Pittsburgh (KDKA) – On January 27, 1945, eighty years ago, Soviet soldiers freed the Aushwitz and exposed the horrors of Holocaust.
The day is now also known as the International Holocaust memory day, who honors six million Jews killed in the massacre, about one million of which was murdered in a Nazi death camp. This is a huge increase in antisemitism and slightly higher than October 7, the worst attack on Jews since Holocost.
After the war, many Jewish families settled in the Pittsburgh region in search of American dreams. We got to talk with two of them, who survived Holocaust and passed through Aushwitz, so that they could share their stories and make sure that we never forget.
Growing in Pittsburgh, Max Gallinter quickly realized that they were not taking things.
“I learned from my grandparents, that life is not guaranteed,” Max said.
Through years, he listened and read his grandparents' stories, which both were survived by Holocost.
Born in Lodge, Poland, Max's grandfather, Simon, were just 13 years old, when the Germans attacked the country and built the Jewish settlement in 1939.
A year ago after CrystalnaChat, Simon's mother died of a stroke, when the Nazis burnt and destroyed the meetings in Germany.
At the same time, one of the two elder brothers of Simon died of malnutrition.
Simon said in a handwritten testimony, “As we were looking for foods, we got a shock of our life. On a plate, we got many human ears. We were so disgusting and frightened that we left this apartment. . “
In 1944, the Nazis placed them in a cattle car without windows or food and took them to the goodwitz.
“He recalls that the music was playing with playing an orchestra music,” Max said.
When they landed, Simon's father was sent to the left, and sent to the right to him.
Simon said in a handwritten testimony, “When I asked the commandos where my father was, he pointed the cremation to the billing smoke, where your father went.”
Simon feared that she would be ahead. His future wife, Francin, Max's grandmother, could also face gas rooms. Born in Lithuania, she was sent to a camp north of Poland, when the Nazis took her to Aushevitz one day.
“When his cattle car arrived, he said,” We have nowhere to keep these people, because we can't kill very fast, and so the train went back to Stothoff, “Max said.”
He experienced his own evil like Simon, remembering that working like rocks breaking rocks, packed in barracks like sardine with food ration, and beaten and beaten to torture Was lived
It was also a case for 21 -year -old Melvin Goldman, who also went to the death camp from Lodz Jewish Basti. At one point, he knocked on six teeth.
Lee Goldman is the daughter of Kikel Melvin.
“He said that if he feels that the Lodge Jewish settlement was bad, it was frightening, and it was hell,” Lee said.
Unlike Max, Lee learned his father's story from audio recording nearly 20 years after his death in 1996.
Melvin said in his recording, “You smell something, you could not feel, but you knew deeply that it smells like human meat.”
Melvin and one of his brothers were spared. His parents and five other brothers and siblings were gosed.
“He said that he would think about himself, he never knew if he was going to live to see the next day,” Lee said.
However, he saw another day with Simon, which both came out of the Aushwitz and sent them to several other concentration camps, where they continued to go on death march and experience failed health, each weight of each weight by 90 pounds. Was less.
Eventually, he was freed from those camps after more than three months in Aushwitz in January 1945. Simon was 18 years old. Melvin was 22 years old.
“He said,” You probably will never walk again, “and my father said,” Okay, I am either going to walk and doing it on my own or I am not going here, “Lee said .
After getting treatment and rehabilitation for a few years and detecting his next steps, he made his way to the US and Pittsburgh. Simon hung drapes in homes, and Melvin became a jeweler.
According to the Holocost Center in Pittsburgh, they had more than 350 left in the region.
“My grandfather said to my father, if you have to eat sand or grass, whatever you have to eat, whatever you have to do, you have to survive so that someone of the family survives,” Lee said.
While it was difficult for Melvin to express what he was doing, he saved his bracelet from Aushwitz until he died.
“He was no longer a name, just a number,” said Lee.
This reminds of the atrocities of millions of Jews, and the battle that continues today.
“Time can be very dark, but it's something very original, you know, Jewish community. How do we bless those memories?” Max said. “Through this darkness, the light will shine through the light.”