Survivor Stories
Peter M.
Photo on left: Peter M., age 7, at his home in Holland, early 1942.
Later that same year the Nazis seized Peter's entire family except for Peter and his mother. With the help of the Dutch Underground, Peter and his mother survived the war in hiding. Photo on right: Peter M., Seattle, 2007.
~ ~ ~
Peter M. was born in Amsterdam in 1935. In 1942, when Peter was 7 years old, the Nazis seized his entire family, except for Pete and his mother. Peter’s mother contacted the Dutch Underground for help. (The “Underground” refers to an organized group acting in secrecy to oppose the government or during war, to resist occupying enemy forces. USHMM.) The Underground found Klaas and Roefina Post who agreed to shelter Pete and his mother on their small farm in northern Holland, putting their own lives at risk.
From June of 1942 until March of 1945, Peter and his mother were in hiding. The two lived in hiding for two years with Klaas and Roefina Post on their farm in Makkinga, Holland. After leaving the Posts, Peter and his mother lived with two women for six to eight months in an apartment in The Hague. Peter and his mother were the only survivors of his family. The following is Peter’s account of living with the Posts, the two women, and his feelings regarding his rescuers
The Posts treated us like family. My mother and I ate all of our meals with Klaas and Roefina and were also given chores to do around the farm. I remember helping him milk the cows and feed the chickens. Klaas was like a father to me, as I was without my father by then. He bounced me on his knee and I loved very much being his helper. I knew, even as a child, something was going on around me and it was not good. Besides doing some chores, we spent most of our days inside a barn, trying not to be seen. I could only play outside at night for a little bit, but only in an area where no one would be able to see me.
My mother and I slept together in a bed that was inside a closet. I remember lying in that bed trembling in fear at times. In the same room, Klaas had created a hiding place in the floor that we could hide in when Germans came to search the house. There was a handle on the inside of the floor boards so Mom could hold on to the handle making it difficult to be opened from the top.
The searches became so frequent that we could no longer stay in the Post's house. Klaas went out and dug a little cave in the side of a hill in the forest next to the farm for us to hide in. It was about ten feet deep and just wide enough for my mother and I lie in snuggly. There was an overhang of branches that we could pull in front of us to keep us hidden.
When there was word of a search, my mother and I would run out into the forest and hide in the cave. Sometimes, it seemed like we were in there forever.
After a while, it was unsafe for us to be there because we were putting Klaas and Roefina at risk. I was very sad that I had to leave the farm as it had given me a sense of being a family again.
We were directed to an apartment in The Hague (by the Dutch Underground) where we lived with two women. By this time, it was 1944 and I was nine years old. The women made my mother do chores. I remember thinking we were being treated like dogs. My mother had to clean and scrub the apartment but at least we were given shelter. I never felt attached to these women and remember a lot less about my time living with them than with the Posts. It was a very cold experience for me. After living with them for about six to eight months, we found out that the women were going to turn us in so we left. We had come so far already…
In 1992, I went back to Amsterdam. I wanted to try to find the Posts and the little farm we stayed on. I couldn’t even remember the name of the little town where the farm was but I was determined. I went to the library, looked at a map of Holland and found the name of a town called Makkinga that sounded familiar. With only this name, we set out and found the farm, which no longer belonged to the Posts. We even found the cave that my mother and I hid in. I couldn’t believe it was still intact. It was an unbelievably emotional experience for me to see the farm, cave, and relive those times.
Since that visit, I could not put the Posts out of my mind. I finally managed to trace down the Post’s two daughters. They remembered my mother and me, and sent photos of their parents as I requested. Both Klaas and Roefina had died at least 10 years ago. I have a very difficult time dealing with not having gone back sooner to hug and thank them for saving our lives. I will always have to live with this regret.
I am still in contact with one of the Post’s daughters and after a two-year plight, Klaas and Roefina Post are recognized by Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Israel) as Righteous Among the Nations.* The Posts' daughters and their family members attended a special ceremony in Rotterdam and received their parents’/grandparents’ award and medal. Klaas and Roefina Post are also listed as rescuers on a plaque in Israel.
