Survivors of the Holocaust
Their Stories
Event Information
Start of World War II
When?
Friday, Sep 1, 1939, 12:00 AM
Where?
Poland
Jeannine Burk
From the ages of three to five, Jeannine Burk was taken by her father to live with a woman in Belgium during World War II. Since she was Jewish, she was forced to hide in the woman's house until the end of the war. She was allowed to play in the backyard once in a while, but never the front. For those two years Jeannine felt unloved and deprived of a childhood. After the war, her mother came to get her and her sister, who was living at a Catholic hospital. Jeannine's brother later found them, as well. She also found out that her father had been a gas chamber victim at Auschwitz during the war. This was extremely devastating to Jeannine. (1)
Lucille Eichengreen
In 1941 at the age of sixteen, Lucille was forced out of her home in Hamburg, Germany to the Lodz Ghetto in Poland with her mother and sister. After living in the ghetto for over three years, Lucille was then taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Only staying for a few weeks, she was then transferred to Dessauer Ufer where she worked, and finally to Bergen-Belsen where she and the other prisoners were liberated in 1945. (2)
William Lowenberg
'Bill' Lowenberg was the only person that survived the Holocaust out of his family. In 1936 he and his family fled from Germany to Holland where they remained until 1942, when he was sent to Auschwitz alone and the rest of his family was sent to Westerbork where they were all killed. After being sent to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, he was forced to be a slave by destroying buildings and searching/burning bodies. Then he was sent to Dachau and Kauffering before finally being liberated in 1945. (3)
George Vine
While his father was attending school in Germany in 1939, the war began. After the Nazi's had taken over the small Polish town they were living in, they were sent to Nowe Miasto: a ghetto. The family lived in a house with five other families where typhoid eventually took the lives of half of the people living in the house. George did come down with the horrible disease, but recovered. After this, they were transferred to another town called Plonsk. Later he was put on a train and sent to Auschwitz where the number 77522 was tattooed on him. Almost giving up hope in 1942, he remembered that his father had told he that he must survive, and he was determined to keep living, despite the horrible treatment he received. The next year he was lucky enough to be given a job that he kept until 1945 as a tradesman along with some other people from his town. (4)
Event Information
End of World War II
When?
Thursday, Aug 2, 1945, 12:00 AM
Where?