Shoah Stories
Explore stories and accounts of family histories and memories of the Shoah from BJ members, as told during Eleh Ezkerah on Yom Kippur over the years.
The Shoah and My Family
My parents, Hania Sternlicht and Avrum Kurz, married on March 21, 1939, after a courtship that began in their teens. Six months later, my mother ...
From Rovne, Against All Odds
I grew up in a family of survivors, in a community of survivors in Brooklyn. While I’m lucky to still have my parents and my ...
Judah Nadich
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- By Shira Nadich Levin and James L. Levin
Today, Jimmy and I have the privilege of talking about the role that my father, Judah Nadich, zichrono livracha—or rather our father, since Jimmy’s relationship ...
Growing Up With a Shadow
A month ago, I got a call from BJ asking whether I would speak about what it means to be the child of Holocaust survivors. ...
Hiding Time
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- By Susan Thal
One day, when my mother was 11, her father did not come home from work. He had been arrested and detained for being a Jew. ...
Surviving the Vilna Ghetto
The Dimentstein family resided in Florence for eight months while awaiting their U.S. visa. Chanka and Pinya were married in Venice in one of the ...
One Family’s Voyage on the St. Louis
When my parents, Freya and Ludwig Maier, returned from their honeymoon in early February 1933, Hitler had been chancellor of Germany for just a few ...
Perseverance, Strength, Hope, and Faith: The Survival of George & Julia Nelson and Ethel Greengold
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- By Les Nelson
My mother was able to fully appreciate and celebrate the many good things in her life: the birth of two sons; their marriages to exceptional ...
My Father’s Escape From Warsaw
The few photos I have reveal a sharply dressed couple standing or sitting close together, my grandmother, Rosa, smiling warmly at the camera, and my ...
Frida’s Gift
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- By Madeline Cohen and Elizabeth Cohen
I am telling you about Frida on this Yom Kippur, a day primarily dedicated to seeking repentance and forgiveness. But it is also a day ...
Lost Worlds Found: Recovering Our Family History
I am overjoyed that for my sons, silence will be transcended by memory. Meeting these individuals was truly improbable and miraculous; the moments spent in ...
How an Artist and His Family Survived the Holocaust
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- By Anne Millman
These pieces of the puzzle enabled me to patch together a reasonable narrative. As the truth slowly emerged, I couldn’t help but wonder why it ...
Saved in Hiding
In 1976, I met Madame Nana Ruyts, by then widowed from Oscar Ruyts, who had taken in my parents, Mendel and Leah, and hidden them ...
What Does It Mean To Be a Child of Holocaust Survivors?
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- By Avi Ashman
Poland is a beautiful country, but I will go there only once more—to visit with my family the same places that I visited with my ...
Childhood Memories of Survival from Prague
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- By Tom Reiner
It is 1936; I am 5 years old. We live in Prague. I have just started collecting stamps and get great pleasure in knowing how ...
The Sun on Paneiru Street
We had just about the same amount of space in Jerusalem as I had had in the ghetto. We lived through another war. But this ...
My Family’s Story: Kovno, Lithuania 1941-1945
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- By Asya Berger
This is a story about me, my parents, and the family that rescued me, and the circumstances in Lithuania when I was a baby. It ...
Yom Kippur Memorial: A Prayer of Thanks to the Generation of the Holocaust
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- By Ron Taffel
Like snowflakes swirling past each other on a winter’s wind, my parents and my children never touched. Their descent into the Holocaust and their slow ...