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Seventy-six years ago, Jews were freed from concentration camps after being taken, tortured and killed by the Nazis. Many liberated Jewish people created families that kept Jewish culture alive through multiple generations.

Now, many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these survivors are pursuing an education at Syracuse University. Several told their families’ stories to The Daily Orange ahead of this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed Wednesday.

Samara Weissmann, Class of 2022

In my house sits a suitcase with the initials “SW” engraved in it. This is the same suitcase that my great-grandpa, Siegfried Weissmann, used when he fled Nazi Germany and moved to the United States.

My great-grandfather was a really proud German. He lived in Viernheim, where he and my great-grandma raised my grandfather. In their town, they were close friends with a Catholic family, the Faltermans. The Faltermans and the Weissmanns always got along.

When Nazi Germany and Hitler came to power, they started rounding up all the Jews that lived in Viernheim. There were only 80 of them at the time, so it was pretty easy to keep track. They took away my great-grandfather and put him into a concentration camp. They also put his brother into Dachau (concentration camp) and his sisters to another camp, where they were eventually murdered. The same night they were taken to concentration camps, my great-grandfather’s village was burnt down.

SU junior Samara Weissmann’s family still has the suitcase that her great-grandfather had when he fled Nazi Germany. Courtesy of Samara Weissmann

My dad often talks about how, because my great-grandfather was such a well-respected World War I veteran, his town petitioned to get him out of the concentration camp. After he was released, he received sponsorship with help from the Faltermans to move to the U.S. The whole journey, my family kept in contact with the Faltermans.

A couple of years ago, my parents were invited to a ceremony in Germany to commemorate my great-grandparents and grandfather. While we were there, I got to meet the grandchild of the Falterman family, the same family that helped my family escape from the Holocaust. It’s basically been a friendship for generations upon generations.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that Nazi Germany was terrifying. It was horrible. But that doesn’t mean that every single German who lived in Germany was a bad person… I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for (the Faltermans).

Emily Bright, Class of 2022

I find the stories of Holocaust survivors to be so interesting. They were all makers because they had nothing when they were young. My grandma, for instance, became an interior designer and had her own antique shop.

My grandma was born in Paris on Feb. 27, 1936. She is one of eight siblings and is the second youngest. When the war hit Paris in 1940, her father and eldest brother were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed in the gas chambers in 1943. Thankfully, the rest of her family survived the war and reconnected after they were liberated.

Bright’s granduncle wrote a card to his father while in a labor camp. Courtesy of Emily Bright

My great-grandmother is truly the hero of my grandma’s story. She went to every end possible to save her children. She secretly networked to send a few of her kids to the countryside to hide with non-Jewish families. My grandma was one of these children that were sent about 100 miles outside of Paris. The one thing my grandma says she remembers most clearly is eating the peels of potatoes for food, or “pills” as she calls them with her French accent.

I have a whole compilation of documents from Nazi France and occupied France that include all the dates of them occupying Paris and the fall of the empire. I love this kind of stuff. I’ve been trying to write a historical fiction book based on my grandma’s story. I felt like it’s a purpose of mine to consume all of this information and write it down.

My grandma credits all of this work to me, but it’s not me who did it. It’s her who lived her life and had this trauma as a child and is able to remember it clearly. How many people can say that they remember what happened to them when they were 5 or 6 years old and then be able to go on and live such a happy and successful life? It’s one thing to have resentment, but it’s another thing to be able to turn that into a really beautiful life.

Bright’s grandmother keeps her Jewish star in an envelope that says “Never to be thrown out” on it. Courtesy of Emily Bright

Jeremy Grafstein, Class of 2022

The other day, I called my grandma, curious to learn more about my grandpa’s story. We ended up coming across an interview that my grandpa taped with the National Holocaust Museum that I and the rest of my family didn’t even know existed.

My grandpa, Ralph Grafstein, is a Holocaust survivor. He was born in 1930 in a small village in eastern Poland, where his dad owned a textile company. My grandpa was one of three children. He had two brothers: one younger brother, Murray, and an older brother, Abraham. During the war, Abraham escaped a concentration camp and joined a Polish resistance group to help Polish Jews flee persecution. There’s a movie on Netflix called “Defiance” that my dad said is very similar to the experiences Abraham faced.

Abraham was able to use his connections in the resistance group to find a farmer who agreed to hide my family during the war, paying him in gold or whatever valuables my family had. From the ages of about 9 to 16, my grandpa hid with his family in this small attic in Poland until they were liberated by the Russians. According to my grandma, the Russians said that, if they had come to liberate them any later, my grandpa would have died from malnourishment.

Although my grandpa is still alive, I think he often shies away from talking about what he went through during his time in hiding, as it makes him sad. He is almost 91 now and is beginning to forget a lot. I think that, especially in the time that we’re living in now, it’s important that everyone hears these stories and they get passed on. I don’t want history to repeat itself again.

