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I first met Elie Wiesel in the summer of 1965. Wiesel’s book Night had been translated into English five years earlier. Night was just beginning to be recognized in English-speaking countries. Wiesel was not yet then the impressive speaker he was soon to become. As he addressed the audience that summer about the horrors of the Holocaust, Wiesel was diffident to the point of shyness.

The post Elie Wiesel: the Hillel of our time appeared first on OUPblog.

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Hello, I’m back from my break and looking forward to catching up with you all. If you have a question or would like to leave a comment, please do, I love to hear from you.

Taking a blogging break gave me the opportunity to read some of the books I've accumulated over the last few years. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately I can never resist buying more so the size of my must-read pile remains virtually unchanged! One new book on the list is The Kracow Ghetto Pharmacy by Tadeusz Pankiewicz. I heard about it on a recent trip to Poland and was lucky enough to find a copy at The Oskar Schindler Factory Museum (Fabryka Schindlera). Tadeusz Pankiewicz was the only Pole living and working in the Kracow Ghetto from its inception to its liquidation. I’m sure it won’t be an easy read but when was anything worthwhile ever easy? Having seen the remnants of the ghetto walls and visited Auschwitz and Birkenau the Holocaust is uppermost in my mind.

This is the entrance to Auschwitz with the words “arbeit macht frei” which translated means “work will set you free."


According to the BBC historian Laurence Rees the sign was erected by order of Commandant Rudolf Höss. Made by prisoner-labourers the sign features an upside-down B, which has been interpreted as an act of defiance.

We thought we were ready for Auschwitz, but nothing prepared us for the overwhelming sense of sadness that prevails. The feeling of the place seeps into your bones and will not be left behind.


The complex is divided into three major camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Auschwitz III-Monowitz and several sub-camps. During the Holocaust gas chambers using Zyklon-B claimed the lives of roughly one million people. Most of the victims were Jews, and the majority killed in this way died at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Auschwitz III provided slave labour for the I G Farben plant founded at Auschwitz in 1940. Farben produced synthetic rubber, along with high-performance fuels, various plastics, methanol, nitrogen and pharmaceuticals. The Zyklon B gas used in the gas chambers was produced by Degesch a subsidiary of I G Farben.


Several of the buildings have been converted from barracks into museum rooms. The rooms are used to house the "Material Evidence of Crime." This consists of piles of shoes, glasses, suitcases, kitchen utensils and the most chilling of all human hair. The Nazis not only murdered millions of men, women and children, they also "harvested" some of the remains. In the early nineteen-forties, a brisk trade emerged between the death camps, and German felt and textile manufacturers who used the hair in the production of thread, rope, cloth, carpets, mattress stuffing, and felt insulators for the boots of railroad workers. According to historians, it's quite possible some of the products are still in use in German homes today.
The collection of shoes is possibly one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. Most are in the same dark grey colour, but a few are made from red leather, a poignant reminder of the red coat worn by the little girl in the film Schindler’s list. The guide who accompanied us around the museum said it will soon be 'updated' with new interactive exhibits. I’m not so sure that is a good idea. At the moment it is a stark reminder of just what humans are capable of and maybe it needs to remain that way.

If you are planning a visit to Auschwitz expect a tough day in more ways than one. Don’t assume you will find wheelchair access or level paths because you won’t. The site is not disabled friendly. It is also far larger than I ever imagined, and the only way to see it is to walk. We didn't find it too much of a problem, but if you have difficulty getting around do check before finalising any arrangements. 

I'm sorry this is a sad post, especially as it’s the first one for a while. I promise the next one will be more cheerful

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The Armenian genocide and the Holocaust took place decades ago, but the novelist William Faulkner was right when he said that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It had been hoped that “Never again!” might be more than a slogan, but in April 1994, the Rwandan genocide began and was soon in full cry.

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Early in our trip to Krakow we found ourselves seated beside an Irish couple at a restaurant. They'd returned that day from Auschwitz and Birkenau. They were insisting that we travel there as well. I was conflicted.

