The Dead Years: Holocaust Memoirs (Holocaust Survivor Memoirs World War II)

Poignant Holocaust Survivor Story Offering a unique perspective on the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations Holocaust survivor stories need to be kept alive. Every year, survivors with unique testimonies are passing away. Soon, we will no longer be able to hear first-hand from the people who survived the Holocaust. Books and video testimonials will be the only ways to get to know their moving stories. Joseph Schupack has fulfilled a vow to those who did not survive: to write his Holocaust memoirs and offer a unique perspective on the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations. In The Dead Years, Joseph Schupack (1922- 1989) describes his life in Radzyn-Podlaski, a typical Polish shtetl from where he was transported to the concentration camps of Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Dora / Nordhausen and Bergen-Belsen during the Second World War. We witness how he struggled to remain true to his own standards of decency and being human. Considering the premeditated and systematic humiliation and brutality, it is a miracle that he survived and came to terms with his memories. The Dead Years is different from most Holocaust survivor stories. Not only is it a testimony of the 1930s in Poland and life in the Nazi concentration camps - it also serves as a witness statement. This Holocaust book contains a wealth of information, including the names of people and places, for researchers and those interested in WW2, or coming from Radzyn-Podlaski and surroundings. The book takes us through Joseph Schupack's pre-war days, his work in the underground movement, and the murder of his parents, brothers, sister and friends. The Dead Years is deeply personal and moving. We witness how people in the depths of misery shared their last morsel of food, how they were prepared for any sacrifice. There are many examples of brotherly love that grew out of empathetic pain. Finally freed, Schupack encountered rampant anti-Semitism when he tried to reclaim his possessions in Poland after the end of the war. For the Poles in his home town, the best Jews were the ones who did not return. A new, strictly anti-Semitic organization had been founded and its primary goal was the liquidation of all Jews returning from hiding or concentration camps. Decades after WWII, the author, mentally scarred by his war experiences, confronted his demons. "Like a stranded man among the stranded, like a sufferer bound to all sufferers, I stood alone in front of the shambles of my life which had stopped when I was seventeen years old and from which nothing could be salvaged or repaired." We are grateful that Schupack confided his memories to paper, so we never forget. PROCEEDS TO YAD VASHEM: Joseph Schupack wrote these memoirs in 1981, at the suggestion of his children. While cathartic, reliving these painful memories was for him a wrenching, emotional experience. The book was written as an act of remembrance and to honour the memory of his family and friends. His two sons are grateful to Liesbeth Heenk at Amsterdam Publishers for the opportunity to make their father's work available to a wider audience and wish to further the project of remembrance of the Holocaust by donating the proceeds of The Dead Years to benefit Yad Vashem's causes, to take effect from 1 July 2017. Outcry - Holocaust Memoirs, a profoundly moving autobiography Manny Steinberg spent his teens in Nazi extermination camps in Germany and Poland, miraculously surviving while millions perished. This is his story. Born in 1925 in the Jewish ghetto in Radom (Poland), Manny soon realized that people of Jewish faith were increasingly being regarded as outsiders. When the Nazis invaded in September 1939 the nightmare started. The city's Jewish population had no chance of escaping and was faced with starvation, torture, sexual abuse and ultimately deportation. Outcry is the candid and moving account of a teenager who survived four Nazi camps: Dachau, Auschwitz, Vaihingen and Neckagerach. While being subjected to torture and degradation, he agonized over two haunting questions: Why the Jews? and How can the world let this happen? These questions remain hard to answer. Manny's brother Stanley had jumped off the cattle wagon on the way to the extermination camp where his mother and younger brother were to perish. Desperately lonely and hungry, Stanley stood outside the compound hoping to catch a glimpse of Manny and their father. Once he discovered that they were among the prisoners, he turned himself in. The days were marked by hunger, cold, hard labor, and fear. Knowing that other members of the family were in the same camp kept them alive. Since acknowledging each other would have meant death, they pretended to be complete strangers. Manny relates how he was served human flesh and was forced to shave the heads of female corpses and pull out their teeth. Cherishing a picture of his beloved mother in his wooden shoe, he miraculously survived the terror of the Polish and German concentration camps together with his father and brother. When the Americans arrived in April 1945, Manny was little more than a living skeleton, with several broken ribs and suffering from a serious lung condition, wearing only a dirty, ragged blanket. This autobiography was written to fulfill a promise Manny made to himself during his first days of freedom. By publishing these Holocaust memoirs, the author wants to ensure that the world never forgets what happened during WWII. The narrative is personal, unencumbered and direct. Outcry touches the reader with its directness and simplicity. The story is told through the eyes of an old man forcing himself to relive years of intense suffering. It is an account of human cruelty, but also a testimony to the power of love and hope. Memoirs worthy of being adapted for the big screen. I read this book with a very heavy heart and tears running down my face. For Manny's endurance and his brother Stanley to be so tested is truly a testament to life! Very well written as it goes straight to the reader's heart! Manny Steinberg shares his extraordinary teenage story of surviving four concentration camps in an account noteworthy for its straightforward, unencumbered narrative. His is a story almost everyone can imagine happening to themselves - no less harrowing than more dramatic renditions of Holocaust survival, but somehow more compelling, and universal, for the unembellished simplicity of his style. Manny's story is told so well and his perseverance is so strong that you are uplifted and reminded of the strength of the human spirit "A story of resilience, A Candle and a Promise makes the Holocaust memories of survivor Hank Brodt come alive. It offers a detailed historical account of being a Jewish teenager under the Nazi regime, shedding light on sickening truths in an honest, matter-of-fact way. Hank Brodt (b. 1925) lived through one of the darkest periods of human history and survived the devastation