I once asked the Posts' daughter why she thinks her parents did what they did for us. She responded saying that her dad never gave it a second thought, and that he felt like it was the right thing to do.
I truly believed that my mother and I belonged to the fortunate ones who survived World War II because of the goodness of the Klaas and Roefina Post. I will forever be in debt to them for what they did for my mother and me.
They saved our lives.
Peter M. is an active member of the Holocaust Center for Humanity’s Speakers Bureau.
* Since 1963, a commission, headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice has been charged with the duty of awarding the title "Righteous among the Nations." When the data on hand clearly demonstrates that a non-Jewish person risked his (or her) life, freedom, and safety in order to rescue one or several Jews from the threat of death or deportation to death camps without exacting in advance monetary compensation, this qualifies the rescuer for serious consideration to be awarded the "Righteous Among the Nations" title. The recognized person is awarded a specially minted medal bearing his/her name, a certificate of honor, and the privilege of his/her name being added to those on the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
To date, over 18,000 men and women have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.
More on Peter:
Survivor Encyclopedia - Video clips and photos of Peter
Biography Booklet - Peter Metzelaar (student handout)
Magda S. and her son, Jack S.
Photo on right: Magda in 1947 at Feldafing, a displaced persons camp in Germany.
~ ~ ~
Magda S. was born to a loving family in 1922 in Gyor, Hungary. Following the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, the Nazis began systematically depriving Jews of their rights and forcing them into ghettos. They forced Magda and her family to leave their home and deported Magda, her brother, and mother to Auschwitz.
Through the window of the cattle car, Magda saw her father desperately trying to give them a package filled with food and essentials. The SS guards treated him brutally, but took the package and told him they would give it to his family. Instead, the SS guards kept it for themselves. Magda's father was held for forced labor in the coal mines, and the Nazis eventually transported him to the Buchenwald slave labor camp in Germany. Magda's sister avoided deportation thanks to one of the protective papers from the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, later declared a Righteous Among the Nations.
After riding for days in the fetid cattle car, Magda arrived in Auschwitz, only to be separated from her brother, 15, and her mother, 56. The Nazis forced Magda to processing where they tattooed a number on her arm.
At the end of June 1944, Magda was sent to the infamous slave-labor camp Plaszow (near Krakow). At the end of August, she was sent to Augsburg, Germany, to work as a slave laborer in a factory. She and other workers looked out a window and saw the first snow beginning to fall. In a chain reaction, one worker began crying, then another, until everyone was in tears and wondering what was happening to their families and loved ones. Were they out in the snow without any protection? Were they even alive?
At Mühldorf, (another slave labor camp) in April 1945, Magda met the man she would eventually marry: Mr. Izak S., a Sephardic native of Salonika, Greece. Their stay at Mühldorf was brief. The Nazis loaded them onto a cattle wagon with other survivors to be transported to an unknown spot to be murdered, but Allied troops liberated them along the way.
“When we heard about groups that denied the Holocaust, we decided that we had to speak out,” Magda said. “If you hear somebody deny the Holocaust, you can say, ‘I have seen and heard a survivor.’”
Magda was a beloved and active member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau. Today Magda's son, Jack, shares his mother's story.
More about Magda:
Survivor Encyclopedia - Video clips and photos of Magda
Biography Booklet - Magda Schaloum (student handout)
Henry F.
Photo on left: Henry F., age 17, in the town of Gliwice, Silesia, 1945 - approximately one year after he was liberated.
Photo on right: Henry F. with his wife Sandra in 2006 in Seattle.
Henry Friedman was born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Brody, Poland . Ten years later a classmate told him, “Wait until Hitler comes. He’ll take care of you!” In 1939 when the Russians occupied Brody and his family lost its business and many of their private possessions. After the Nazis invaded Brody in 1941 they swiftly deprived Jews of their basic rights. They forbade Jews to attend school or teach and forced them to wear armbands bearing the Star of David. The police once caught Mr. Friedman’s mother without her armband and beat her so badly she could not raise her arms for a month.
