Jewish children after tbe
liberation of Auscbwitz,
one of tbe most notorious
concentration camps
Children ofthe
Through bravery, kindness, and luck, many young Jews survived
Hitler's genocide during World War II. A project called "Remember
Me?" is now trying to track them down.
WORDS TO KNOW
• concentration camp [n]\ a prison
or place of forced labor; often a
general term that includes death
camps Nice Auschwitz, which
were specifically designed by the
Nazis as mass killing centers
• Hoiocaust [n]\ the mass
extermination of Jews by Nazi
Germany from 1933 to 1945
• Nazi [n]\ a political party
dedicated to German dominance
of Europe and the destruction of
the Jews; a member of that party
2 0 JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC/MAY 14, 2012
A
t the age of 19, Tibor
Munkácsi was lined up
against a wall in Budapest
to be shot. His crime: being Jewish
in Nazi-controlled Hungary.
The year was 1944. Five years
earlier, the armies of German dictator Adolf Hitler had plunged Europe
into World War II (1939-1945).
Hitler was partly motivated by a
fanatical hatred of Jews, whom he
blamed for Germany's loss of World
War I. As German forces rolled
across Europe—including Poland,
France, and other countries—they
carried out an almost unimaginable
plan. Called the "Final Solution," it
was Hitler's design to wipe out the
Jews of Europe.
By March 1944, Hitler controlled Hungary through a puppet
government. There the authorities
sent hundreds of thousands of
Hungarian Jews to work and die in
concentration camps (see map,
p. 22). Many were simply killed
in the streets.
So it was that one night local
Nazis found Tibor and a few
friends and lined them up to be
11
II
ii
= ±-
, } , as required for all Jews
German soldiers
execute Polish
Holocaust
shot. Suddenly, a Hungarian army
officer arrived and said that he was
arresting these Jews. But the officer
actually knew Tibor. Three blocks
away, he let him and his friends go.
Many others weren't so lucky.
Between 1933 and 1945, some
6 million of Europe's 9 million
Jews were murdered in what came
to be known as the Holocaust.
About 1 million of the victims were
children. Many were shot and
thrown into mass graves, or herded
into gas chambers at death camps.
Others died in the camps from hunger, disease, or cold.
The Holocaust also consumed
other groups of people that Hitler
saw as inferior or dangerous,
including Poles, Gypsies, Communists, the disabled, homosexuals.
and Catholic priests. About 5 million of them were killed.
Yet, amazingly, many people
targeted by the Germans made
it through the war. Each of the
survivors had a unique story—of
kindness and cruelty, bravery and
cowardice, and often sheer luck.
Tibor was one of them. "I survived through a miracle," he says
today. "There were people bigger,
smarter, and stronger who didn't.
And that bothers me."
Back to Civilization
Tibor's "miracle" almost didn't
happen. Shortly after his escape
from the firing squad, he was
caught again and sent to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in
Germany. There a German prisoner
helped him get work as a tailor—
which saved him from having to
work outside in the bitter cold.
Then one day in April 1945,
Tibor and the other prisoners
were abruptly evacuated from
the camp. In the war's last days,
German guards were fleeing from
advancing U.S. and Soviet troops.
Some 28,000 prisoners were driven
on a brutal forced march on which
as many as 8,000 of them died.
Still, Tibor's luck held out. In
late April, U.S. soldiers liberated
the prisoners. By May, the war in
Europe was over.
Tibor was then taken with other
young people to a relief camp near
Munich, Germany. It was like
going "back to civilization," he
continued on p. 22 ->
MAY 14, 2012/JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC 2 1
WEB WATCH
"Remember Me?"
rememberme.ushmm.org
f
Born in France, Ami LevinsityKaufman Is shown here in 1948,
a year after the war ended.
«>.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, Tibor
Munkácsi, now Tibor Sands, is
shown here in 1945.
tells ]S. "We were sleeping in real
beds and eating real food. Some
of the guys and girls were using a
fork and knife for the first time in
their lives."
Again, fate played a role. With
the war over, relief agencies went
through the camps photographing
survivors, hoping to reunite them
with their families. By chance,
the man who took Tibor's picture
knew the boy's older brother.
Martin Munkácsi had moved to the
U.S. before the war and was a wellknown photographer in New York.
"I was already determined to
come to the U.S.," Tibor says.
Tibor contacted his brother and
in time was able to move to New
York. A few years later, when he
became a U.S. citizen, he decided he
wanted a new last name. Opening a
phone book, he chose the first one
his finger landed on. The Hungarian
survivor was now Tibor Sands.