Tell me why I have to go, I said, after expressing concerns about presenting myself as a tourist in a place so much where so much horror happened.

You go for the sheer immensity, the husband told me. You go because you have to.

And so we did—taking a two-hour bus ride from Krakow through the countryside and toward the camps. We arrived at the end of a day, most tourists gone. And then: The sheer immensity of it. 1.3 million interned. Only 200,000 survived. The shoes. The hair. The suitcases. The faces. The camp land that went on beyond possible seeing. The sheer immensity.

In the midst of our travels we received word from a visionary documentary filmmaker—Neil Halloran—about the release of a new project long in the making that puts some of this into context. Yesterday my husband and I sat with these eighteen or so minutes in perfect silence, watching. This is extraordinary material—World War II quantified and then contextualized. A reminder about the hope that still exists, even in this torn-up world of ours. And a spectacular use of numbers. In fact, I've never seen numbers used to such tremendous storytelling effect.

Here are Neil's words about the film itself. I highly recommend it as visual art and historical message:

Today I am launching the website fallen.io <http://fallen.io>  after many years in the making, and I would be so very delighted if you gave it a look.

http://www.fallen.io

The Fallen of World War II is a short animated data-driven documentary about war and peace. The film explores the harrowing statistics of World War II and sizes up its numbers to other wars in history, including recent conflicts. It's a dark portrayal of the war, but hang in there, because it's also very much a film about peace.

The documentary is unusual in the way it blends data visualization with filmmaking. It was created almost entirely with custom software so that the visuals could be closely choreographed with the underlying data. The sound design and original score were composed by my brilliant collaborator Andy Dollerson - so wear headphones! As a web-based film, it features interactive segments that allow viewers to pause and dig into the data visualizations that are rendered live on screen.

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This is one of the most iconic images from the Holocaust - a seven year old boy with his hands up for the German camera man, surrendering to armed German soldiers. The terrified look on his face speaks volumes. It is 1943 and this image is from the Warsaw Ghetto. It is an image which is often used to show how the Nazis waged war on children; on those least able to defend or protect themselves.

But like so many pictures from history, even as recent as 72 years ago, there is a sense that all the people in this picture have vanished and so our connection to such horror weakens and becomes distant and easy to disconnect from.

However, on Holocaust Memorial Day, 2015, I had the privilege of meeting Arieh Simonsohn, now in his 80s -  Arieh was the boy with his hands in the air. Suddenly history came alive in front of me.


Arieh had been invited to speak at an event held at Southampton University for HMD 2015, the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. On that day 300 survivors of the camp gathered in Birkenau. Among them was my father's cousin, Renee Salt, who was also a child in the Holocaust and survived the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, slave labour and Belsen, only to find herself all alone in the world after liberation.
The HMD event in Southampton was one of 70 sites chosen around the UK for the lighting of one of Anish Kapoor's candles. Kapoor, the eminent sculptor, was commissioned to create a special installation for this important anniversary. He made 70 candles and Arieh lit the candle at Southampton.


I had a chance to speak to Arieh beforehand and he told me about the photo. He is seven years old and over his shoulder is a bag which his mother made for him. He has almost no memory of this time as though the trauma has been wiped from his mind. But he remembers the clothes and the bag. He kept everything he could scavenge in that bag, food scraps, etc until it was stolen from him. He thinks the woman behind him just in front of a German soldier is his mother, but he is not sure.

Arieh told me that for a long time he would not admit to being the boy because he was ashamed that he was surrendering. Well - he was only seven! Such was his strength and determination to survive, which he did when he was sent into hiding by his parents and faced so many terrible things, that the very thought of surrendering to the enemy was unthinkable. True grit even to this day.