One day in February 1942, a young Ukrainian woman, Julia Symchuck, ran to the Friedmans' house and warned Henry's father that the Gestapo was coming for him. Mr. Friedman’s father was thus able to flee in time. Jews not forewarned were sent to camps to be put to work or murdered. These round-ups, called “aktions”, sent 4,500 Jews to the Belzec death camp and were the prelude to the final order in the fall of 1942: the remaining 6,500 Jews in the area were to move into a small ghetto in Brody. In October, 1942, the Friedmans themselves were ordered to move into the ghetto. As a result, they went into hiding in the village of Suchowola where two different Ukranian families helped them. Mr. Friedman, his younger brother, mother and their female teacher went to a barn owned by Julia Symchuck's parents and moved into a tiny space about the size of a queen-size bed. Mr. Friedman’s father went to a separate hiding place, half a mile from the Symchucks’ barn that belonged to an old acquaintance. From May to June, 1943, they learned that the Nazis were liquefying the ghetto in Brody. Most of the Jews in the ghetto were sent directly to Majdanek death camp.
For eighteen months, the Friedmans remained in hiding, freezing cold and slowly starving as food became scarce. Finally, in March, 1944 the Russians liberated Suchowola and the Friedmans.
Later, Julia Symchuck was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and was reunited with Mr. Friedman in Seattle in 1989.
The excerpt below is from The Seattle Times, July 14, 1989:
A tearful 'thanks' that waited 47 years
Julia Symchuk tried to keep a stern expression when she saw Henry Friedman, the Seattle man her family had once sheltered from the Nazis.
But when the Ukrainian woman who had flown here saw him, his wife, children, and grandchildren, she burst into tears, fell into Friedman’s embrace, and buried her head in his shoulder.
The two were reunited at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last night. Friedman had seen Symchuk last year for just a few hours in her village in the Ukraine and had arranged for her to visit the United States."I am so excited that she is coming here to see my family; I’m just flying," Friedman said before she arrived. Forty-seven years ago, the 17-year-old Symchuk worked as a maid for the conquering Germans in the Ukraine. One day, as she was sweeping the police station, she overheard Gestapo plans to arrest Friedman’s father.
"She ran from the station and to our farm and warned my father," Friedman, 60, said. "She would have been killed if anyone found out." Symchuk, who spoke Russian to an interpreter, said her mother and Friedman’s mother decided the Symchuk family would hide the Friedmans. And they did.
For 17 long and frightening months the Friedman family hid in the Symchuk’s small house. Symchuk’s mother slipped what little food she could to the Friedmans.
Even when the Germans carted Julia and her brother off to a work camp – the camp where Julia’s brother was to die – the Symchuks stayed silent. "It was very hard for us, and it was very scary," Symchuk recalled. Of the 15,000 Jews who lived in the area in 1940, only 100 were left alive after 1944.
"It was the most horrible kind of slaughter," Friedman said. The Friedmans and the Symchuks had been acquainted for some time. They lived near each other in the small village of Suchowola. Hiding Jews, however, was never a popular cause.
"There was a lot of anti-Semitism there," Friedman recalled. "It didn’t affect them, and it saved our lives."
The anti-Semitism was so strong that the Friedman family waited 47 years to thank Symchuk. Friedman’s father, afraid that the Symchuks might be harmed by lingering anti-Semitic resentment, died without revealing the name of the family.
When Henry Friedman returned to his village last year, he remembered only the first names of the people who hid his family and followed a mental map drawn when he was a boy almost 50 years ago to the small village where he remembered being hidden. There he found Julia Symchuk.
"I knew who she was right away, and there was just an incredible feeling in my heart," Friedman said. Sitting at the airport last night, with his grandson on his left knee and his right arm around the diminutive Symchuk, Friedman smiled broadly and praised the Symchuk clan. "A heart of gold," he said. "They just had a heart of gold."
More on Henry:
Survivor Encyclopedia - Video clips and photos of Henry
I’m No Hero: Journeys of a Holocaust Survivor - Memoir by Henry Friedman
Hester K.
