Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Brenda Reiss was born in Kalisz, Poland in 1923. After the German occupation of Poland, Brenda and her family were sent to the ghetto in Koźminek. From there, Brenda and her sister were taken to the Łódź ghetto and then to Auschwitz, where the sisters were separated. Brenda was sent to various forced labor camps before being liberated by the Russian Army. After the war she married and moved
to the United States.

Sigmund Rubin was born in Lódz, Poland. After the Germans invaded Poland, he fled to Warsaw with his family. Driven out of Warsaw by heavy bombing, the family returned to Lódz. Mr. Rubin and his brother were separated from the rest of their family during selection. He and his brother escaped the transport, but were separated. He never discovered the whereabouts of any of his family members. Mr. Rubin spent the remainder of the war in hiding in various locations throughout Poland. After the war, he and his wife lived for a time in Germany, immigrating to the United States in 1949.

Anne Hirschle was born in Breslau, Germany in 1926. After Hitler came to power, her father moved the family to London, where she grew up. She met and married her husband after the war. Anne moved to the United States in 1949. 

A group of junior high school students from Washington has created a collection of children's books inspired by the testimony of those who survived the Holocaust.

The Cavelero Mid High students used the Voice/Vision online collection to research the Holocaust. Moved by the personal stories of survival they encountered on the site, the students wrote and illustrated children's books based upon the interviews they studied.

The storybooks, with titles like "Tamara the Cricket" and "Motzi the Mouse," use illustrations and symbolic language to recount the survivors' stories in a manner appropriate for young readers.

The budding authors' English teacher had the finished stories professionally bound and has entrusted Voice/Vision Curator Dr. Jamie Wraight to see that the books reach the survivors whose accounts inspired their creation. Along with the storybooks, the student authors also sent photographs and letters addressed to the survivors. In the letters, students wrote of their admiration for the survivors' courage and thanked them for sharing their stories, and some wrote that they hoped to correspond with the survivor they had written about.

For more information, click here and here.

Esther Posner was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands on May 11, 1936. After the German invasion, Esther and her family were forced to live in the Amsterdam Ghetto, but were able to contact the Dutch underground. They were hidden by several families in Enschede and Delden for the duration of the war until the Netherlands was liberated by the Allies.

David Burdowski was born in Klodawa, Poland on September 27, 1924. Following the invasion of Poland, he was taken to a forced labor camp called Buchwerder Forst. From there he was taken to work in a paper factory and was then sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. David was transported to many camps during the war before being liberated on a train outside of Dachau by American forces in Staltach. After the war he lived in the Feldafing Displaced Persons Camp and met his future wife. He moved to America in 1949 and started a family