the holocaust was a period of time, when Hitler wanted to comit mass genocide twords the jewish race, it is estimated that 6 millions jews were exterminated. they were were prosecuted for their opposition, & religious beliefs, hitlers plan to rid the earth of jews began
Today, October 3 [should read September] 1942, it is exactly two weeks since the horrible slaughter in Luck and its surroundings. For two gruesome weeks we - a few Jews who had succeeded in escaping from Luck at the very last moment - have been roaming about without sleeping at night, since death threatens us every moment. Out of the forest and back into the forest. We have become forest men. It happens that for two or even three days we are without a piece of bread, a drop of water. Our eyes are no longer able to shed tears. The heart burns with pain, there is a pressure so strong as to break it, and there is no help. We are all condemned to death. My dear son David - God knows if he is still alive - your mother was like a dove when they led her to the slaughter. I did not witness this with my own eyes; to my great pain and despair fate willed that I should abandon my dear wife and son and escape alone like a coward. However they are in a better position now than I am, they have already gone through what they had to, and every moment I expect to be caught. I am sitting in a dug-out in the forest where your grandfather used to live and I am writing both of you a farewell letter. Maybe fate will not be so cruel after all and, when the war is over, you will receive it by mail with the help of a goodhearted Gentile. Thus, I embrace both of you - you and your wife - and I send you my fatherly blessing before my death. Your unfortunate father H.P Letter no. 2 My dearest children, Jacob and Erna __________________________________________________________________________ 2/3 Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies Another terrible four weeks have passed. Today it is exactly six weeks since the gruesome events in our town Luck and the surroundings. Since then thousands of Jews who had escaped were caught and shot dead. As for me, my bitter fate has preserved me for the time being, so that I may still suffer some time longer. As a matter of fact, mother and David are the luckiest of our whole family, they have already gone through what they had to, and they surely did not suffer such terrible moral pain as I do, having remained alive . These forty- two days have been awful. Only those who live are scared of death; for the dead it is a salvation. Thus, my children, imaging such a picture: I am sitting in a thick forest and fate willed that it should be exactly the same forest in which mother was born. An old, gray-haired man squatting on the earth; one would think that I was about seventy; my body is torn and bitten, and I have no shirt on, since I had to throw it away. I did not understand [until now] what a terrible plague the lice were with which Moses punished Pharaoh, as is written in the Pentateuch: "And the wise men could not stand before Pharaoh."* This means simply that the lice were eating them alive. Now I understand it, and it is an awful thing. How happy I would be if I could take a basin of hot water, do some washing, and put on a clean shirt and underwear; and then, may death arrive. That is that, my dear children. All is lost, but may I at least be the ransom for you, so that you, the survivors, the last spark left of our family, will not be extinguished. I am now in my misfortune, my comrade in distress was caught by the murderers on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, in full daylight; he had not been cautious enough. They tortured and then shot him. They search for me, too, they even trod on me in the stack of straw where I was hiding. Yet, for the time being, they have not succeeded. Since then I have been wandering alone at night from village to village, from tent to tent, from forest to forest. But the forest, unfortunately, has started balding, and I also am naked and barefoot, hungry and sleepy. I am walking like a sleepwalker without seeing my own shadow, I am wandering - where to, I myself do not know. Shall I succeed in staying alive? I am not at all sure. It is very improbable. One can still manage somehow, though . __________________________________________________________________________ 3/3 Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies Goodbye . Your unfortunate father, Chaim Erratic * quotation of Exodus 9:11: "And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils ". Source: Kleinman, Yehudit and Dafni, Reuven (Eds.), Final Letters – From the Yad Vashem
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