The presenters below are children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, each carrying forward a story passed down through their family. Their histories span a wide range of experiences — from hidden children and camp survivors to those who survived the Holocaust by bullets, and others alive today because of the kindness and courage of rescuers. Browse the list, choose the presenter whose family’s story you'd like to hear, and sign up for a free presentation for your class, school or organization.
Aileen Frydrych (nee Rabinowicz) was born in 1931 in Crevitz, a small town in Poland near Vilna. She fled the town ghetto for the Soviet Union with her mother, Ester, just hours before the ghetto was bombed in 1942. Aileen and her mother were unable to make it to the Soviet Union and hid in a forest for two years.
Born in 1928, in the small Hungarian town of Balasagyarmat, Andrew delighted in watching Sunday football matches with his father and biking around town on his red racer, until his father was taken to labour camps, until the police confiscated bikes and radios belonging to Jewish people, before he had to wear a yellow star and live in the ghetto.
Morris Devon was born in Wodzislaw Poland in 1929. His father sent him to hide in a small underground bunker on a farm, with his aunt, uncle and cousin where he remained for two and half years until liberation in 1945. His father, mother, sister, grandmother and most of his extended family were murdered.
Nate was born February 28, 1928 in Chorzow, Poland. When the Germans invaded Poland, he was sent to the Sosnowiec Ghetto. Then, in July, 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz- Birkenau and subsequently transferred to Fünfteichen, GrossRosen, Flossenberg and Dachau Concentration Camps.
Bill Glied was deported to Auschwitz- Birkenau from his home in Yugoslavia in May, 1944. His mother, sister and grandparents were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival. He and his father were transferred as slave labourers to Dachau Concentration camp where his father died just 9 days before liberation.
Myrna Sandler was born on December 17, 1927 in Lutsk, Poland. She lived there with her brother, Ben Gerstein, and their parents, Shea and Bayla. When the Nazis invaded Eastern Poland in 1941, they were forced out of their home into the city ghetto.
Rose Mandelbaum ( née Cebiski) was born in the bustling Jewish centre of Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. In July 1941, soon after the German invasion, Rose and her family along with the rest of Kovno’s 35,000 Jews, would be forced into a ghetto, where they lived in squalor and were subjected to harsh working conditions and regular beatings by Nazi guards.
Adam was born in 1924 in Kraków, Poland. After the Nazis invaded, he and his family fled to a nearby smaller town. Adam and his brother were separated from their parents and sent to various work camps. They escaped and soon found themselves in the Kraków Ghetto.
Jack Borenstein was born in 1924 in Ostroweic, Poland. In 1942, the Nazis rounded up eleven thousand Jews from the town, and they were murdered in Treblinka. Jack was spared as his father had arranged for a permit for Jack to work in the town’s steel factory. Jack lived and worked in the steel factory until 1944.
Rose Lipszyc was born Roza Handelsman in May, 1929 in the Old Jewish District of the city of Lublin, Poland. After being dispossessed of their home with the advent of war, her two brothers, mother and father fled to the countryside and were ultimately deported from the Belzyce marketplace in October, 1942.
Oscar Zaretsky survived the Holocaust by Bullets in eastern Poland. He and his siblings were orphaned when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, and they were forced to spend many months alone in the forests, perilously clinging to life.