Arieh also said that the soldier behind him, facing the camera and with his gun pointing straight at the child was a man called Bleuther who had personally massacred over 3000 people in the ghetto. He was a mass murderer. He wasn't caught until 1968 and then he was tried and sentenced to death.
"I was very fortunate, I was lucky," Arieh said to me with a smile playing on his face. "You were so strong, an inspiration to us all," was all I could say back as I patted his arm. The whole of Arieh's family disappeared in the Holocaust. "Until recently I could not accept that they were dead," said Arieh. "But probably they died on a transport to Treblinka." Over 300,000 people were transported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka death camp and murdered. Thousands died within the Warsaw Ghetto from starvation, disease, torture and murder. Arieh is one of the few survivors.

Arieh is among the dwindling number of survivors who is still able to visit schools and communities to give their eye witness stories. Holocaust Memorial Day gives everyone an opportunity to reflect on this particular genocide and those which so sadly have followed since 1945 : Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and also that of the Armenian genocide which preceded the Holocaust.
My friend Helen Bonny wrote a song, Keep the Memory Alive, which was performed by Jack Cook, a professional singer and song writer and Helen's son.


Arieh was forced to look after himself from the age of seven until the end of the war, two years later, without his parents.He learnt many skills including running with a gang, removing German landmines to help the Allied advance and stealing food. He triumphed over all the odds and came to the UK where he built a new life for himself. He could not speak highly enough of his adopted country.But the real accolade lies with Arieh himself. He never gave up and he never gave in.

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In spring 1944, Hungary was occupied by German soldiers and in the city of Debrecen, a ghetto was formed at the end of April.  Thinking her family was lucky because their apartment fell within the walls of the ghetto, Hanna Mendel continued to believe she would be able to attend Budapest Conservatorium of Music, where she had just been selected for a hard won place as a piano student.

But in the middle of a night in June 1944, a knock on the door by officers informed them that the Mendel family,  parents, high-spirited, defiant older sister Erika and Hanna, 15,  was ordered to assemble outside the synagogue at 8 the next morning.   Before leaving, Hanna rips the C-sharp from her beloved piano and takes it with her.  The next morning the Mendels, along with all of Debrecen's Jews, begin their long trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp.

Once they arrive at Auschwitz, the family is split up, but luckily Hanna, Erika and their mother are able to stay together in the same barrack, even sharing a bunk.  Put to work in the quarry, one day Hanna sees her music teacher playing piano with an ensemble made of up inmates and called the Birkenau Women's Orchestra.  Piri thinks that maybe she can get Hanna a place in it.

When that doesn't work out, Hanna is sent to audition with five other inmates for the camp's cruel commandant.  Believing she doesn't stand a chance at being chosen, the commandant leave the choice to his totally disinterested son, Karl Jager, who points to Hanna.

Day after day, Hanna trudges to the commandant's house to await the order to play for him and any guests he may have.  The only perks to playing for the commandant is a warm shower everyday (the commandant detests dirt), shoes, a warm coat and a warm house while she's there.  The only extra food is leftovers she must steal and risk getting caught and shot.

Gradually, however, she discovers that Karl Jager harbors his own dangerous secrets and is not as disinterested or as indifferent as she originally thought.  When he treats her kindly, Hanna finds herself more and more attracted to him.  But returning to the barrack at the end of each day, she sees that her mother and Erika are cold, starving and barely surviving.  To make matters worse, her mother, who had started going mad during the roundup in Debrecen, is having more and more trouble surviving the selections each time they are done.

Their one hope is that the Red Army is really moving east as rumored around the camp and that they arrive in time.

Playing for the Commandant is certainly a very readable book.  I read it in one day.  It is told in the first person by Hanna, a very observant 15 year old and on many levels her voice rings true.  Her descriptions of the camp, of the cruelty inflicted on innocent people are spot on.  When she talks about the lice, the smells, the moldy bread or about how skeleton thin her sister and the other women are becoming, you can clearly see and smell what she is describing.

Despite everything, Hanna'a father had told her to survive at any cost to tell the world what happened to the Jews of Europe and so, she is determined to do what her father wanted.

