Holocaust Survivors and Their Untold Stories

World War II was an open wound on the body of humanity. More than 60 million people were killed. Whether in battle or by the orders of maniacal, egotistical leaders with insane policies, their deaths stand in testament to "man’s inhumanity to man." Part of that crucible of fiery and unnecessary death was the wholesale slaughter of "undesirables" known as the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler’s pathological and unfounded hatred of anyone who wasn’t a white Aryan fueled the fires of the crematoria and drove the shovels and machines that were digging the mass graves. It wasn’t just Jews who were killed. Hitler and his Nazi ideology despised gypsies, homosexuals, developmentally disabled people, crippled people, political and religious dissenters and, in some cases, people who just happened to live somewhere other than Germany, such as Poland. In all, some estimates indicate the Nazi machine of annihilation engineered the deaths of 17 million.

With such a swath of destruction in its wake, the Holocaustleft survivors who were so scarred, both physically and mentally, that they found it difficult even to think about what had happened, let alone discuss it. Scholars and historians alike agree that these stories must be told in order to reinforce not only the horror but also the resolve that keeps such monstrous destruction at bay. Researchers continuously find new, almost stomach-churning records and information. Perhaps most insidious, the survivor’s guilt that comes along with having stayed alive is the most soul-crushing kind. Who knows how many surviving mothers had to make a Sophie’s choice?

Ironically, the meticulous records kept by the Nazis of their extermination efforts led not only to their undoing at the hands of the hangman but also to an easier path for finding survivors, reuniting families and repatriating people back to their proper places in the world. The Holocaust had intrigued authors and filmmakers alike and their works, both fiction and nonfiction, have done much to spread awareness of what actually happened. Sometimes, it’s difficult to grasp that the straw-thin, naked apparitions in the liberated camps were actual people. Each person in those photos, however, has a significant story to tell.

Now, in the 21st century, the survivors who were adults at the time are all approaching or exceeding 90 years of age, and the children are now in their 70s and 80s. When it comes to finding out and telling their stories, time is of the essence. There is so much more that needs to be told beyond the number tattoo, and more people must become interested and strive to gather and collate information. The work of the gatherers is beginning to bear fruit, however. In addition to the Holocaust Museum on the National Mall, other museums and organizations around the country are making inroads and telling the stories.