Photo on left: Hester K., age 20, with her grandfather in New York, 1947. Hester had been in New York only about one week when this photo was taken. A Holocaust survivor from Holland, she came to the U.S. by herself to meet her grandfather. Her grandfather had come to the U.S. from Holland several years earlier.
~ ~ ~
Written by Hester K. 2002
I was 13 years old when Holland was occupied by the Germans. I lived in a small town called Zandvoort on the North Sea in Holland. I lived there with my parents, the Benedictics, Sarah Waas, and my brother Issac.
In May 1942, all the Jews had to leave the town and go on a train to Amsterdam. We had to leave everything behind. We moved in with my father’s sister who had room for us. I got a job working in a factory learning how to sew for the Germans. Shortly after, my parents and brother received a notice to report for a work camp. I didn’t get a notice to report so my parents told me to stay behind. I never saw them again.
Shortly after my parents left, I was approached by my girlfriend, Rosa Cymbalist, who, to my surprise, worked for the Resistance. She found a place where I could go into hiding. I took my yellow star off and got a new identification with a new name, Helen Waasdorp. My girlfriend was my first rescuer. She was all of 15 years old. I will always remember her courage.
I was instructed to take the train to Haarlem. It was a ride I will always remember because someone called out my name and I was afraid I was discovered. I got quickly off the train at the next stop, waited for the next train, and re-boarded. When I got to Overveen, I was to meet a man at the church who would decide if he would take me in. This man was Mr. P.C. van Westering, the local church organist. Because I did not "look" or "sound" Jewish, he accepted me. I do not remember how I got to my new home at Raamplan 54, but somehow I did. The van Westering family had three children and my duties involved taking care of them and cleaning the house. I was not allowed to leave the house. I ate alone and slept in a room in the attic. I was very lonely.
I will never fully understand why Mr. van Westering rescued me. He, too, was in danger from the Germans, and needed to go into hiding from time to time himself. What I do know is that I do not have fond memories of my time in hiding. In fact, I could not wait to leave. Many social workers were involved because he claimed he was my foster father and wanted me to stay. He said I was a part of their family. I never felt a part of their family. I only worked there and was not included in conversation or meals. I still feel bad about remembering this time because even though I am grateful for being rescued, my feelings toward him are not good.
[Even after the war ended, Mr. van Westering worked hard to prevent Hester from leaving their home.]
After much negotiation, arguments about money, and great difficulty in general, I left the van Westering home. I ran away to the home of my aunt, uncle, and cousin in Amsterdam. The thought of being caught filled me with fear. I was afraid of Mr. van Westering. Ultimately, I wanted to live with my grandfather TeKorte and the other family who escaped from Belgium and were now living in New York. There was nothing left for me in Holland. I wanted to start a new life.
I left for America in late June 1947. I came on an American cargo ship called the Madaket. There were only 13 passengers on the ship. I was sick the whole trip because the ship was so empty that it rolled around in the swells. Every night they brought a basket of oranges and apples and I couldn’t eat a thing. I stayed upstairs because if I stayed in the cabin I would get sick. I arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey in July 1947 after 10 seasick days on the Atlantic.
When I arrived, my uncle Sam TeKorte, aunt Judith, and cousin Hetty were there to greet me. We hugged and kissed and cried and were very happy to have found each other. A month after arriving, I met my husband Sam. We married the next May. I am still happily married and have three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Five years ago, I discovered the whereabouts of the van Westering family. I learned that the van Westerings divorced right after I left. Mr. van Westering married two more times and died just a year before my son contacted the family. The first Mrs.van Westering will not talk to us about that time.
More on Hester:
Survivor Encyclopedia - See video clips of Hester sharing her story
Biography Booklet - Hester Kool (sutdent handout)
Frieda S.
Photo on left: Frieda S. Taken from a 1940/41 school photo in Czechoslovakia, shown in the middle photo. Frieda is standing just to the left of the instructor in the middle of the photo. She is wearing a white shirt. Photo on right: Frieda S. in Seattle in 2008.
Why are corners of this photo cut out? Scroll to the end of Frieda's story to find out about this photo.