Sands was also fortunate that
his mother and other family members had survived the war. But
millions of children were orphaned
by the Holocaust.
Ami Levinsky-Kaufman was
only an infant when his mother and
father died in the Holocaust, and
he has no memory of them. Born in
Montargis, France, in January 1942,
he was saved from his parents' fate
by a Roman Catholic priest who
found shelter for the boy.
ÍÍJ
a
il
"7
A "Normal" Life
EUROPE, 1942]
WOfí/í
SWEDEN
DENMARK
Sea
FRANCE
2 2 JUNIOR SCHOUSTIC/MAY 14, 2012
When the war ended. Ami
ended up in a children's home. An
aid worker photographed him at
the age of 4. The Catholic priest
was able to contact Ami's aunt in
Palestine (now Israel), where the
boy went to join her.
"I grew up in a very warm home
with my adoptive mother, and I
think I grew up fairly normal,"
Levinsky-Kaufman says.
In hindsight, one thing was
strange. Nobody ever talked to
him about the Holocaust or about
his parents.
"Maybe they thought it would
II
ii
il
U.S. soldiers tend
>* to an emaciated
prisoner after the
liberation ofthe
Penig camp in
Germany.
be too traumatic for me," he says.
Levinsky-Kaufman's aunt died
when he was just 16, and he has
since tried to piece together his
family history. After serving in the
Israeli army, he moved to New
York City, where he married and
resumed a "normal" life.
Then one night last year, he saw
a CBS news report about a project
called "Remember Me?" Historians
from the U.S. Holocaust Museum
in Washington, D.C., had collected
nearly 1,200 ofthe photographs
taken of children after the war and
posted them online.
Levinsky-Kaufman went to the
Web site and found the photo of
himself at age 4. He'd never known
it existed. "I don't know how to
explain the emotions," he says.
"It's very moving."
Preserving a Heritage
Today the "Remember Me?"
project is using photos of
Holocaust survivors taken nearly
70 years ago to reconnect adults
with their lost childhoods.
"These survivors are already in
Prisoners who survived Dachau cheer
as U.S. forces arrive
to iiberate the camp.
their 70s and 80s," says Jude
Richter, a historian at the
museum. "We want to be able to
reach out and find as many of
them as we can."
For Richter, the project is all
about preserving their stories for
future generations. "It's really
important that we know . . . what
children went through to reach that
moment captured in those
pictures," he tells JS.
Since the project began to post
photos online in March 2011,
about 80 people have identified
themselves, Richter says.
As for Tibor Sands, he's had a
full life since coming to the U.S. He
was a respected Hollywood
cameraman, working on films like
The Godfather. But for most of his
life. Sands kept his experiences
during the Holocaust to himself.
"For many years after I was
liberated, I wouldn't talk about it,"
he says. "I absolutely avoided the
subject of the Holocaust. It's only
about 10 or 15 years ago that I
finally started talking about it or
answering questions."
My grandmother was one ofthe
European Jews who survived the
Holocaust. We called her "Oma,"
which is German for Grandmother.
Oma was born in Germany in
1929. When she was 9, her parents
saved her from Hitler's genocide by
putting her on a train for England.
She was one of about 10,000 Jewish
children who escaped the Nazis
through a rescue mission called the
Kindertransport. [Kinder \s German
for children.) Oma's mother, brother,
and 12 aunts and uncles were killed
in concentration camps.
Oma grew up with strangers in
Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's
birthplace). After the war, she
immigrated to the U.S., where she
reunited with her father. She met her
husband in California; one of their
children was my mother.
Oma rarely spoke about the
Holocaust. But she did pass on two
important words: "Never forget." I
know that she would have wanted
me to share her story. In doing so,
I help ensure that her past will not
become her grandchildren's future.
—JoeBubar
Sands now plans to attend a
reunion of survivors from the relief
camp where he was placed after
the war. Levinsky-Kaufman, for his
part, believes in the importance of
sharing his story so that history
won't repeat itself.
"I think it's important that the
stories will never be forgotten and
never be lost," he says. "It's my
own history and the history of the
Jewish people."
—Joe Bubar & Bryan Brown
T H I N K ABOUT IT: Why might it
be important for Holocaust survivors
to learn more about lost family
members?
MAY 14, 2012/JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC 2 3
Copyright of Junior Scholastic is the property of Scholastic Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.