09-06-2008, 09:29 AM
http://www.atlanticoverseaspictures.com/herman.htm
This is the movie site with a couple of pictures of the couple. The facts of the story are all being questioned but they have been on Oprah and several other programs, and much about their lives is verifiable. This is a memorial email, please feel free to pass it along. Read this.......
> This is truly a beautiful story of HOPE!
> A Girl with an Apple
>
> August 1942. Piotrkow , Poland .
>
> The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, > women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a > square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father > had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.
>
> 'Whatever you do,' Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to
> me,'don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen.' I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker. An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, then asked my age. 'Sixteen,'I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood.
>
> My mother was motioned to the right with the other women,
> children,sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore, 'Why?' He didn't answer. I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her. 'No,'she said sternly. 'Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers.' She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.
>
> My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany . We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers.'Don't call me Herman anymore.' I said to my brothers. 'Call me 94983.'
>
I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator. I, too, fel t dead. Hardened, I had become a number. Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin . One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice, 'Son,' she said softly but clearly, I am going to send you an angel.' Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream. But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.
>
This is the movie site with a couple of pictures of the couple. The facts of the story are all being questioned but they have been on Oprah and several other programs, and much about their lives is verifiable. This is a memorial email, please feel free to pass it along. Read this.......
> This is truly a beautiful story of HOPE!
> A Girl with an Apple
>
> August 1942. Piotrkow , Poland .
>
> The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, > women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a > square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father > had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.
>
> 'Whatever you do,' Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to
> me,'don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen.' I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker. An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, then asked my age. 'Sixteen,'I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood.
>
> My mother was motioned to the right with the other women,
> children,sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore, 'Why?' He didn't answer. I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her. 'No,'she said sternly. 'Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers.' She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.
>
> My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany . We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers.'Don't call me Herman anymore.' I said to my brothers. 'Call me 94983.'
>
I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator. I, too, fel t dead. Hardened, I had become a number. Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin . One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice, 'Son,' she said softly but clearly, I am going to send you an angel.' Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream. But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.
>