THE HOLOCAUST
The famous Holocaust was a period in which the Nazi’s, who came to power in Germany in January 1933 by the ruler Adolph Hitler, gathered all Jews, and made them suffer. They took the Jews into concentration camps, which were places in which Jews had to work in different labors that were not easy and consisted of physical demand. Also each concentration camp had its own purpose, some camps were for working and others were used to exterminate Jews. This concentration camps were not only located in Germany, there were also concentration camps in Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine etc… Approximately six million Jews died in this holocaust, but some others were survivors and nowadays are sharing their experience.
One of the many survivors of the holocaust was a woman called Ruth Webber. She was sent to Ostrowiec Lager, which was one of the many concentration camps. At first the town was called Opatow County but later on in 1937 it was called Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski. Before The Second World War, its population was approximately of 30,000 people and when the Wehrmacht (which were the unified armed forces of Germany) invaded the town, most of its Jewish community decrease enormously. During the war, Ostrowiec was a lively centre of resistance activity against the Nazi’s, they had weapons and an independant underground press. On January 16 1945, the German troops withdraw westwards.
The testimony of Ruth Webber
Ruth Webber was an Austrian women that experienced the holocaust during The Second World War. She was born in 1935, Ostrowiec, Poland. She was for years old when the Nazi’s invaded Poland, and her family was forced to get into a ghetto. Her father was a photographer and when the Germans came they took over the father's whole business. Ruth’s parents tried to work at a labor camp outside the ghetto, and managed to send Ruth's sister into a hiding place. Ruth also went into a hiding place before the camp was liquidated. Her parents were split up and Ruth was sent to many concentration camps before she was sent to Auschwitz. When the war had ended, Ruth lived in a orphanage in Krakow, and later on was reunited with her mother.
Ruth Webber said that she had seen a lot of dead people around, all over, and she thought that when people were constantly watching so many deaths it wouldn’t make that much of an impression. She also talked about one of the times she spend in Ostrowiec Lager, the concentration camp where Ruth was. She was in the outhouse in the bathroom which was located on a corner of a big area in the center of the camp were barracks were all around it. Ruth reported that she happened to have gone into the outhouse and suddenly all at once an scandal appeared and all the Jews were rushed into their barracks, where they were supposed to go, but she was luckless that she got stuck in the bathroom. She got up on the toilet seat and looked out on a little window that was located on the top, the scandal was because some people were trying to escape and they were caught she affirmed. Ruth thought that they were wounded because she heard shooting going on. She saw that the Nazi’s were talking to about four Jews to dig graves outside of the wire of the fence of the camp. The Nazi’s had brought the people that tried to escape and made the other Jews bury them alive, but this people she said, they were begging not to be buried still alive, they said that the Nazi’s should kill them. But they didn’t, the Jews had to buried them while they were still with life because otherwise they themselves would have ended up dead Ruth said. At the end of the interview Ruth said that it was a very, very traumatic experience. She could still hear the people (the Jews) screaming.
Theme
The theme of this testimony is and I quote, “That was a very, very traumatic experience. I can still hear them screaming.” Because I think that when you have passed through a traumatic and horrible experience in your life, the memories stay with you forever. For Ruth, her experience in the concentration camp left her a trace mark. That's why Ruth said that she could still hear the people screaming, she could never forget of that moment she passed through in the holocaust.
Now, I chose this testimony because I wanted to learn about an experience of someone that had become a survivor of the holocaust. I think it was very interesting to learn about the experience of Ruth Webber and watching in the video how she reacted while she was narrating one of the horrible moments she had to see in her life, while she was in Ostrowiec Lager. In addition, it is important to recognize that many people had suffered in huge amounts, but mostly, to know in specific details the actions Nazi’s took toward the Jews, and how they affected them, physically and emotionally.
To conclude, I have to say that Ruth Webber has been the bravest women I know. She passed through many things in her life, and most importantly since she was a child. She lost her father and her sister and she had to watch and experience things that many people haven't experienced in their lives. In the video of her testimony it's very visible that she suffered a lot because while she’s talking, she starts to cry and she changes the sound of her voice. To finish I am going to quote something from the book Facing History and Ourselves,
“The more we come to know about the Holocaust, how it came about, how it was carried out, etc., the greater the possibility that we will become sensitized to inhumanity and suffering whenever they occur.” - Eva Fleischner.
Sources:
"The Holocaust." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 10 June 2015.
<http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust>
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 10 June 2015.
<http://www.ushmm.org/learn/introduction-to-the-holocaust>
"Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 June 2015.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrowiec_Świętokrzyski>
Video of the testimony: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?MediaId=1209
Pictures:
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/hol-pix/ravens-lab.jpg
http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/testimony/wlc/image/rwe0643f.jpg
http://isurvived.org/Pictures_iSurvived-5/auschwits-birkenau.GIF
