FROM THE HEARTBy Madeline McCready

Life Before and After the Holocaust-A Mosaic of Memories

WHAT IS THE HOLOCAUSTThe holocaust was a time in history that changed peoples lives. During the 1930’s & 1940’s a man named Adolf Hitler took control of many European countries. Hitler thought if he didn’t think someone was the way he wanted them to be, then they had no reason to live. Hitler killed over 6,000,ooo Jews.

Picture of Adolf Hitler

POLAND AND GERMANY

Over 3,000,000 Jews lived in Poland. Most Jews settled into cities & towns and were merchants, artisans and middlemen.

In Germany, most Jews ( over half-million) lived middle class lives, most often in larger cities.

LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST

Before the holocaust came everyone was happy with their lives. Kids ran around playing with their friends. The children went to public school. Women stayed at home did chores and cooked dinner. Everyone went out on the weekends and had fun. Jews went to the synagogue on Shabbat (Sabbath).

Most men had jobs and were usually the only one who sustained the family but lost them along the way

KRISTILLNACHT

Kristallnacht or “the night of broken glass,” was the beginning of the holocaust.

Many Jewish-owned stores, homes, synagogues, and community centers were destroyed and devastated.

They also ruined Jewish schools, hospitals, cemeteries & policemen and fire brigades just stood there doing nothing to help.

THE STAR OF DAVID

“Soon as you put the star of David on, you were not you, you were someone else. We were put out to be displayed. Why? Because we were Jews, that it . We Had a different religion, to be ridiculed. You were stripped of any dignity.” (35)

-Clara Grossman, holocaust survivor

GHETTOS & DEPORTATION

Ghettos were where all the Jews came. The others wanted to be sure that all the Jews were together in the worst part of the city, the slums

Days when soldiers came in and ordered people to gather were the worst days because that was usually when people were deported to concentration camps and labor camps. Most of the people that went to those camps worked 12 or more hours a day.

FREEDOM

“I was liberated on the march. They came from behind as we were marching on the highway. I turned around and I saw those big tanks and I said: “ Those are not German tanks. They are American tanks.” They started throwing out boxes of cigarettes, and chocolate. The German guards ran into the woods.” (42) - Joseph Greenbaum, survivor

AFTER THE HOLOCAUST

When the war ended in Europe, The world began to learn about the degree of the Holocaust. In Poland, more than 3,000,000 Jews were executed- that was about 95 percent of the prewar Jewish population of that country.

In Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and many other East European countries, more than three –quarters of the prewar community was obliviated. Six million Jews perished, that’s almost two-thirds of Europe’s Jews.

RETURNING TO LIFE

It took a while for everyone to get back to normal. Just imagine living through the holocaust but your family is gone and you have no one. How would you feel?

People tried hard they got out of Europe and came to America for a new life and to start all over.

THE NEW WORLD

When the survivors saw the Statue of Liberty they were overjoyed and thought is was a dream because they now knew that no one else can hurt them.

Statue of Liberty. The sight of relief to Holocaust survivors.

EDUCATION

Most people who came to America didn’t know English but they knew German or Yiddish or another language that the Americans didn’t know.

Most of the immigrants took language or got an English dictionary or read the newspaper but they eventually learned and they act like regular people.

Sonia Golad, Holocaust survivor After Sonia Borowik spent 4 ½ years in two labor camps and

three concentration camps she returned to her hometown of Vilna, Poland- currently Vilnius, Lithuania- in December 1945. She barley remembered her own name but she recognized the balcony hanging from her family’s bombed apartment at 57 Zavalnia.

The family-maid who once offered to hide Sonia’s little blond brother, Abrusha refused to return anything she had taken from the family’s apartment “I’m married to a Russian soldier,” she said,” and he hates the Jews.

