How We Survived: 52 Personal Stories by Child Survivors of the Holocaust

by Marie Kaufman (Editor), Michael Berenbaum (Foreword), Sarah Moscovitz (Introduction)

Meet the children from World War II’s Europe who faced and survived the reality of Germany’s decision to annihilate Judaism at its roots. Experience, through frightened eyes and terrifying memories, the remarkable first hand stories of survival by 52 people who lived as children through this most horrific event of the 20th century, the Holocaust. You will find yourself privileged to become a witness for posterity to these stories of Holocaust survival. This volume of personal accounts is all the more precious because of how few children survived. In Nazi-occupied Europe, 93% of Jewish children were murdered. Every surviving child needed a helping hand, a kind adult (or many), in order to make it. Heroism comes in many guises. It may require faith, morality, modesty, love, respect, and sacrifice. Whatever the personal ingredients, relatively few stepped forward. What did the children themselves contribute? Their silence, co-operation, intuition, facility with languages, suppression of grief and tears, delay of mourning enormous losses, the will to live. Astonishing. A child one day – an adult the next. There could not be even one mistake. The penalty for any failure of judgment meant death. The reader should note that these traumatized children did not become killers or thieves. They struggled to become good citizens, raise families, and contribute to their communities. If survival itself was a miracle, so was surviving survival. Each one of the stories offers an opportunity to learn from a child’s experiences with prejudicial hatred and pure evil, about personal fortitude and resilience, about rare individuals who helped children in need, and about courage – the courage of the survivor to share his or her story. The reader will be well rewarded.

476 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book after viewing the Museum of Tolerance in LA. I have always been interested in Holocaust and Holocaust survivors as I am "awe" that they are able, not only, to triumph but to continue on with life with such a positive outlook on humanity.

The book itself are short stories of individual lives of children that survived. Many of the stories read the same but all had an impact on the reader. Some were able to hide for the duration of the Nazi rule. Some were able to hide a short time, than fled the country. Some were able to hide a short time and than found. Many of them lost their parents, aunts, uncles, cousins...every single one of them. Some witnessed their loved ones being shot in cold blood. Some of them were given up by their parents, in hopes of having a better life and being able to make it if they were not with their Jewish parents.

ALL of them were forced from their everyday lives. Most of them had to pretend they were not Jewish and go to a Catholic school.

ALL of them had a lasting impression on me. I do not understand the proproganda that was used against the Jewish people. I do not understand the need, aside from the fact that many of them were rightfully successful!! Being successful is always a threat to someone else.

In the end, as much of a horror story the occupied Nazi Germany was, and the Holocaust. The only way to have tolerance is to remind people of the inhumane treatment of others and let us not forget!!! The further away we are from history, the more we will forget.

To the Child Survivors of the Holocaust...thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate it!

[Elizabeth M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

[Clarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read