Holocaust Accounts

" It was late at night that we arrived at Auschwitz. When we came in, the minute the gates opened up, we heard screams, barking of dogs, blows from...from those Kapos, those officials working for them, over the head. And then we got out of the train. And everything went so fast: left, right, right, left. Men separated from women. Children torn from the arms of mothers. The elderly chased like cattle. The sick, the disabled were handled like packs of garbage. They were thrown in a side together with broken suitcases, with boxes. My mother ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and she told me "Leibele, I'm not going to see you no more. Take care of your brother."

--Leo Schneiderman
Born 1921

"I was deported to the Sobibor death camp in the summer of 1942. In October 1943 a small group of prisoners revolted. I stabbed our overseer to death. With each jab I cried, "This is for my father, for my mother, for all the Jews you killed."

--Chaim Engel
Born 1916

Evidence: photos

Auschwitz

Current Photo of Auschwitz

 

 

memorial at Auschwitz

It's Real

Although there are not many who deny that the Holocaust happened, there are a few ignorant people who do choose to say it never happened. Maybe this helps them cope with the fact that such an atrocity occurred, or possibly they are just ignorant. Whatever the reason people must understand that what happened it very real, and to deny the events that occurred seems to me to be a slap in the face of not just the victims and survivors of the holocaust but the descendants of the survivors and victims as well as the entire Jewish population. Even though it  is such a grim and deplorable line of events it's a part of the history and struggle that they had to go through. It's like saying that African Americans didn't have to struggle for equality in America. It's like erasing history which we can't do. 

Germans can't and shouldn't deny what happened and Jewish people shouldn't be ashamed of what happened, because it is history and we can't change it we can only learn from the mistakes and try and prevent it by teaching tolerance, and keeping the lesson of the Holocaust alive; in other words we must never forget the events that took place so we can learn from the experience.