The Holocaust Survivor

Yesterday we got to meet a Holocaust survivor. Her name was Hedy and she was 94 years old. When she went in the cattle cart to go to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, there were 90 people inside a space the size of a moving truck. They were on the cattle cart for 3 days and 3 nights. There was only one toilet for 90 people, but it wasn’t even a toilet, but just a bucket.

After we experienced standing in the replica of the cattle cart we went to see an exhibition of some artifacts. There was some real clothes that the Jews wore and there was a Nazi symbol armband thing. There was a school group looking at the exhibit too, and the teacher asked us if we wanted to join them listening to Hedy give a speech.

When we got in to listen to her speech, there was an 8th grade boy that asked “did you meet any high ranking Nazis officials?”. Hedy replied “Have you met any high ranking US government officials?”. He didn’t get what she was trying to say, and he asked the question again. But she was trying to say that it was not common to meet high ranking Nazi people when you were in the concentration camp.

There was another question “what kept you going, why didn’t you just give up and die?”. She said that in the cattle cart she was split up from her mother and father. So she was alone. What kept her going was hoping that she would see her mum again. But she never got to because she was killed.

The reason why I think she survived was because she was Hungarian. Hungary was one of the last places that the Nazi’s invaded and killed Jews. So she only had 1 year in the concentration camp until the war was over. After the war she went to Canada and learnt Jazz and photography. 

Hopefully nothing like the Holocaust and the Nazis will ever happen again. 

But it there is still war, like between Russia and Ukraine. 🥺😭😢😰😓😳😨😱