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Stephanie Castillo
Mr.choi
English 10B
15 April 2015
Survivors of the holocaust
In 1934 there were nine million Jews living in Europe, by 1945 there was only
three million left. This was the result of a dreadful and appalling genocide known as the
Holocaust, led by the political party the Nazis. The Nazis were led by Adolf Hitler, who used
the Jewish people as a scapegoat for the horrible economy. Hitler accused the Jewish people of
having backstabbed Germay.. Hitler used propaganda to brainwash the German citizens into
believing that Jews were at fault for all the problems the German economy faced and even
Germany losing World War 1. This resulted in Jewish people having prejudice actions done to
them. Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothes in order to be easily identified,
they were not allowed to own businesses, and Jewish children were not allowed to go to school
with German children. Jews had their rights , their citizenships, their homes, and their lives taken
away. They became nothing more than a bar code once they entered the concentration camps to
be killed. Among the three million Jews that survived this insufferable time known as the
Holocaust was a young boy named Elie Wiesel. Elie wrote a book that tells his story on surviving
the concentration camps and the extreme measures that had to be taken in order to survive the
Holocaust. Elie was just sixteen years old when he was sent away from his home and sent to
Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald. It was at Auschwitz concentration camp when he last saw
his mom and sister right before they were sent to a gruesome death where they were to be burned
alive. Being in the concentration camps Elie saw a young boy being hung, witnessed men who

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fought to the death for a piece of bread, and lost his humanity and emotions when he saw his
father die and felt nothing but relief. Elies book shows the horrible situations and actions that
needed to be taken in order to survive. Such as Margaret Kagan who hid in the attic of a factory ,
or Iby Knill who stayed in strangers houses, or Krystyna chiger who left civilization and hid in a
sewer with her family.
Margaret Kagan grew up in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania, with her
family. When the German army invaded Lithuania, Margaret and her family instead of fleeing
stayed because they didn't want to leave Alik, Margarets younger brother, who was away at a
children's holiday camp behind. The city was in chaos with Jews being targeted with shootings
and arrest. Margaret's father was arrested and never returned, she later found out he had been
shot to death. Shortly after Margaret and her family were moved into the Ghettos. Margaret
described the ghettos years as dreadful were people were forced to do hard labor and deprived
of food . It was in the Ghettos were Margaret met her husband Joseph who changed her life
forever. Margaret and joseph were wed at the Ghetto registry office and had made made plans to
sneak away from their labor brigade.Margaret found a friend who lived outside the ghetto who
agreed to keep blond, blue-eyed Alik in safety while Margaret, Joseph, and Joseph's mother hid
away in the attic of a local factory. They stayed in hiding for nine months with the help of
Lithuanian friends who risked their lives and their families lives. While hiding for nine months
they had to be completely silent in the day and they were always paranoid of being caught. On
July 1944, Soviet troops reached Kaunas and Margaret and the Jews were freed. Once freed
Margaret was reunited with Alik and she was ecstatic that it was all over, however she later
learned the enormity of the events and learned that her mother had committed suicide in a
concentration camp. Margaret and Joseph decided to move to england and rebuild their lives.

