Holocaust Testimonies

Joseph Morton was born July 11, 1924 in Lodz, Poland. Joseph and his family grew up in a small apartment with 6 children who all shared a room with their parents. His father was a Tailor, while his mother stayed at home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the family. There were 5 sons, and 1 daughter, Joseph being the oldest of all 6. When Joseph began hearing of Hitler, he became very scared for him and his family. Before he knew it, his family was taken and dumped in a ghetto, where his father was made a policeman. The ghetto was closed shortly after in. Their beds were filled with lice and there was no form of nurture to anyone. The Jews were given yellow bracelets to wear to identify themselves. When this ghetto was closed, his family was reunited on a cattle wagon that took them to Germany. When they arrived to Germany, later in 1944, the Germans began making strict orders and separating all of the people in the wagons. Unfortunately, Joseph lost everyone except for his father, one brother, and a male cousin. They were sent off as workers to pour concrete, work on railroads and airports, and do many other tough jobs. This camp was also closed not long after due to too many deaths. At this time, Joseph was 20 years old and being moved to a different camp. He later caught an illness and was separated in to a group called the “sick Jews,” who were not expected to live. Fortunately, Joseph survived all of these tough times. He and his family were liberated by an American Army, and while he was too sick to remember the whole process, Joseph, his brother, his father, and his cousin were sent to a DP Camp in Canada and eventually made it back to the US where they were united with their whole family! Joseph described his way of survival as strictly luck.

“I was so sick when I was liberated I couldn’t even celebrate because I was out of it.”

“Being in the ghetto, the starvation was very tremendous.”

Edith Coliver was born July 26, 1922 in Karlsruhe, Germany, and raised in San Fancisco. She remembers her childhood being very peaceful and coming from a middle class family. While she remembered being very active in her Jewish culture, until things began to change in 1938, starting in the public school that she had attended. The Germans had stopped allowing Jewish children to attend the school. Her father made the decision to take the family away because he knew there was a war coming. When they returned to Germany, her family filed for her to get a Visa to make it out of Germany to America. Edith’s family stayed with her in New York for about four weeks, and then relocated to San Francisco. Not long after, Edith was moved back to Germany, she wanted to be a part of the Nuremberg Trials. Edith describes her way of survival being that her family was able to make it out of Germany before the killing started.

“I was in a gang, an upscale gang.”

“After Liberation, many more Jews died because their system could not accept food in to it.”