But when she talks about the danger of stealing scraps of leftover food, or of  living under the pressure of always having to please the commandant, Hanna's fate feels just as capricious or dangerous as her fellow inmates.  For example, when the gardener, a Jew, steps on the grave of the commandant's dog, he is shot in the head for it.  But, when a girl at the commandant's house drops a tray with tea and cakes on it, I thought for sure that when she is removed from the house, she is also killed, but she shows up later, and I have to admit, I was surprised to see her again in the novel.

But, Hanna's growing romance with Karl is very most disturbing and a real flaw in the novel.  I guess I thought Hanna should be thinking more about food than a boy.  She didn't get that much more to eat than her sister, and what she got, she shared with Erika.  Also, at one point, Hanna gets angry at the people, ordinary farmers, who watch her walk to and from the commandant's house every day and do nothing.  I got mad at Karl for being against what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, but who passively sits by and watches it all happen.  I would be curious to know how others feel about this part of an otherwise good novel.  

Yet, despite this criticism, in the end, I thought that Playing for the Commandant is definitely worth reading for its message of survival and hope, but not for its gratuitous romance.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This was an EARC received from NetGalley

Though Playing for the Commandant is a complete work of fiction, Jews actually were often used to play music for the Nazis.  Here is the obituary of Natalie Karp, a famous pianist who played for Amon Goeth's birthday on December 9, 1943.  She and her sister allowed to live because of the beautiful piano playing that night.  Goeth was the cruel commandant of the Kraków-Plaszów Concentrtion Camp in Poland (you may recall Goeth from Schindler's List).

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Werner Reich is just a young boy when he arrives alone at Auschwitz.  His father had died a few years before, he was separated from his mother when the Nazis took her and his older sister was supposedly hiding in plain sight with a Christian family.

Werner may be young but he quickly assesses that the best chance to survive Auschwitz is to appear not to be weak.  So, climbing up to the third rung of  the triple decker bunks in his barracks, scared and lonely, Werner meets his bunk mate, Herr Herbert Levin.

By day, Werner and the other men and boys stand hours for roll call, then move heavy rocks from one place to another, eat the watery soup and stale bread, then try to sleep so they can do this all over again the next day.

One night, however, the guards come in and wake Herr Levin up, demanding magic.  Giving him a deck of cards, Herr Levin performs all kinds of magic tricks for the guards entertainment.  His magic also delights Werner, who thinks Herr Levin might be favored with an extra piece of bread, but his thinking is quickly straightened out by his bunk mate.  "This is not a game and it is not a show…if I displease the guards, if I fail in my magic, if I run out of tricks, if they tire of me…my life will be over."  Werner quickly grasps the capriciousness of life in a concentration camp.

Then one night, Herr Levin teaches Werner how to do a card trick, one just for Werner only.  Magic helped keep Herr Levin alive in Auschwitz so far, maybe it will help Werner, too, he tells the boy.

Eventually the two are separated, and towards the end of the war, Werner is forced to walk on a Death March from Auschwitz to Germany, a walk he survives.  Herr Levin also survives, but the two have no idea what happened to the other.

Werner remained interested in magic throughout his adult life, performing tricks for his family and friends after marrying and migrating to the United States.  But he never found out what happened to Herr Levin until one day he was reading a trade magazine about magic…

and discovered that his Auschwitz bunk mate Herr Levin was none other that the renowned Nivelli the Magician, eminent pre-war magician known all over Europe and who, after the war ended, had been performing in the United States.

It must be so difficult to write books for young readers about the Holocaust that aren't too scary, too grime, too graphic, but istis doable and many parents and teachers find that they are a sensitive way to introduce the heinous circumstances of the Holocaust to their kids.  Canadian author Kathy Kacer, who has written many books for young readers about the Holocaust, seems to instinctively know how to make a Holocaust book accessible and informative without frightening young readers.  And she has done just that in The Magician of Auschwitz, a picture book for older readers.