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They started their own business, Kagan Textiles, from a Nissen hut and built it up from scratch to
become a major firm. They eventually employed a thousand people with their company.Margaret
stayed in contact with her rescuer, Vytautas Rinkevicius, and the Macenavicius family who
looked after Alik. She is extremely grateful to them having thought to herself could she have
been so brave to have risked her familys lives to save someone elses. In 1964 she travelled to
Riga to meet Vytautas and Antanas Macenavicius for the first time in twenty years. She made
several visits to Lithuania, which held many emotional memories for her. Margaret lived in
Yorkshire up until she sadly passed away in 2011. While margaret stayed and hid in one place
until being freed, Iby Knill hopped around with strangers trying to stay hidden.
Iby Knill grew up in an educated, cultured family in Bratislava. Iby went to a
German grammar school until she was excluded for being Jewish. When Ibys mom found out
that German Soldiers were taking young girls to be prostitutes on the eastern front she sent Iby
and her cousin on a tram to the village where their grandparents resided. Iby and her cousin hid
there for several days. Meanwhile Ibys mom made arrangements to get her away to safety. This
meant crossing the border into hungary, and crawling into no mans land in the middle of the
night. Iby hopped around from many different people to find help and a place to stay and hide.
She first went to an aunt who turned her away in fear of repercussions. She later went to stay
with her cousin who let her hide in her apartment for several weeks. Iby had to stay very quiet so
that no one would suspect she was there. Iby was just 18 at this point. Ibys cousin introduced her
to a solicitor who worked in the hungarian resistance. Iby hid with the solicitor and his wife for
several months, working with them helping allied airmen escape. The group was caught and Iby
was sent to prison for three months where she was subject to torture. Was released she was
immediately rearrested for being an illegal immigrant and sent to a refugee camp in northern

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Hungary. It was there she discovered that her family had also escaped to Hungary and she was
allowed to visit them in a refugee camp in Budapest. While there she met a Hungarian man who
she planned to marry so that her and her family could legally stay in Hungary. Once she was
allowed out on parole she worked as a nanny for a family friend. One evening Iby was visiting
Jewish friends when an air raid happened and she could not return home. Police came to round
everyone up at five in the morning to take them away to Auschwitz. Although Iby wasn't
supposed to be there she was still taken along with the rest of the Jewish people. Iby spent six
weeks in Auschwitz on starvation rations, crammed into inhuman conditions with thousands of
people. Towards the end of the war, the Germans evacuated the camp where Iby was held
captive. Iby, who had an infected hip, and the other women were taken on a forced march
towards Bergen Belsen. Eventually they saw American tanks in the distance. German forces were
defeated and Iby and her friends were finally liberated on Easter Sunday 1945. Iby in an effort to
survive hid with strangers, she was tortured in a prison, she was still captured and sent to
Auschwitz where she was finally liberated. Unlike Iby, Krystyna Chiger was never captured but
she did have to live with people she didn't know in a sewer.
Krystyna Chiger hid in the sewers of Lvov, a city in Poland, with her family
during the war. At the ripe age of seven Krystyna knew about everything that was going on in her
environment. When they headed for the sewers Krystyna described it as very wet and dark.
She was scared and was shaking but she tried to keep as calm as possible, only asking if there
was much longer to go. There were worms crawling everywhere, they had to put all their things
down and sit on top of them. Krystyna describes the sewers as awful, it smelled bad, and there
were large red rats that ran past them all times. There wasn't much room ,since twenty other
people were in the sewers with them,so she had to lay on her moms lap and her little brother had

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to lay on her dad's lap. This lasted for five weeks with polish sewer workers bringing them black
bread and margarines everyday. Soon after, other sewer workers found their hiding spot so they
had to run away. They ran straight ahead when they finally saw their sewer workers who once
told everything lead them away to safety. By this time there were only 11 people left because the
others had died along the way. In the new sewers the workers had led them to there was more
space but it was still very crowded. While in the sewer a lady gave birth to a child, they cover it
with a wash basin and suffocated it threw it into the Poltwa. Krystyna and her family lived in
these conditions for fourteen months with the workers helping them as much as possible. When
they were finally liberated she was very happy but her little brother, Pawelek cried a lot he was
afraid of people and didn't like the light.
The actions taken by these people show just how much was sacrificed in order to
survive. Margaret lost her parents, Iby left her family to try and stay safe, and Krystyana had to
leave normal civilization behind and live in a sewer. Primo levi , a holocaust survivor and poet,
wrote a poem called shema. The poem is about never forgetting to be grateful for what one has
and to never forget the horrible actions taken against the Jews in the holocaust. The actions that
resulted in the Jewish people having to face so many inhumane actions and horrible situations
trying to save themselves. This message is very important because if we forget such a horrible
genocide it is possible history could repeat itself.

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