We took a field trip with some friends to our state's Holocaust Museum. The museum followed the story of the Kalamitskas family, from Nazi occupation to liberation. Our docent is the youngest Holocaust survivor. His parents were partisan freedom fighters.
In a concentration camp.
Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass
Holocaust means whole burnt. The sculpture in the background is a hand reaching for help from the flames of torture. A hand that was largely ignored by the civilized world.
Many Torah's were burned during Kristallnacht. This is a Torah that was saved from that horrible night.
On the SS St. Louis with 936 German Jews trying to escape the Holocaust in Europe. After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of Florida they were denied entrance to the United States. The ship was forced to return to Europe, only 365 of the 936 passengers survived the Holocaust.
In the Ghetto the Jews were forced to live on limited food rations and face the humiliation of their Synagogues being desecrated.
The family makes a daring escape from the Ghetto through a small hole that they make in the fence. A family member covers their tracks by wiring the fence back together. They hide on the land of a potato farmer. He allows them to build a hiding place under the ground were 17 of them hide for 7 months.
Asael Bielski's (left) life was portrayed in the movie Defiance.
One Million Five Hundred thousand Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust. In 1990 there were 1,500,000 children in the public education system in the state of Virginia.
Entering the gas chamber.
Inside the gas chamber listening to our docent describe the fear and torture of the people who died there.
The concentration camp entrance
Our docent Alex gave us a remarkable journey with the personal stories of his family and the Kalamitskas family. The family picture on the right is a picture of his family taken while at the Displaced Persons Camp.