What makes The Magician of Auschwitz such a fascinating story it that it shows so clearly how one small act of kindness can make such a difference in a person's life - in this case, maybe even helping to save it.   The themes of hope and friendship forbidden in a place where often it really was (understandably) every man for himself are reflected in the muted, subdued illustrations, almost as though they are being hidden from the Nazi captors.

The watercolor illustrations by Gillian Newland are indeed dark and foreboding grays, blacks, browns and gray-green, reflecting life in a concentration camp, with only small touches of red on the playing cards and the swastika on the guards armbands.

Though based on the experiences of the real Werner Reich and Herbert Levin or Nivelli the Magician, however, this is a fictional retelling of their story, told from Werner's point of view.  As a biographical picture book for older readers, there should have been more souces in the back matter than just the author's one extensive "How it Happened" explanation.  However, readers will still enjoy reading this and seeing the accompanying photographs of Werner as a youth and as an older man.  Sadly there is only one photographs of Herr Levin and his wife.

You might find the trailer for The Magician of Auschwitz by the author of interest:

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Film is a powerful tool for teaching international criminal law and increasing public awareness and sensitivity about the underlying crimes. Roberta Seret, President and Founder of the NGO at the United Nations, International Cinema Education, has identified four films relevant to the broader purposes and values of international criminal justice and over the coming weeks she will write a short piece explaining the connections as part of a mini-series. This is the final one, following The Act of Killing, Hannah Arendt, and The Lady.

By Roberta Seret

One can say that Dr. Josef Mengele was the first survivor of Auschwitz, for he slipped away undetected in the middle of the night on 17 January 1945, several days before the concentration camp was liberated. Weeks later, he continued his escape despite being detained in two different Prisoner of War detention camps.

He made his way to Rome, a sanctuary for Nazi war criminals, where he obtained a new passport from Vatican officials. Continuing to Genoa with the help of the International Red Cross and a Fascist network, he embarked on the North King ship in 1949 to Buenos Aires under the alias of Helmut Gregor.

President Juan Peron had 10,000 blank Argentine passports for the highest Nazi bidders. Buenos Aires became their home; there Mengele lived, respected and comfortable, until 1960 when Eichmann was kidnapped by the Mossad just streets away. Afraid he’d be next, Mengele decided it would be safer for him in Paraguay with the support of the pro-Nazi dictator, Alfredo Stroessner. He stayed in Asunción for one year.

The Argentine film, The German Doctor (2014), takes us in media res to 1960 Patagonia and Bariloche, a beautiful mountain oasis in the Andes that reminds Mengele of “home.” This fictional addition to his biography, serves as a six-month stopover before he escapes to Paraguay.

Lucia Puenzo, Argentine filmmaker, has adapted her own novel, Wakolda, for the screen. She adroitly mixes fiction with history and truth with imagination in a tight, tense-filled interpretation that keeps us mesmerized. Yet, as we watch the scenes unfold, we wonder which ones are based on fact and how far should poetic justice substitute for historical accuracy.

The director takes advantage of our “collective conscience” of morality and memory regarding the identity of Dr. Mengele. Despite not once hearing his name, we know who he is, although the characters do not. The director uses our associating him with evil to enhance tension and catapult plot – a clever device that works well.

What is biographically accurate in the film is that Mengele continues his experiments on human beings in order to create the perfect race. The director uses this premise, then extrapolates to fiction and sets the stage with a family that Mengele befriends. The doctor sees an opportunity to experiment with charming Lilith, the under-developed twelve-year-old and injects into her stomach growth hormones that work for cattle. He also gives “vitamins” to the girl’s pregnant mother, Eva, once he realizes she is carrying twins. When the babies are born, he continues his experiments by putting sugar in the formula for the weaker of the two. As the infant cries dying and Mengele studies the reaction, we shudder that the Angel of Death has once again achieved Evil.