Morgan Saloman, Class of 2022

When my grandma and her family were told to pack their bags and relocated to a ghetto, she hid gold earrings in her teeth knowing that she would need things of value. To this day, I still don’t quite understand how she did it.

My grandma was one of six children and was from what was once Czechoslovakia. When she was 16, her five siblings, mother, two grandmothers and her were deported to Auschwitz. She talks about the experience in the cars as some of the most inhumane things she’s ever experienced.

When she got to Auschwitz, she was immediately told to line up in two lines of five. Her mother and four of her siblings were in one line, and she and her sister, Gilda, got pushed back into the second line. They said “one line go right and one line go left,” and that was the last time she ever saw her mom and four siblings.

While in Auschwitz, my grandma was brought into the gas chambers twice but, just by luck, was never killed. The first time she was brought in, they were doing checkpoints. If you had a pair of pajamas, you were safe, and if you didn’t, you were sent to the gas chambers. My grandma’s cousin knew that, if my grandma got to this checkpoint without the pajamas, she would be killed. So, her cousin gave her pajamas, and my grandma got sent through. The other time she went into the gas chambers, something wasn’t right, and they took them out.

When I got to college, I realized that so many people just don’t know anything and that so many people have never met a Holocaust survivor or heard a story from a survivor, like this one. We always say “never forget,” but it’s not just not forgetting. It’s making sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Noah Atlas, Class of 2021

Everyone in my family was killed by the Nazis, a number that was counted as 69 in all. My grandpa, his mom and his dad were the only ones that survived.

My grandpa titled his Holocaust story, “The Man with Five Names.” The first time his name changed was when he went to live on a farm with a Catholic family to hide from the Nazis. He was given the name Zdzislaw to make him seem more Polish. Luckily, he spoke Polish instead of Yiddish and had green eyes and blonde hair. All of this helped him blend in as Polish.

My grandpa was taken into hiding when he was just 5 years old. On the farm, he had to learn how to hide his Jewish identity. He did not go to school or go to a doctor during those years. To this day, 70 years later, he can still remember the prayers he said in Polish every Sunday morning.

My grandpa knew that he was Jewish, but after time, his memory started to fade. He knew that his two grandparents had been taken away by the Nazis. He wanted to survive and live. He always tried to remember his story and not make any mistakes.

In 1944, his area of Poland was liberated by the Russians, and one day, his mom, who was also hidden for two years, came to pick him up.

When she arrived, she said, “Do you know who I am?”

He didn’t recognize her when he saw her at first.

Emily Karp, Class of 2023

To flee from Siberia, my great-grandma convinced a group of nuns that she was a teacher. With their help, she was able to make it to Tehran, Iran, where my grandpa was born.

No one really knows how my great-grandma ended up in Siberia, or if she was in a camp. She grew up in a very wealthy household in Vienna with her parents and her brother. When the Nazis invaded the city, they raided her house and took all of her family’s artwork, money. Everything. They were left with nothing.

Both of her parents went to concentration camps, where they were later killed. Her brother joined an army against the Nazis and died. My great-grandma wasn’t taken with her family.

While my great-grandma was in Iran, she married the furrier to the Shah and got pregnant with my grandpa. Her husband was eventually taken to a concentration camp by the Nazis. But, before they were able to take my great-grandma, she fled with my grandpa and his half-sister on a boat to America. My grandpa was three when he arrived at Ellis Island.

I think the craziest part is that she basically had to fake who she was just to survive. My great-grandma spoke six different languages. She used this to trick people while she was in Europe and Russia.

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To listen to more Holocaust testimonies, click here.

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Sydney Schroeder, Class of 2023

My grandpa was in Hitler Youth as a kid. That was definitely, to speak personally about my experience, an identity crisis. I’m a proud Jewish woman. I have extended family members on my mom’s side that went to Majdanek (concentration camp) and perished.

My grandfather was born in Lobenstein, Germany. His family owned the labor factory of the town.

My great-grandfather was a communist. He got thrown in prison by the Nazis. My grandfather was 13, I think, when he broke my great-grandfather out of prison. From there, they had train tickets to Vienna, and then they got on a boat and went to Ellis Island.

The war was really hard on him. You could see that in the way he fostered relationships with everyone. I never talked about this with my grandpa. He wasn’t able to process the emotions he felt because it was do-or-die, and he could have been shot or killed breaking my great-grandpa out of prison, which is really the harsh reality of it. It didn’t just affect Jews, everyone was affected by this, even if they were in a position of power.

The Holocaust is such a prevalent piece of history that touches everyone. I think it’s even more important for non-Jews or people with a background like mine to know the stories and to hear them and pass them on. The different perspectives are the most interesting. It only pushed me to learn more and remember more.

Published on January 27, 2021 at 7:55 am