Jackson Morehouse

Miss Schmidt

Honors English 9

February 27, 2018

Connolly, Kate. "Tales from Auschwitz: Survivor Stories." The Guardian. Guardian News and

Media, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2018.

Irene Fogel Weiss was a young girl who was taken from her home to a concentration

camp in Poland. Most older women and young girls were killed moments after arriving at

a concentration camp. Luckily Irene Fogel Weiss was seen as older than she actually was,

and she passed the first inspection. One of the first memories Weiss has in the camp was

the unsuspecting faces of the women and children being lead right to the fire of the

crematorium.

Mostly everybody was completely unaware of Auschwitz and what was going on there.

They were in for a shock when they lived the horrors that occurred behind the gates of

Auschwitz. Weiss’ family was torn apart immediately with some going one way and

others going a different way.

Many families found themselves being torn apart like Weiss’. For most the stories of the

mass burnings in the crematorium will haunt them forever. The brutality they faced and

the huge odds against them to survive is a major thing that will stay with Weiss.
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"Introduction to the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2018.

The Holocaust is one of the most tragic and horrifying events that has ever occurred. The

Holocaust impacted so many families, and most will never know the true horrors that

happened in the concentration camps. Even without getting in the mind of someone in the

Holocaust, it is easy to see the awful things from the outside.

The word Holocaust means “sacrifice by fire” and most of the ones who died were later

burned in the crematoriums. It wasn’t just Jews who were targeted but other groups as

well were murdered by the Nazis. The Holocaust is the largest mass murdering of a

certain religious group ever.

The Nazis spread out every where through Europe capturing as many Jews as they could

trying to annihilate the entire population. The Final Solution is what Adolf Hitler called

his plan to get rid of the Jews. The Final Solution was never avoided rather than stopped.

"Jakob Blankitny." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.p., n.d. Web.
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Jakob Blankitny’s story is an in depth look at a Holocaust survivor’s journey. Blankitny

talks about his experience starting from age 16 to his liberation. Being held in Auschwitz

made him a different person and he talks a lot about the decisions he made in the camps

that he might not have made outside. The camp started making decisions for him.

Blankitny says he was scarred by the screams he hears upon arriving at Auschwitz, those

screams coming from the gas chambers and the families being split up and murdered. He

remembers how many died just after arriving at the camp by being gassed and thrown

into the fire of the crematorium. Blankitny remembers the pain that fire left in him when

it devoured his mother and sister. The image of the large crematoria that could be seen

from miles away is forever etched in his mind.

Blankitny’s survival is a miracle in his mind as every night it seemed five of his

companions were headed to the crematorium. Of all the people from his town in Poland

only 42 survived. Blankitny believes it was different moments that helped him keep

going and gave him the increasing will to survive. He was the only one from his large

family to survive the fire of the Holocaust.

Leshan, Bruce. "Auschwitz Survivor Relives Experiences Every Week." USA Today. Gannett

Satellite Information Network, 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2018.

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Marty Weiss was a 15-year-old Jewish boy who was taken from his home to the

Auschwitz death camp during WWII. He was taken from his childhood home in

Czechoslovakia to a camp in Ukraine and later to Auschwitz. A memory that stuck with

him was the families trying desperately to stay together before they were split apart and

taken away.

This story cannot be duplicated as Marty Weiss and his life is a very unique one. Weiss

recalls one of the most traumatic experiences he had during the Holocaust was the giant

pit he had seen in the camp. The pit had open flames shooting out of the hole and burning

in them were bodies. The reason for the pit was because the crematorium was too full of

burning people.

Marty Weiss wouldn’t talk about his experiences in the Holocaust until many years later

when he volunteered at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Weiss’ experience was too

much to talk about regularly and he thinks back on it now as terrible. Despite the horrors

he witnessed, he tells his story to teach people of what really happened.

Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus

and Giroux, 2017. Print.

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Elie Wiesel was a young boy whose town was invaded by the always advancing Nazi

army. His family was herded up, along with the rest from their Jewish town, and sent to

the Auschwitz death camp. When they arrived the first sign of trouble was the barbed

wire and fences surrounding them for miles. Then it was the smoke and the smell of

burning people.

The smoke from the huge crematorium gathered around them. When Wiesel peered into

the crematoria all his hope was gone. The Nazis were burning babies in the fire, just

throwing them in like it was nothing. The image of the babies being burned is etched in

the mind of Wiesel and so many others.

Wiesel bounced around from camp to camp and job to job, continuously being beaten and

pushed around. Eventually everyone in his camp had to march for hours to another camp

to avoid the approaching American army. The march became a sprint and few made it,

their fatigue was too much. When they finally reached the next camp, they were liberated

and sent free.