To keep Holocaust Remembrance alive and for a more informed visit to the Auschwitz museum-camp, being aware of the testimonies and stories of the extermination survivors is really important!
Considering even the attempts to deny, trivialize and even rationalize the genocide, the stories of those who managed to get out of the concentration camps become valuable artifacts for knowing the truth and continuing to remember it.
Moreover, if it is already possible through study, reading books or watching films and documentaries to realize what the Shoah was and to know every historical aspect of it, only by listening directly to the narration of those who lived through that hell is it really possible to undergo an unparalleled emotional impact.
In this article we are going to go together for a general overview of survivors, how they did it, and the difficult reintegration into society.
We will also learn about the doubts that affected some of them, undecided whether to tell their experience, and the fear of not being believed given the incredibility of what they had experienced on their skin.
We will then go on to look a little more specifically at the stories of some of the most famous survivors.
Table of Contents
Who are the survivors of Auschwitz?
Deportees were those who were taken and led to concentration camps by the Nazis. They were mainly Jews, but also Slavs, Russians, Sinti and, more generally, people disliked by the regime.
Being deported meant making an inhumane journey on death trains to the concentration camp.
Once there, there were only two options: if the deportee was considered fit for work he or she was interned after being stripped of all possessions, shaved and branded with an identification number; otherwise, if considered unfit, the prisoner was taken directly to the gas chambers and killed.
Survival inside the camp was almost impossible. Death was, in fact, very frequent, and there were several possible causes for perishing: first of all, the discretion of an SS or being considered unskilled by the camp doctors, primarily Josef Mengele, was enough.
Other frequent causes of death were poor conditions: prisoners, forced in the cold with light clothing and malnourished, died of starvation, hypothermia or from diseases contracted due to the poor sanitary conditions.
Also not to be underestimated were the grueling work shifts that exhausted the internees, weakening both them and their immune defenses.
Finally, the constant harassment and psychological aspect drove many inmates to suicide, such as by hitting the camp’s electrified fence.
In order to survive in Auschwitz, one needed first of all luck, then one needed to have strong physical health, mental stamina, and a spirit of adaptation; in addition, certain factors could have a positive influence: for example, a young person had a better chance of withstanding the harsh conditions of the camp or of not being selected by the doctors for the gas chambers.
Finally, some people were also able to save themselves because of special conditions or certain abilities: for example, prisoners who spoke German were often able to avoid the first selections, or an example is provided by the Ovitz family, composed of people with dwarfism and therefore kept alive because Josef Mengele wished to perform experiments on them.
Stories of Auschwitz survivors
Among the survivors, some then took it upon themselves to recount their experiences once they returned home.
They wished partly to exorcise the pain, partly to shout to the world the brutalities they had suffered because justice had to be done and because every man had to know what human beings had been capable of. Thus, many of them left us a most precious testimony.
Primo Levi
Photo by Courier, Public domain, Wikipedia.org
Primo Levi was an Italian writer and chemist, born in Turin in 1919.
During the terrible fascist tyranny, Levi participated in partisan action groups, but in December ’43 he was captured and in February the following year was sent to Auschwitz, where he remained until liberation by the Red Army.
Levi recounted that he survived thanks to a series of fortunate coincidences: first, he knew a rudimentary German.
Also, he was used, as a chemist, in the industry that produced synthetic rubber for which Auschwitz provided labor.
Finally, he met a bricklayer, an occupied civilian who regularly brought him food albeit risking his own life.
The last fortune recounted by the survivor consists of the fact that in January 1945 he fell ill with scarlet fever, so when the Nazis escaped forcing the deportees to the atrocious death marches, they abandoned him in the hospital since they had chosen to leave the sick behind.
The return journey was also troubled, as the author himself recounts in his book “The Truce.”
Back in Turin he immediately began to write his testimony, so much so that by 1947 the manuscript of “If This is a Man” was ready.
Many publishers, however, rejected it with the exception of a small publishing house the book did not find great success.
Levi, however, began to go to schools and spread his testimony as a survivor: he realized that people had interest, especially young people.
Thus, the book knew a second edition, this time at Einaudi, with great success, and Levi would achieve his goal of having his work translated into German.
Although he put a lot of effort into delivering his testimony to new generations, and even returned to Auschwitz on two occasions for some commemorations, on April 11, 1987, he committed suicide by throwing himself from the stairwell of the building where he lived.
Elie Wiesel
By John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA – ELIE WIESEL, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80101760
Wiesel was also a survivor of Auschwitz.
Born in Romania in 1928, he found himself under racial laws after the Germans occupied Hungarian territory, having accused the state of collaborationism with the Allies.
Thus Wiesel was taken with his family to the ghetto until May 6, 1944, when he suffered deportation to Auschwitz.
Wiesel was separated from his mother and sister, but managed to live with his father until the liberation of the camp, when the two were forced to march to Buchenwald camp.