~ ~ ~
In 1933, the Nazi party was elected in Germany and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Hitler and the Nazi party quickly put into practice their belief that Germans were “racially superior.” Jewish people were not only defined as “inferior,” but became the primary target for Nazi hatred.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. By the end of that same year, Nazi forces occupied Czechoslovakia. For the next 5 years, Nazi forces occupied country after country in Europe.
In 1943, at the age of 14, Frieda was deported to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in her native country of Czechoslovakia, because she was a “mischling” – half Jewish. Frieda’s mother was not Jewish, but her father was. Against the odds, Frieda survived the Holocaust in Theresienstadt.
After the war people told me I was lucky to have been sent to Theresienstadt. It was the model camp. Intellectuals, artists and individuals who might someday provide something to the Reich were sent to Theresienstadt. I was sent to Theresienstadt because I was a “Mischling” (half Jewish). I didn’t feel lucky.
I didn’t know at that time that 1.5 million children were going to be murdered because they were Jewish. I also didn’t know that of the 140,000 Jewish people sent to Theresienstadt between 1941 and 1945, 15,000 were children. Only 10% of the children sent to Theresienstadt would survive the war (USHMM).
What I did know was that people around me were starved, beaten, shot and sent away on trains. I did know that I was taken from my home and my family; I was hungry all the time and made to work long hours. I know now that it is only because of luck that I survived.
My childhood before the war was filled with picnics, hikes, skating and celebrations. I grew up celebrating Passover and Christmas. I knew I was Jewish but religion was not a central part of my life. When Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, my religion came to define me.
In 1943, when I was 14, I was deported by train to Theresienstadt. My mother, who was not Jewish, didn’t have to go. My father was in a local jail for his political beliefs.
I was taken to Theresienstadt with others from my hometown, Ostrava.
I was tall and strong, so I was given the job of farming. Every day I worked planting, tilling, harvesting, and moving rocks. Sometimes I stole vegetables. I knew I would be shot if caught, but I also knew that this was keeping me and others alive. Although I witnessed daily horrors, somehow I grew-up. I had girl friends, I had my first kiss and I found ways to keep going.
Everyday the trains took people from Theresienstadt. We didn’t know where they were going but I thought it had to be a place better than this. One day although not on the list, I stood in line to get on the train. As I tried to board the train a Nazi SS officer yelled at me and told me to go back. I was so angry. Later, when I learned the trains took people to Auschwitz, I realized I was lucky – the Nazi officer saved my life.
My father and brother were deported to Theresienstadt a few months before the war ended. When the Russians liberated Theresienstadt in 1945, my father stole a horse and wagon from a nearby farm and loaded it with children from Ostrava who had survived Theresienstadt. He took us all back to our hometown. When we returned to Ostrava many of the children found they had no home or family left. They came to live with me and my family until they could find a place to go.
When I was 18 I decided to go to Israel. I met my husband Aaron in Haifa. We had three children and then immigrated to the United States. I now live in Seattle, my children are grown, and I have 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
In a lecture my daughter gave recently she said she is proud of survivors because they bear witness with dignity. I think that so many of us are humbled by the guilt that we survived, while others did not. We are reluctant to share the fact that we witnessed cruelty and inhumanity in its most unimaginable form, but we also feel lucky. For us, bearing witness with dignity is not an option - it is a continuing act of survival.
Frieda is a member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau.
Class photo
1. Look at the photo carefully. What do you notice about this photo? Why do you think some of the faces are cut out of the photo?
This is Frieda’s school photo in 1940/1941. Frieda is standing just to the left of the instructor in the middle of the photo. She is wearing a white shirt.
You might notice that all of the students and the instructor are wearing Jewish stars sewn onto their clothing. This was a Jewish school. After the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, Jewish students were no longer allowed to attend public schools.
Some of the people in the photo are cut out. After Czechoslovakia was liberated from Nazi control, Frieda found that only a couple of her former classmates survived. These survivors had nothing left – no photos of themselves, their families, or their friends. Frieda cut their pictures out of this photo to give to them.
More about Frieda:
Survivor Encyclopedia - See video clips of Frieda sharing her story
Biography Booklet - Frieda Soury (student handout)