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To tell the truth, I don't really know
anything about the Holocaust.

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I expected to learn more about what it was

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and more personal experiences that
you wouldn't find in history books.

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I think it's going to be hard for some of
them to go back in time

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and remember all what happened to
them and to their families.

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I remember every detail about the past because
it made such an impact on me.

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What was life like growing up in Poland
before the Nazis invaded?

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Before the war, I didn't know any other life
except the life as a member of my family.

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People got on well together, except Jewish
people suffered from anti-Semitism.

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When the Nazis entered Poland, September 1939,
I was twelve.

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As a child had to defend myself after school

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because Jewish boys were beaten up.

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I must imagine at such a young age, this must
have caused you big impact.

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Were you sent to the concentration camps?

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We were taken to the extermination centre of Auschwitz.

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People arrived half dead, disorientated.

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Some fainted, some died on the journey.

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500 from over 2000
were picked for slave labour,

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and the rest were taken to the gas chambers.

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Do you know what would have happened
to you if you ended up there?

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I would have been taken to the gas
chambers too and gassed.

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Was there someone in particular from
your family members

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 that helped you have more strength in order to  survive?

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I grew up with my grandfather 
and he was my best friend.

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He was the one who later on, in 
Lodz Ghetto, helped me to survive.

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In 1940, 360 of us from our town, 
were sent to Lodz Ghetto.

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The rest were taken away and shot.

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The starvation at Lodz Ghetto began immediately.

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My grandfather contracted cold, 
which turned to pneumonia,

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and he called me to his bed and he said,

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'I've had my life. I want you,
when you survive, not if you survive,

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when you survive, to tell the world of
what is happening to us Jewish people,

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that we are being systematically murdered'
and I promised I shall do so.

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How were members of your family affected by the Holocaust?

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My father died of starvation beginning of 1942,

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then later in 1942, my mother, my half sister
and her two children were taken away

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to the first extermination centre.
At that time I was quite alone.

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When did you get out of Poland?

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I was 18. 
In Autumn, 1945, we were brought over to England.

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We came semi-starved and for us,

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 it's like coming to paradise, 
it was a different planet.

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What do you think is the most important thing

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for younger generations to learn about the Holocaust?

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Well, we should live without prejudices.

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Young people have to know that 
we all belong to this planet

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and nobody's superior or inferior,
we are all equal in dignity.

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I knew the stories were going to be dramatic,

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I never thought they'd be that deep, all
the things they had to do to survive.

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Roman, one of the survivors, had to
witness his friends' murders.

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If I'd had to do that these days, 
I wouldn't have been able to handle it,

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losing people close to you and there's
nothing you could do about it for no reason at all.

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I'm not going to lie, 
I think I would have been scared

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because I wouldn't want it to happen to me.

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Hitler, he liked Aryans, who wanted to be perfect,
blond hair, blue eyes and I'm not that.

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All ethnic minorities, they would have
suffered during the Holocaust.

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The life we're living in now, it's more relaxed,

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we've got nothing to really worry about.

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I had learned some things in school, but
you know, what they teach us,

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it doesn't stay in your mind and you
don't live the experience.