The experiments on people that Mengele is obsessed with in the film, is a continuation of his sadistic work at Auschwitz with pregnant women, twins, and genetics. His lab experiment on a mother who had just given birth was notorious. He taped her lactating breasts while taking notes on how long the infant would cry without receiving her milk. When he left for dinner, the distraught mother desperately found morphine for her dying baby.

Mengele was also known to inject dye into the iris of prisoners’ eyes (without anesthesia) to see if he could change the brown to an Aryan blue. He documented his results by pinning each eyeball to a wooden board.

And there were more experiments on thousands of human beings.

Josef Mengele, from 1943-45, appeared each day at Auschwitz’s train station for Selektion. Wearing white gloves, polished high black boots, and carrying a stick, his evil hand pointed Left and Right to order more than 400,000 souls to leave this world through chimneys as ashes. His crimes against humanity can never be forgotten.

After living more than 30 years undetected in South America, Mengele died in 1979 of a heart attack while swimming in the warm waters near São Paulo. This peaceful death for such a monster reinforces his ultimate crime. Film director, Lucia Puenzo, would have been well-inspired to have finished The German Doctor with this horrific and true scene.

Roberta Seret is the President and Founder of International Cinema Education, an NGO based at the United Nations. Roberta is the Director of Professional English at the United Nations with the United Nations Hospitality Committee where she teaches English language, literature and business to diplomats. In the Journal of International Criminal Justice, Roberta has written a longer ‘roadmap’ to Margarethe von Trotta’s film on Hannah Arendt. To learn more about this new subsection for reviewers or literature, film, art projects or installations, read her extension at the end of this editorial.

The Journal of International Criminal Justice aims to promote a profound collective reflection on the new problems facing international law. Established by a group of distinguished criminal lawyers and international lawyers, the journal addresses the major problems of justice from the angle of law, jurisprudence, criminology, penal philosophy, and the history of international judicial institutions.

Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in international law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide. For the latest news, commentary, and insights follow the International Law team on Twitter @OUPIntLaw.

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This novel begins like a typical teenage love story. “Buddy” William Raymond Boyle is a 16 year old boy from a lower middle class family, living in a small village near Montauk, Long Island, NY, where his father is the local policeman. Buddy works part time in a soda shop for a pot-head named Kick Richards, where he sees Skye Pennington whenever she comes into the shop. Skye is the daughter of an oil mogul, who summers with her family at their beachfront estate. Attracted by Buddy’s good looks and her own root-for-the-underdog nature, Skye agrees to go out with him.

Buddy is completely impressed by the Pennington estate and the lavish, carefree life-style they live. He had to thumb three rides to get the estate for his date with Skye; the Pennington’s have 6 cars in their garage, including a Rolls Royce and a Jensen. But Buddy isn’t the only fish out of water at the Pennington’s. While waiting for Skye to finish getting ready for their date, Buddy meets Nick De Lucca, a short, bald man wearing yellow tinted glasses, a hearing aid that seems always to need adjusting and holding a fake cigarette to help him quit smoking. De Lucca is a journalist and guest of Mrs. Pennington, a collector of underdogs just like her daughter.

To impress Skye, Buddy does the only thing he can think of – visit his maternal grandfather in Montauk, a man Buddy barely knows and who is estranged from his mother. Frank Trenker is a cultured, sophisticated man, one who listens to music, loves animals and lives in an impressive house at the end of a long private driveway. The house is filled with books, paintings and antiques – all things the Skye is completely comfortable with while poor Buddy doesn’t have a clue about any of them. When they arrive, Madam Butterfly is playing on the stereo, one of Skye’s favorites. Skye is completely impressed by Buddy’s grandfather, as he had hoped she would be.

Buddy is blinded by his feelings for Skye and lives for the moment he can call her. When he promises his father that he will take his younger brother swimming, the promise is forgotten the moment Skye asks him to come over to see her. His feelings for her and his disregard of his brother begin to cause a riff between Buddy and his father, and even though Buddy knows he is in trouble, he is unable to do anything about it, other than go running whenever Skye calls.