of World War II. Born into a poor family in Boryslaw (Poland), he was placed in a Jewish orphanage. Losing his whole family when the Germans invaded Poland, he waged a daily battle to survive. Moving from forced labor camps to concentration camps, one of which features in Schindler's List, his world behind the barbed wire consisted of quiet resistance, invisible tears and silent cries for years on end. This story of survival includes rare photographs from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that powerfully illustrate these intimate and shocking memoirs. One recently discovered picture shows Hank Brodt in prison uniform removing the dead on carts at the liberated Ebensee concentration camp on May 7, 1945. It is hard to believe that someone who endured such horrific events could go on to live a life of gratitude. Through his unwavering compassion towards others, Hank Brodt managed to keep his humanity and find a way to move forward. After the Second World War, Hank Brodt testified at the trial of Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth in Dachau, Germany. He has joined the March of the Living since 2006, walking from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom Hashoah to pay tribute to the millions that died. Lighting the candle, he made a promise to himself to always answer the call to talk. Hank Brodt's Holocaust memoirs are a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest times in the history of human civilization."-- Amazon "A monument to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. In these compelling, award-winning, Holocaust memoirs, Nanette Blitz Konig relates her amazing story of survival during the Second World War when she, together with her family and millions of other Jews, was imprisoned by the Nazis with a minimum chance of survival. Nanette (b. 1929) was a class mate of Anne Frank in the Jewish Lyceum of Amsterdam. They met again in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly before Anne died. During these emotional encounters, Anne Frank told her how the Frank family hid in the annex, talked about their deportation, her experience in Auschwitz and about her plans for her diary after the war. This honest WW2 story describes the hourly battle for survival under the brutal conditions in the camp imposed by the Nazi regime. It continues with her struggle to recover from the effects of starvation and tuberculosis after the war, and how she was gradually able to restart her life, marry and build a family. Nanette Blitz Konig, mother of three, grandmother of six and great grand mother of four, lives in São Paulo, Brazil. Her Holocaust memoirs were written to speak in the name of those millions who were silenced forever. "--Page four of cover A Jewish teenager. Four concentration camps. His family and home lost forever. This is his unforgettable story of survival. When the Nazis entered Poland in September 1939, Joseph lost his entire family and his Hevra. They were murdered because they were Jewish. At the young age of seventeen he had to learn how to survive, all on his own. There was no escape possible. Joseph was transported to the worst places conceivable, first Majdanek, then Auschwitz, Dora and Bergen-Belsen. In these camps he experienced desperation, illness, starvation and unimaginable brutality. Yet, Joseph survived - against all odds. Was it cunningness, determination or just luck? Upon his return to Poland to reclaim possessions, he encountered the same fierce antisemitism. Mentally scarred, Joseph confronted his traumatic wartime memories in the form of this testimony, thereby fulfilling an obligation to the six million who lost their lives. The Dead Years is a deeply personal, poignant and devasting read. Schupack accounts in exceptional detail the harrowing events of WW2. Its an important memoir from a young mans experience of a history that should never be forgotten. The Mission of Abb Glasberg is the fascinating story of a priest - of Jewish origins - who dedicated himself to the task of helping the refugees who were streaming into France during the years preceding World War II. Together with Father Chaillet, Alexandre Glasberg created the ecumenical Amiti Chrtienne in May 1942 with the full support of Cardinal Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon. In a joint effort, they managed to retrieve hundreds of Jewish children from French-run concentration camps and disperse them among religious houses and private homes. They refused to give them up even when the government of Vichy placed Chaillet under house arrest in a psychiatric hospital for three months. They disregarded the orders of Alexandre Angeli, the regional prefect of Lyon, who was a Nazi collaborator. Angeli was condemned to a death penalty immediately after the war, later commuted to a sentence of four year-imprisonment. Abb Glasberg later joined the French underground. After the war, Abb Glasberg assisted the Mossad in their attempt to transport many of the war survivors to the land of Israel. During the dark days of the Holocaust, a Jewish family struggles to survive. When her son was born, Tammy Bottner experienced flashbacks of being hunted by the Nazis. The strange thing is, these experiences didn?t happen to her. They happened to her grandmother decades earlier and thousands of miles away. Back in Belgium, Grandma Melly made unthinkable choices in order to save her family during WWII, including sending her two-year-old son, Bottner?s father, into hiding in a lonely Belgian convent. Did the trauma that Tammy Bottner?s predecessors experience affect their DNA? Did she inherit the?memories? of the war-time trauma in her very genes? In this moving family memoir, told partly from Melly?s perspective, the author, a physician, recounts the saga of her family?s experiences during the Holocaust. This tale, part history, part scientific reflection on epigenetics, takes the reader on a journey that may read like a novel, but is all the more fascinating for being true Deep in the Veluwe woods lies Berkenhout, a purpose-built village of huts sheltering dozens of persecuted people. But the Germans can find no proof of its existence. The whole community pulls together to help the Berkenhout inhabitants adjust to a difficult new life and, above all, stay safe. Young tearaway Jan likes to help, but he also enjoys roaming the woods looking for adventure and fallen pilots. His dream comes true until he is found out. Henk is in charge of building the underground huts and organizing provisions to Berkenhout, but his contact with the Germans arouses suspicions. Who can you trust? All it takes is one small fatal slip to change the course of all their lives forever In these award-winning Holocaust memoirs, Nanette Blitz Konig (b. Amsterdam 1929) relates her amazing story of survival during WWII when she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Bergen-Belsen with a minimum chance of survival Memoirs of a Jew born in Radom in 1925. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism)