Living 70 Years with PTSD After Surviving the Holocaust (And Still Holding on to Hope)

the last time you saw your parents did you know it was going to be the last time no no i didn't didn't know anything when they took me away from my mother i never knew i'll never see her but i found out next day that they took them all to the crematorium when they burned them and i still think about it how my mother matched her children and died it doesn't leave me how often do you think about it very often at night when i go to sleep what do you believe is the most important thing for the world to learn from your story that it shouldn't happen again there shouldn't be anti-semitism and people should get along all nationalities should get along everybody is a human being welcome to sbsk join me as i travel around the world and interview individuals living with a condition to prove no matter how you communicate or what obstacles you face you're always deserving of love and acceptance so without hesitation let's meet today's friend if you had to introduce yourself to the world what would you say i don't understand what you ask if you had to introduce yourself to the world what would you say okay i'm better fight but i was born in romania to a religious family how long did it take after liberation for you to feel happiness again i never could feel as happy as people are i can never laugh like people do the bad thing started for me in 1938 before even the board broke up because in romania we had the government was very anti-jewish and when i went to school the principal used to hit us while we waited online to go into the class and i had a good teacher she didn't let us go out to recess because we were always attacked and i see teenagers how they are happy and they laugh i can never do that why not because my whole life as a team was very bad i was able to go to school for two more years of 1942 then jewish children couldn't go to school how old were you i was about 12. i was very very hurt when i couldn't go to school i used to watch through the gate children going to school and i couldn't go i was a very good student and i loved school but i couldn't so who are these two people they're great who are they who are we [Laughter] they're my children i'm renee and i'm sheldon and after a month in may 22nd 1944 they put us in cattle cars we were all together in a corner in the in that cattle car and we traveled for four days and we got to auschwitz-birkenau it was evening and it was dark and prisoner came up to the cattle car and once thought to me that i'm i should say i'm 16. and i was held holding my little sister who was five and we came down and they took her away from me and gave it to my mother and they took me away and i've never seen my parents again do you still have faith in humanity no i think they do terrible things they're capable of doing terrible things to other human beings for no reason at all and when he came along he was a very good baby very good he smiled when i came in and he i enjoyed him more enormously i noticed when you described your son you have a big smile on your face yeah why is that because i'm very proud of them and there were fires burning so we thought they take they'll take us alive to be burned so a lot of people got very hysterical i i asked the german to please shoot me first next morning we were marched into the sea lager and you seen the dead bodies that they shot the night before still on the on the street of course i was very unhappy and i was crying for my parents and one day the couple from the from the block grabbed me by my neck pulled me out and said if i won't take care of myself and stop all that crying i'll wind up in the chimney just like my mother and father while you were experiencing what you went through during the war would you have believed that one day you would be sitting in new york city with your grandson no i couldn't visualize that never never so what is it like to actually be here terrific after a few weeks i found out my older sister that i didn't grow up with together was in black seven so i joined her there i was always sort of taking care of people and the camp when i was able to get some extra soup which i told you i used to bring to my sister and my cousin and a girlfriend and another block and another place i used to bring it i was very proud of her that's i remember she was in first grade and they had a sale and she needed money to buy stuff so i gave her a dollar and she for that dollar she bought everybody something but the whole family i was so proud of her that she thought to buy for everybody next morning i volunteered to go bring the soup from the kitchen but i noticed a lot of bodies on the wires and the whole tail agar was empty they they took that night to the crematorium 10 000 people and then we went for a selection near the crematorium we were standing there for a few hours and then we went for selection mengele was selecting us with everything you've been through have you ever lost your faith in god i have a lot of arguments with him i used to speak to him all the time and i asked him why why is he punishing us so much did you ever find an answer no no but they selected you they looked you should be strong to work so some people they didn't think strong enough to work they didn't take him and at the end they selected you you had to pass a room nude if you had any pimples or something they didn't trick you you had to have a clean body and you have to appear to them strong enough to work and i was lucky i was able to pass and they lifted me up when i got into that room that i was able to pass because i was young skinny and they gave us clothes there they put us on in cattle cars and we went to germany i think it's important to have religion because when you drown you hold on to a straw you never lost grip in that straw no i never lost the straw but in april 26 1945 we were liberated the americans came just a a a truck or a jeep with a few americans and there was a chaplain and he said the prayers with us and we were there for about a few days i wanted to go back home to see maybe