Sunday comes and Buddy is supposed to take his brother fishing, but lies and promises something special when he comes back from seeing Skye. Once there, he can’t bring himself to leave. That night, as Skye and her friends are sitting around a bonfire on the beachfront part of the Pennington estate, Mr. De Lucca wanders over and joins them. It isn’t long before some anti-Semitic joke is casually made, causing everyone to laugh but De Lucca. This is followed by a girl’s poem about an alcoholic boyfriend she one had. De Lucca then begins to recite a poem he said was written by a 15 year old girl called Gentlehands. It is about an SS guard who plays the aria O dolci mani or gentlehands from the opera Tosca to torment the Italian prisoners and whom they nicknamed Gentlehands. The girl is his murdered cousin. She had been a prisoner in Auschwitz when this man was a guard there. Everyone has assumed that DeLucca was Italian, and are quite surprised when he tells them that he is, in fact, an Italian Jew. Upset, Skye tells Buddy she has to get away.

A few days later, they decide to drive out to visit Buddy’s grandfather again. The music for

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The early lives of Alfons Heck and Helen Katz and their individual experience of Hitler’s sway are the subject of this book. Alfons was born in1928, in Wittlich, Germany, a town near the French border and in the heart of the Mosel wine country. He was still a young boy when Hitler came to power and knew no other way of life than Nazism. By the time he was old enough to join the Hitler Youth at age 10, he had been fully indoctrinated in and completely accepted Nazi dogma. Helen was older, born in 1909 in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1933, she married Siegfried Wohlfarth. When the first new laws were passed discriminating against Jews, Siegfried lost his job and Helen was forced to leave university.


By 1935, things were considerably worse for Jews in Germany. Helen and Siegfried decided to leave and went to live in Amsterdam, Holland. In 1937, their daughter Doris was born. Less than a year later, Alfons was sworn into the Jungvolk , the junior branch of the Hitler Youth. After Kristallnacht, or the night of the broken glass on November 9, 1939, Helen and Siegfried were able to get Helen’s brother Fred to England and later the US, and their parents to Holland. But other Jews were not so fortunate.

When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, the Wohlfarths knew their safety would be in jeopardy from then on and they realized that they would have to do something. In July, 1942, they received a letter telling them to report at the train station for “resettlement to the East.” They bought themselves a little more time in Holland by having a doctor remove Siegfried’s healthy appendix. Through the Dutch Resistance, they were able to find a Christian family who was willing to take in Doris and protect her from the Nazis. With Doris safe, Siegfried and Helen decided to go into hiding, again with help of the Dutch resistance. Meanwhile, Alfons had been accepted into the elite Flieger Hitler-Jugend, where he would start training first in glider flying and later as a Luftwaffe pilot. Alfons loved flying and became youngest top-rated glider pilot in all Germany.

Eventually the Wohlfarth’s were discovered in their hiding place. On September 3, 1944 they were put on a train and sent to Auschwitz. Their arrival at this camp was the last time Helen saw Siegfried. It wasn’t until many years later that his death on December 5, 1944 in Stutthof concentration camp was confirmed for her. Helen stayed in Auschwitz for two months and was relocated to Kratzau, a work camp in Poland. She remained there until the Russian Army liberated the camp. She decided to go find her daughter, despite being sick and weak, and, wearing a pair of men’s dress shoes she had been given by the Red Cross, she started walking across Europe to Amsterdam. By the end of the war, Alfrons never made it to the Luftwaffe, but he did achieve the highest rank possible in the Hitler Youth.

Alfons and Helen both ended up living in California, and after reading an article Alfons had written in a newspaper, Helen got in touch with him. In 1979, they formed a partnership, speaking to groups of people about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Their only criterion for their collaboration was complete honesty. I can only imagine how much courage it must have taken for these two people to stand in front of audiences and tell their stories.

In 1985, Alfons Heck published a book about his life called A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika. In 1987, Helen, whose real name was Herta Katz, published a book about her life called Commitment to the Dead:

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