Holocaust videos

              Edith Coliver was born on July 26, 1922 in Karlsruhe, Baden found in Germany. At the time of the interview she was seventy seven years old and now lives in San Francisco. Her early childhood was very peaceful; she grew up in the middle class. She was asked when things changed in her elementary school, she said “There wasn’t a large change but things were starting to get different in 1937.” Most of her family was from Germany, dating back to nearly 300 years. They left Germany to go to America with her family in June of 1938; her father said the war was coming. There was a ten year wait for Visa’s “I felt myself very lucky to have gotten out when we did.” She went to George Washington high school after arriving in America. She worried about war while in school, thinking the war was coming soon. She went to Berkley for college; it was a safe haven to her. She enjoyed the company of many Germans that went to school with her, it was like home. Edith was involved in the trials against the German hierarchy that were just under Hitler. She saw all the Defendants at the trials. One that stuck out the most was the trial against Hess who was the number three man in German. She traveled to the camps after liberation and saw the pits of bodies that were killed. Edith went to Germany with curiosity not revenge for those who harmed the Jews. Many Germans knew about the concentration camps, the pits of bodies, the smoke for the camps and the smell gave away the locations of them. No one in America really knew how bad it was. What Edith saw and went through in the trials is heartbreaking and you can hear it in her voice in the testimony video. She felt bad for those in Germany that had to go through this horrible time.

Quotes:

“I felt myself very lucky to have gotten out when we did.”

“I was in a gang, an upscale gang.”

345 Words

The second video I watched was the interview with Joseph Morton. Mr. Morton was born July 11, 1924 in Lodz, Poland. Joseph and his family grew up in a small apartment with six children. There were five sons and one daughter in his family, he was the oldest. The whole family all slept in one room in their apartment. Once Joseph started to hear of Hitler and understand what was going on he became very frightened. Eventually his family was taken to a ghetto, where his dad was made a policeman in the ghetto. Their beds were filled with lice and there was no nurture to anyone. The Jews had to wear yellow bracelets to identify themselves. Luckily the ghetto they were in was closed in 1944. In Germany in August of 1944 the Germans began to make orders and separate the people. Thankfully Joseph ended up with his father, one brother, and one male cousin on the same cattle wagon. Sadly, Joseph lost everyone except his father, brother and cousin. They were sent off as workers for railroads and airports and numerous other tough jobs. Too many people died at the camp they were at so they shut it down. Joseph was 20 years old when his camp was closed. He was separated to a group called the "sick Jews" because he got an illness. The “sick Jews” were those who were not expected to live their illness. An American army came and liberated them, he was too sick to remember the whole process, but in the end, he found his brother, father, and cousin, and they all went to a DP camp in Canada. They eventually made it back to the US. They were very lucky to survive this heartbreaking event. He describes his survival as luck, he was lucky to be where he was.

Quotes:

“It was a blessing I couldn’t eat when I was liberated because it probably would have killed me.”

“They would go as far as the Jewish area and stopped right there. If they went any further they would get punished.”

“The moment came when we got liberated, when the American Army came, I couldn’t see who was who because my eyes would not stay open.”