SPI's Collection of Holocaust Survivors’ Narratives

Their Stories Honor the Unsung Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Them

Samuel Bak

Artist and Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak was born on August 12, 1933 in Vilna, Poland.  Sam was eight when the Germans invaded in 1941 and established a ghetto for the Jewish population. At first Sam and his parents hid in the convent of the Benedictine Sisters but when life there became too risky for all, they had no choice but to move into the ghetto. 

What follows is the transcription of an excerpt from Sam’s SPI recording in which he talks about the moment when German soldiers came to his family home to force their relocation to the Vilna ghetto. To listen to a slightly longer version of this excerpt click here. 

Sam’s art provides a valuable tool for studying the Holocaust. Illuminations: The Art of Samuel Bak developed by Facing History and Ourselves helps students unravel “profound messages about war, memory, and identity.”

There are certain moments in my life that later furnished images to my paintings. I think that that specific moment in which we were forced to leave our home became embedded in my art. This has to do with the strange situation in which – although we were somehow prepared, and my mother has prepared a very small suitcase, saying if we have to leave, I’ll take this or that, but once the two policemen were there and we had to move very fast, she was at a loss. She took a suitcase, but then she ran to my room and took the pillow from my bed and gave it to me and said hold it, take it with you, it may be of use. Then we went to the door and I rushed back holding the pillow, thinking what happened now to my teddy bear because he was on my pillow, so he might have fallen. I saw to it that he was okay in the bed. Then we went out and we were in the courtyard. There were some other Jewish families that lived nearby or lived in the same building. It was a large building with a very large square courtyard. It was raining and we were little by little becoming wet, soaked, with water. Then we went out into the streets. The street was one stream of people. When I say stream, it was also so tragic, because the rain was very heavy and there was a lot of water streaming along the gutters of the street. Since Jews were not allowed to walk on the sidewalk, we had to walk in the water, walking in the direction of that part of the city, which was then decided to be the ghetto that the Germans created.

Of the 100,000 pre-war Jews in Vilna, only 2,000 of them survived.  Sam and his mother, the only two from his family who survived, were saved through the efforts many “unsung heroes.”  These often unknown people play a role in every Holocaust story in the collection.

Sam talks about Karl Plagge, referring to him as “The Good German.”  Plagge was a German officer who “worked within the system” to save Jews.  As such, it is noted that he had to live within a “grey zone of moral compromise.”  In 2005, near 50 years after his death, Plagge was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among Nations.”  For a brief introduction to Karl Plagge, click here.

Henry Weinstock

Henry Weinstock was one of the “Hidden Children of the Holocaust.” He was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1934. Hitler’s army occupied Belgium in May of 1940. In 1942, when Henry was eight years old and with Jews being deported to “areas in the East,” (later, of course, it was known that these were death camps) his father “gave him away” to a Catholic priest by the name of Edouard Froidure, better known as l’abbe Froidure.

Father Edouard Froidure, photographer unknown.

L’abbe Froidure baptized Henry and changed his name to Henry Albert Gerard. At great personal risk, l’abbe Froidure housed Henry and other young Jewish boys who had also assumed new identities in a camp outside of Brussels.

From Henry’s recording:

I was one of the first children hidden at the Stations de Plein-air by Pere Froidure. Pere Froidure was ultimately denounced by a Belgian Nazi collaborator—Rexist, they called him. He was tortured and he wound up in Dachau, the concentration camp Dachau. So, as a hidden child, I had to assume a total identity. I became a Catholic. I was a Sacred Heart child, and my name was now Henry Gerard. Henry Albert Gerard. I actually fell in love with the idea that I was now a Catholic. This was my first religion. My highest aspiration was to become a priest someday. Anyway, from 1941 to the end of 1944 was a vicissitude of hiding places, from one place to another.

The story is complex but on October 9, 1942 Nazi soldiers came to the camp and l’abbe Froidure was arrested and ultimately sent to Dachau. (He survived and after the war Henry and l’abbe Froidure were reunited).

Henry – then still known as Henry Albert Gerard – went on to other homes run by Catholic nuns and priests. All put the lives of the children ahead of their own, creating elaborate stories to protect those in their charge.

To find out more about “Hidden Children” click here.

Helmuth and Jutta Cords

Claudia Cords-Damon tells the captivating story of her parents, Helmuth and Jutta Cords, both “unsung resistance fighters.”

Helmuth and Jutta Cords, ©Next Cords Generation Partnership, LP.

German citizens, Jutta and Helmuth met during the Nazi era, fell in love, and eventually – wanting no part of Hitler’s Germany – joined the underground resistance movement and participated in Operation Valkyrie – the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler.

Both Helmuth and Jutta were imprisoned, as were Jutta’s parents. Somehow, miraculously, they all survived. A love story for the ages, theirs was the first wedding in post war Berlin.

From Claudia’s SPI recording:

[Jutta] said it was a very difficult time to find people with whom you could get together to talk about what was going on, what had they heard, what was the news, and what could we do about it. So tea circles started to form. People would meet in small groups and quietly talk, always aware of who might be walking around that particular house. These tea circles were discussions just among the most trusted friends. There were people who were very concerned. There were people who wanted to do something. Actually, the resistance in Germany had so many facets. There were resisters who were Christians. There were resisters who were in the labor movement. There were resisters who were in the military.  There were, I believe, twenty-three plots to kill Hitler, and none of them worked, because every time, it would be planned to the detail, and, at the last minute, Hitler would make a change in his plans and he either wouldn’t show up or he’d be somewhere slightly different than where the [event was to take place].

All SPI recordings can be found at 4-12 Learning Lab / History / European History.

Other recordings in the collection include:

• Kathy Preston (Hungary / Romania)

• Stephan Lewy (Kindertransport)

An expanded collection of SPI Holocaust recordings can be found at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and other libraries nationwide.  To access the US Holocaust Memorial Museum site, click here.

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