somebody's alive i couldn't imagine not having anybody left and there i found my brother one of my brothers so we were very happy i had a sister and i had a brother if you had to describe your grandmom to the world what would you say i would say very determined very loving um obviously very strong how do you feel as you hold your grandson's hand it feels good it's great by that time president truman passed a law that he is allowing 200 000 of displaced persons into the united states and i registered with my sister and in 1949 we were able to come to the united states i think being able to come to america and build the life and the life that you did with your children and grandchildren is very inspiring during that time i went to find a job on the same block there was a place where they made little boy's coats and i went upstairs and i asked him for a job he says do you know how to sew an electric machine i said i don't but you're a nice gentleman are you going to teach me and he did he taught me and i earned 35 a week and i felt very rich when it was post-war and you started your own family did memories of your experiences still haunt you yeah it was terrible for me that i didn't have my mother there were many times i wish i was dead because it was very hard for me i felt very much alone growing up i felt as if she had been through so much already had so much pain in her life i didn't want to contribute to that so i did whatever i could not to i don't know rock the boat or um [Music] make her angry what i wanted you to do i i gotta know that she spoke up not to spoke up i was speaking out of turn or i was something something something not that i said hallelujah that's great because i wanted her to be outgoing and participating i tried she did she encouraged me i was just i was scared i was i was scared are you able to trust people yes but i only affiliate with people that are trust if i don't trust people i i'm not in contact with them when you see this photograph of your wedding what do you think i recall how happy i was i love to watch it in 1951 i met my husband what did you think the first time you saw him he was tall and handsome in 1953 i got we got married and we had three beautiful children and i was very happy when i went to my apartment it was on the fifth floor vodka but it was still my apartment and it was great did he propose to you year no i told him it's time he married me what did he say he said yes see we always had our own home in europe so to me it was very important to have my own place how would you describe the lasting psychological effect going through the war has had on you i was depressed all the time i had terrible nightmares i used to scream we had a detective he came out once with a gun because i was screaming so loud i lost my voice because i was afraid they were chasing me i guess my consciousness absorbed it even when i was little so basically as it happened it was basically business as usual so i accepted it and waited for it every night and i knew it was it wouldn't be late it was not something that happened three in the morning there were some nights i remember where the outburst was so big i remember she like knocked her lamp off you know over for a night table it would be so big if he crashed to the floor you'd hear a lot of noise i dreamt that i was in camp how long did those dreams last for for years for years i got the impression that somebody was chasing her she was in imminent danger so she would yell out help me help me or save me while she was sleeping while she was sleeping yes yes so we can only imagine how she's reliving these terrible scenarios from the from her camp days when she was in the camp and throughout throughout the war i had a nice i'd hear my father calming her down um but what do you say to you it's okay it's okay yeah he was always good whenever i felt threatened about something he helped me made it okay would he say anything to you he didn't have to say anything he just said it's okay made me feel very good i miss that mostly about him i miss that a lot do you still believe there's good in the world yeah there are some good people there there are people who help other people not everybody's bad you know i went back to auschwitz in 1987 my husband took me back to poland and we went to auschwitz after that i didn't have as many nightmares it was like i said goodbye throughout your life were you still able to experience moments of joy sure when when my kids my kids got married when they graduated medical school i was very happy and i'm happy if my children are happy i'm happy many times i think i should have had one more if i would have known they turned out so good [Laughter] i love being with them and i'm very proud of what they are how they behave event the best for them i'm proud of her because she does persevere and she pushes through whatever she has to push through it wasn't always easy she did she she did have you know her times when she felt down depressed and in spite of that she was able to make a wonderful life for herself raise three wonderful children um and be married to the same man for how many years six years 64 years to the same man you need to hold on to something what are you holding on to today i'm grateful to him for for all the good stuff i thank him every friday night for all the good things i always think it's gonna be better did it get better sometimes most of the times thanks for watching if you appreciate what we're doing and want to see spsk grow make sure to like comment and subscribe this will help us reach even more people and make the world a better place thank you what is it like to have experienced everything you have and be alive to tell the story in the year 2018 unusual i never thought i lived that long are you grateful you have yes and i'm very lucky

Channel: Special Books by Special Kids

Views: 2,940,891

Keywords: PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Holocaust, Survivor, Poland, Auschwitz, World War 2, SBSK, Special Books by Special Kids, Depression

Id: HLWmycX5tzo

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018