Holocaust survivor speaks at WHS
The last time Sonia Weitz spoke to her mother, she promised the older woman she would tell of the horrors of the Holocaust.
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After a “normal” childhood, Weitz spent six years in the ghettos and concentration camps of Nazi Germany before being liberated by Allies soldiers during World War II.
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“The first victim in my family was Uncle Henry,” she said. “He was Jewish and a leader of his community … They were arresting leaders, lawyers, teachers, doctors, priests. I think the rationale was, if you arrest people in leadership, the rest will follow. It pretty much worked that way.”
Henry was taken to Auschwitz as a political prisoner […]
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The Nazis began taking people to their deaths, starting with the old (anyone over 55 years old), the young (anyone under 14 years old) and the physically or mentally handicapped. Weitz was in immediate danger because she was not 14. […]
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Although there wasn’t much she could do as a child, Weitz recalled working in a factory and sewing together soldiers’ uniform sleeves as a means of “passive resistance.”
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Weitz also broke the rules by sneaking into the male barracks to see her father. […].
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Although Weitz’s sister [Bianca] and Norbert [Blanca’s childhood sweetheart] were married while in the Nazi camps, they were separated and placed in different camps. After the liberation, Norbert began looking for survivors from his family. By searching through the Nazi’s meticulous records, Norbert discovered that Blanca had survived.
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Source:
Danielle Masterson/ Correspondent
Thursday, October 6, 2005
www2.townonline.com/wakefield/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=337986
Webmaster note: She survived six years, even though she was “underage” (and thus supposedly doomed to instant death). While in the camp she snuck around off-limits and became a saboteur — yet she was not executed. Her Jewish uncle was sent to Auschwitz as a political prisoner, not as a Jew, and her sister married her childhood sweetheart while still in the camp. Doesn’t this sound like a more realistic survivor testimony than those involving Nazi gas chambers?