Lchayim A Holocaust Survivors American Journey

After being asked so many times by readers and listeners alike about what happened next, I decided to start at my arrival in the US at age 15 and reveal my story to the present day, as I approach my 82nd birthday. The exciting journey of a young Holocaust and WWII survivor in this land of milk and honey is a vibrant testimony to an indomitable human spirit, incorrigible optimism, and tremendous good fortune. Only in America could I have made such a life for myself and my loved ones not anywhere else.

Margit lived but did not tell her story. How a fourteen-year-old German girl in Frankfurt am Main was picked up by the Gestapo in 1944, endured and survived the horrors of the Holocaust, rescued herself, and went on to lead a seemingly perfect life in the United States, was a story she left to her daughter, the author, to discover. This unique account is unembellished beyond ascertainable facts but as riveting as any Holocaust novel. Margit's several cards and letters written from the detention center and the concentration camp are heartrending but reveal an inner strength that carried her through the ordeal. The backstory of how Angie Osborne, motivated by her faith and grandchildren, traveled to Europe to uncover her mother's story from only a few fragments nearly twenty years after Margit's death is awe inspiring. This story will resonate with anyone intrigued by personal stories of World War II, students of that history, especially adolescents, and is a lesson of the price innocents pay in a world ruled by ethnic and racial division. Includes photos, maps, and numerous documents from Margit's personal history. Three appendices.

Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. From work camps to the partisans of the Nowogródek forests, from the Mauthausen concentration camp to life as a displaced person in Italy, and from fighting the Egyptian army in a tiny Israeli kibbutz in 1948 to starting a new life in a new world in New York, this book encompasses the mythical “hero’s journey” in very real historical events. Through the eyes of ninety-one-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.

Quest for Eternal Sunshine chronicles the triumphant, true story of Mendek Rubin, a brilliant inventor who overcame both the trauma of the Holocaust and decades of unrelenting depression to live a life of deep peace and boundless joy. Born into a Hassidic Jewish family in Poland in 1924, Mendek grew up surrounded by extreme anti-Semitism. Armed with an ingenious mind, he survived three horrific years in Nazi slave-labor concentration camps while virtually his entire family was murdered in Auschwitz. After arriving in America in 1946—despite having no money or professional skills—his inventions helped revolutionize both the jewelry and packaged-salad industries. Remarkably, Mendek also applied his ingenuity to his own psyche, developing innovative ways to heal his heart and end his emotional suffering. After Mendek died in 2012, his daughter, Myra Goodman, found an unfinished manuscript in which he’d revealed the intimate details of his healing journey. Quest for Eternal Sunshine—the extraordinary result of a posthumous father-daughter collaboration—tells Mendek’s whole story and is filled with eye-opening revelations, effective self-healing techniques, and profound wisdom that have the power to transform the way we live our lives. An inspirational biography of a Holocaust survivor overcoming depression and PTSD. An essential new addition to Jewish Holocaust history.

With a foreword by Alan Gratz, New York Times bestselling author of Refugee. Ruth Gruener was a hidden child during the Holocaust. At the end of the war, she and her parents were overjoyed to be free. But their struggles as displaced people had just begun.In war-ravaged Europe, they waited for paperwork for a chance to come to America. Once they arrived in Brooklyn, they began to build a new life, but spoke little English. Ruth started at a new school and tried to make friends -- but continued to fight nightmares and flashbacks of her time during World War II.The family's perseverance is a classic story of the American dream, but also illustrates the difficulties that millions of immigrants face in the aftermath of trauma.This is a gripping and human account of a survivor's journey forward with timely connections to refugee and immigrant experiences worldwide today.

This is the touching and inspirational story of Sala Lewis, who at age ten was left alone to wander the streets of Poland after her family was taken away by the Nazis.Sala had been out with her friends and came home to find her family gone and the apartment where she lived sealed off. Everything she possessed was no longer hers. She had no family, no clothes, no food, and at that moment in time, no future.Sala was strong willed. It was easy to see that, even though she was young, Sala would not get lost in the world. She wouldn't give up and she wouldn't allow herself to be afraid. Her uncompromising determination led her to find the camp where her sister, Dora, was being kept. Once the sisters were together, nothing could stop them.Their love and commitment to each other continued to be beyond reproach throughout their time together. They believed in the American dream and the land of opportunity. The proudest day of their lives was when they became United States citizens. They were more than survivors now, they were Americans!

Ten Dollars in My Pocket is both an American success story and a description of the painful maturation process of a belated teenager trying to discover who and where she is, and who is at least once on the verge of suicide. This account is unique because of the authenticity of its narrative voice: we read diary entries and letters written during those years, as well as several eyewitness accounts published by the author at that time. This kaleidoscope of factual information is complemented by the author's recollections and reflections.

A fascinating memoir about a Holocaust survivor's loss of and journey back to faith. In 1939, Baruch Goldstein was a religiously observant adolescent resident of the Jewish community in Mlawa, a town that was then in East Prussia. After war broke out, the Jewish community there was relatively sheltered, as that region was incorporated into the German Reich rather than into the General Government (the German run-fragment of pre-war Poland, where conditions were harsh for everyone). However in 1942, Goldstein was sent to Auschwitz, where he stayed two-and-a-half years. His family was scattered all to their deaths, but he survived the war--barely. For Decades I Was Silent is an account of life in a small Polish-German town and provides information on the religious life of the Jewish citizens. This book creates a direct sense of the random, mystifying personal violence individuals felt at the hands of Germans--not the anonymous industrial death machine, but immediate, face-to-face violence. After the war, Goldstein drifted as a refugee to UNRR camps in Italy. Over time, young Goldstein had to face the fact that all of his extended family was lost and he had only the possibilities of Palestine or help from distant relatives in the United States as a future. His American relatives urged him to enter the United States as a yeshiva student, and eventually he became a rabbi and started a family. As a young rabbinical student, and then as a rabbi, Goldstein was forced to confront the events of the Holocaust and the damage done to his faith.

Daniel, whose family suffers as the Nazis rise to power in Germany, describes his imprisonment in a concentration camp and his eventual liberation.