawyer, her mother was a violinist, and her uncle was a famous chess master. She had two older sisters, Renate and Marianne. 1925-1933 Anita grew up in a very musical household. Her mother played the violin, her father sang, Marianne played the piano, Renate played the violin, and Anita played the cello. They would give family concerts. Her family was not religious she never remembers going to synagogue.
1933 Laws started to change in Breslau and Jews were excluded from many areas of society. Anita eventually moved to Berlin to study cello, as there were no longer any Jewish teachers in Breslau, and Germans would not take Jewish students. 1938 Anita was in Berlin for Kristallnacht, but came home to Breslau immediately afterwards. Her father escaped arrest through the help of a non-jewish friend. By this time Marianne had arranged to leave Germany. She wanted to go to Palestine, but she ended up getting stuck in England. 1939 The family moved into Anita s aunt s house. They eventually lived there with her aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, and an older Jewish couple. 1941 Anita returned to school, which was soon shut down. At this point Anita and Renate begin working at a paper factory as part of their mandatory war service. At this paper factory, they made contact with French POWs who were also working there. They began forging papers for these prisoners so they could return to France. They helped many escape, including Eric Williams (Anita forged his papers). 1942 Anita s aunt and uncle were deported, followed quickly by her parents. She and Renate never saw their parents again. They were taken to Isbica, where they were forced to dig their own graves and were then shot into them. In July, her grandmother and the elderly couple were deported. They never saw them again. Anita and Renate forged papers to emigrate to France. They were arrested by the Gestapo at the train station (the Gestapo had been monitoring their forgery business for some time). Both girls pretended to be French, but eventually admitted they were German Jews. They were held in the prison in Breslau for their forgery crimes. 1943 Anita and Renate had been in prison for an entire year before their trial. They were very happy about this because prison was preferable to going east. At the trial Anita was sentenced to 18 months; Renate was sentenced to 3.5 years. In December Anita was transferred to Auschwitz, not having finished her sentence. 1944 Upon arrival at Auschwitz Anita was immediately contracted by the Auschwitz Orchestra, which was in desperate need of cellist. The orchestra, led by Alma Rosé, performed marches in the morning and evening and were available for personal musical requests from the SS leadership. Soon after Anita arrived, Renate came to Auschwitz as well and they were reunited. In October Anita and Renate were transferred to Belsen. 1945 Belsen got increasingly cramped and people were dying constantly. Anita and the other prisoners were forced to drag bodies out of the camp, but they couldn t keep up with the volume. In April 1945, they were liberated by the British Army. Anita and Renate became translators for the army and stayed in the DP camp that was set up at Belsen. With a few months they were in contact with their sister Marianne in London. Anita soon joined a makeshift ensemble which toured to the different DP and POW camps and played concerts. In September both Anita and Renata testified at the Lüneburg trials. In December, Anita and Renata were smuggled out of the camp and taken to Belgium by a British officer. Commented [BS1]: Stayed in?
1946 Anita and Renata finally arrived in England, where Anita became a professional cellist. She helped to found the English Chamber Orchestra. Post-War Anita met pianist Peter Wallfisch in Paris they were later married. She had two children, Raphael and Maya. Raphael is a very famous cellist. She has four grandchildren. Marianne died in childbirth in 1952. Renate became an author and journalist; she has written at great length on National Socialism. She is married to the author/journalist Klaus Harpprecht. Eva Schloss May 11, 1929 Eva was born in Vienna, Austria to Erich and Fritzi (Freida) Geiringer. She had one brother, Heinz, who was 3 years older than her. Her family was uppermiddle-class and her father owned a shoe factory. Fritzi came from a very wealthy family of winemakers. Eva had a very happy childhood and was very close to her brother Heinz. 1930-33 The Geiringer family was forced to move into a smaller apartment and give up some of their lifestyle due to the Depression, which dealt a great blow to Erich s business. 1938 Germany annexed Austria and laws against Jews were immediately enacted. Much of Eva s extended family escaped to England, including: Sylvi (maternal aunt), Otto (maternal uncle), Tom (cousin), Rudolf (maternal grandfather), Helen (maternal grandmother), Blanca (paternal aunt), Ludwig (paternal uncle), and Gaby (cousin). Erich transferred his business to the Netherlands and moved to Amsterdam. 1939 Heinz was able to go to Amsterdam, where he lived with Erich. Eva, Fritzi, and Heinz went to Belgium. 1940 Eva, Fritzi, and Heinz move to Amsterdam and are reunited with Erich. They move onto the Merwedeplein, a Jewish square where the Frank family lived at the time. Eva met Anne and Otto Frank. Heinz went to school with Margot Frank and they became close friends. Holland was defeated by Germany (in May). 1942 The Geiringer family went into hiding in a series of houses in Amsterdam. Eva and Fritzi always hid in different places than Erich and Heinz. May 11 th, 1944 Eva, Fritzi, Erich, and Heinz were all captured and brought into Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam. They were taken to Westerbork Concentration Camp almost immediately. After only a few days, the entire family was deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Eva and Fritzi worked in Kanada. Erich and Heinz were transferred to Auschwitz I and worked in lumber and agriculture. January 1945 Erich and Heinz were sent on a Death March to Mauthausen. Both Erich and Heinz died of exhaustion in Mauthausen. Eva and Fritzi were liberated in Auschwitz II-Birkenau by the Red Army.
1945 The Red Army moved Eva and Fritzi to Odessa for their protection, where they waited out the rest of the war. After the end of the war, they returned to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, they revised their friendship with Otto Frank. Late 1940s Eva moved to London, where she met Zvi Schloss. Fritzi and Otto stayed in Amsterdam. 1952 Eva married Zvi Schloss. He was a German Jew who had fled after his father was interned in Dachau. 1953 Fritzi married Otto Frank. They continued to work together to spread Anne s diary and promote Holocaust education. Present Eva and Zvi have three daughters: Caroline, Jacky, and Sylvia. Their grandchildren are: Lisa, Eric, Alexander, Sophie, and Ella.