There, Wiesel’s father was beaten by the Nazis because he was too slow in working due to dysentery and fatigue, and was later attacked by other inmates who wanted to steal what little food he had; he did not recover and died shortly before the Americans arrived.
For ten years Wiesel refused to broach the subject of the Holocaust, too scarred by the experience, until François Mauriac, his friend and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952, persuaded him to do so.
The first writing was “And the World Remains Silent,” which he later shortened and gave rise to his greatest success, “The Night.”
In his lifetime, Wiesel was committed to writing more than 40 books, and his work is considered the most important having the Holocaust as its theme, to the point that in 1986 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness against violence, repression and racism.
He thus became a popular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and an important political activist, also engaging many times in schools to spread his testimony.
He died in 2006, at the age of 87.
Eva Mozes Kor
February 1945: some of Mengele’s surviving children at Auschwitz in the aftermath of the liberation of the camp (Eva is in the front row on the left). Photo by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group, ordered by Mikhael Oschurkow, head of the photography unit – https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa14532, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17282223
A survivor of Auschwitz where she was deported in 1944, Eva Mozes Kor was also Romanian like Wiesel.
As soon as she arrived at the camp with her family, she was chosen along with her twin sister so that Mengele could conduct experiments on them. Instead, the rest of the family was killed immediately in the gas chambers.
The twins were only ten years old when the sadistic doctor pounced on them, using them as guinea pigs.
Eva was subjected to two types of experiments: the first consisted of extensive anatomical measurements to compare her with her sister, and the second consisted of massive blood samples and injections of substances of unknown nature.
The twins were released only with the arrival of the Soviets and moved first to Israel and then to the United States.
Eva’s sister, however, died in 1993 from cancer caused by the injections she suffered in Auschwitz.
She was characterized by her willingness to spread a message of forgiveness: at the trial of Oskar Gröning, the Auschwitz accountant, she shook his hand and asked the court to turn his prison sentence into community service consisting of meetings with younger people.
He also released a video message stating that he had forgiven Mengele and adopted Rainer Hoß, the grandson of Rudolf Hoß.
She died in 2019 during a trip to Poland organized by the museum she founded.
Post-release challenges
After managing to escape the nightmare of the death camp, a new and equally difficult phase of life opened for the survivors.
First of all, many had lost everything: home, resources and especially affections.
With nowhere to go and no family member to re-embrace. Moreover, they had to live with the very complicated psychological aspect: the weight of what they had experienced was unbearable for many.
The psychological traumas continued over the years, the pain, the failure to understand to find peace, the fear that everything they had experienced could also happen again.
That is why many worked, some immediately and some after years of settling down, for the world to know what had happened behind the gates of Auschwitz and all the death camps: humanity had to come to terms with such brutalities.
Many on their return, including Primo Levi, were afraid that they would not be believed or that they might exaggerate their testimony: it was so tragic that being able to tell the story and be believed was not an easy thing to do.
Fortunately, however, the survivors did not give up and left us their testimonies.
Indeed, they play a vital role in historical memory: the facts have been reconstructed thanks in part to their accounts.
In addition, they understood the importance of talking to young people and the younger generation: the emotional impact of talking to a survivor ensured that these accounts were passed on with strong appeal to those who, at the time, were not even born yet.
These are essential stories, because they tell us what man is capable of, the importance of being human, of not turning away and not giving in to indifference.
They also teach us that the line between victims and perpetrators is thin: we must always stand up for common sense and human beings, fighting racism and abuse.
Finally, we must also consider the importance of testimonies during commemorations and especially the trials that took place after the wars and brought many Nazis to justice.
Holocaust Survivors: Frequently Asked Questions
An estimated 7,000 people were liberated at Auschwitz by the Red Army in January 1945.
The stories of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel and Eva Mozes Kor are among the best known and most representative of imprisonment in Nazi death camps.
Many concentration camp survivors faced enormous psychological and social difficulties. Some found relief by recounting their experiences through books and lectures; others preferred to keep it all inside for a while. For many survivors, it has been rewarding to talk to new generations, to inform them and to pass on important values to them while trying to put to good use, as much as possible, the horror they experienced on their skin.
Testimonies help us understand the human impact of the Holocaust and prevent such atrocities from happening again: the people involved were normal people, not cruel monsters. Listening to the testimonies enables us to understand this and teaches us that we must never turn away by giving way to indifference.
Survivors of the Shoah: Conclusions
So here we have come to the concluding part of our article. Together we have seen an overview of how survivors endured the atrocities of the concentration camps, and the difficult reintegration into society once the war was over.
I then told you the stories of three of the most famous Auschwitz survivors and also explained why survivor testimonies are important.
Finally, I have answered the most frequently asked questions, but should you have any others, please do not hesitate to contact us with a comment below.
If you would like to know more stories related to the Holocaust, I invite you to visit the rest of our website: you will find everything you need to plan a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
It is necessary to learn about Auschwitz in order to live our future because, as Primo Levi said, “All those who forget their past are condemned to relive it.”