Sonia and Vera were the only ones who survivor out of their entire family. 25 percent of Vilna, Poland’s 200,000 pre war population were Jewish. Sonia went to a private day school where unlike her other friends who attended public schools, she escaped daily harassment. She was not allowed to sit in the front of her opera or use sidewalk, but, she says, “I never questioned it.” (90)

Sonia Golad, continuedSonia never really talked about the Holocaust until her son

wrote a paper on it, and the teacher asked if he could get a survivor to talk to the class. He asked his mother. Sonia's been talking ever since. She tells student’s “Don’t watch my face. Just listen. I am not talking about Hitler. That is politics. I am telling you what happened to me.” (90)

A torah reader and past president of her synagogue sisterhood. Sonia has a kids: Alan, Joyce, and Esther who died of breast cancer in her early 40’s. Sonia has 5 grandchildren who bring her much happiness.

In Germany in 1946

Tiberius Klausner, Holocaust survivorTibor Klausner was about four years old when he first heard a

Gypsy playing the violin in the cafe next to his father’s restaurant in Arad, Romania. Tibor wanted to play also, but his parents didn’t have enough money to buy one.

When Tibor was 6 years old, a professional musician tested him and approved his talent, and he started lessons. From then on, he practiced several hours a day.

The Klausners’ lived in a 2-room apartment in the same building as their fathers restaurant. Hermann worked long hours, rarely spending time with the family except on Shabbat.

From 1939-1941, Arad’s 6,430 Jews lost their businesses and were forced to live in the Ghettos.. Hermann Klausner was taken to a labor camp but escaped. Tibor belonged to a Zionist underground organization. During the last year of the war, the Klaussner's hid together in farms on the countryside.

Afterward, 14-year old Tibor escaped communist Romania to study in Budapest at the Listz Academy of Music. He was arrested when he returned to visit his parents illegally.

Tiberius Klausner, continued

His father got Tibor out by bribing the guard, the same year the border closed in 1948, Tibor accepted a full scholarship to International Conservation of Music in Paris.

He added an “s” to the Romanian version of his name, Tiberiu, and was know as Tiberius Klausner. Five years later, he came to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music. Then he only spoke Romanian, Hungarian , German and French , but no English. A part-time job helped him pay rent and eat.

At age 23 he became a part of the Kansas City Philharmonic and became the youngest concertmaster of a major symphony orchestra.

In 1959 , Tiberius met Carla Levine, who was home from college to visit her parents, Ed and Rose. Tiberius was at their house to rehearse for a Beth Shalom Synagogue Program In which Rose would accompany him on the piano. Carla and him married 4 years later, after she finished her PhD at Harvard.

Tiberius KlausnerHe resigned from the Philharmonic in 1967 to accept a professorship at the University of Missouri-Kansas city. Tiberius returned when the Philharmonic was reborn as the Kansas City Symphony, until he retired in 1999.The Klausners Have 3 daughters, Danielle and twins Mirra and Serena. They have one grandchild named Haidee.

In Paris, 1952

REFLECTIONS“Once when I spoke, one of them asked

me whether I was glad when I heard that Hitler committed suicide. I said: ‘No, I was not glad. He should have stood there and answered to the world for what he did and not let his people take the blame for everything.’

“And they applauded. They stood up and they applauded. It was unbelievable.” (151)

-Sonia Golad

FAITH

“If I didn’t believe in God, I wouldn’t be her. God helped me to be here.”

-Abe Gutovitz

“I never stopped believing in God”-Joseph

Greenbaum

“I do my candle lighting. I talk to God every night.” (161)

- Sonia Golad

RETURN

“My oldest daughter and I went back to my hometown two years ago. I wanted her to see her roots. We walked the streets and then went to the school and took pictures. For me it was like it was closure.

“I really don’t want to ho back there anymore. There is nothing there. There is not one Jew from 3,000 Jewish families. Not one.” (161)

-Clara Grossman

REMEMBERENCEEveryone will remember the holocaust and it will still haunt those who survived it. But just remember those whose families got murdered and those whose friends got beat to death. All the people who survived this are lucky and if they didn’t survive a lot of us probably wouldn’t be here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dodd, Monroe, ed. From The Heart; Life before and after the Holocaust –A Mosaic of Memories. 1st ed. Kansas City: Kansas City Star Books, 2001. Print.

The End!!!!!!