Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Hanna Ramras - January 26, 2008

Hearing About the Holocaust

Let's, let's go back for a second. During the war--let's see, you were a teenager in England, attending boarding school um, I assume were aware of either what the military or the political situation was...

Very much aware.

What was that like reading about or experiencing what was happening? Did you hear what was happening to the Jews in, in...

No. That was discovered when the Armed Force came close to the uh, to the camps and opened the gates and then we first saw and heard and we saw--I remember watching those, those films...

Bergen-Belsen.

Documentary films in, in, in the news theater, right? There was a place where you got news. I had my lunch there. That was already when I was older and I was in Manchester then because I left my foster parents. They took me to my cousins.

Oh, they did?

Yeah, and I went back to the Jewish world.

And was that your decision to make?

I wasn't asked. The decision was uh, Mr. and--Mrs. Style made me, not Mr. Style, said that she couldn't deal with this because my cousin explained to her that I am a Jewish child, that I come from an Orthodox family and that he thinks what they did was one of the noblest gestures in the world but if there's family and if I am not become a Christian but to continue to be a Jewish child then I--they would have to let me go and it would be much harder much later when I was older and where I would have to make the decision by myself and walk away which would be terrible for them and for me and Mrs., Mrs. Style understood that.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn