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This Grandmother’s Terrifying Experience During The Holocaust Reminds People Of How Cruel Nazis Were
The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Katie, decided to share the heartbreaking story of her beloved grandmother on Tumblr. Her grandmother was only 2-years-old when Hitler marched into Poland in 1939. The girl was too little to understand how horribly this political shift would change not only her own fate but also the fate of the whole nation.
Despite the fact that Katie’s grandmother survived one of the most terrifying events in history, she was left traumatized for the rest of her life. “Those horrors did not fade with time,” Katie says. Witnessing the deaths of people she knew and loved, being forced out of her home to live in a concentration camp and suffer under horrible conditions left a painful wound, which was reopened 56 years later when she returned to the gates of the concentration camp. This was the first time Katie heard her grandmother’s horrific story and was inspired to share it with others for a very important reason. Scroll below to learn why!
More info: marilyns-child.tumblr.com | twitter.com
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The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Katie, decided to share the heartbreaking story of her beloved grandmother on Tumblr
Image credits: Katie
Here’s how people responded to the story
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Wil Vanderheijden 7 years ago
We should learn from history so that it doesn't repeat itself. Sadly a lot of people never learn and so Trump gets elected president. He used the same method like Hitler did: Pick an ethnic group and blame them for everything that's wrong. Promised the poor that he will take care of them. Promised jobs, and a better economy so that everyone gets a better life. And now he is in power he's picking fights with almost every other country in the world. (Russia, Turkye, China, and every European country). That man is a threat to America and to the world.
diane a 7 years ago
the flack comes from WW2 and was to decieve the enemy - think it was aluminium strips
Load More Replies...
Bunzilla 7 years ago
My grandmother lived through WWII, in Amsterdam. As a young girl, she was very nearly taken away by Nazis, who thought she looked 'Jewish' because of her darker complexion and darker hair colour. My Great Grandmother had to march down to their office and insist that she was a 'good catholic girl' to get her free. She was saved. Her best friend and neighbour, however, wasn't so lucky. After those neighbours had been taken away, she never saw them again. Later on, many were starving since the Nazis were blocking all aid to the Dutch citizens. One relative, a single young man, starved himself to death giving all of his food coupons to his brother who had 5 children. My Grandmother herself very nearly starved to death as well. The Nazis held onto Holland with a death grip, and as a result, it was the one of the very last countries to be liberated. So when I see anyone trying to justify hate toward other people for the way they're born, race, etc... it makes my blood boil.
stellermatt 7 years ago
it is so important that the people the nazis tried to 'delete' from history have their voices forever heard, not just on a 50th, 100th or 200th anniversary, but always, what happened to her Grandma happened to so many innocent people in so many ways. So many of these had stories that will never be told, but the ones that survived had and have the power to change and save the lives of many more to come. I've just finished reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, I would strongly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in this sort of thing. Also the book Maus by Art Spiegelman.
diane a 7 years ago
You just cannot read or see the things that happened from Natzi Germany without being overcome by emotion - and all they stuff that happened throughout the rest of Europe that had a Jewish population - is almost unbearable - but we have to bear it to ensure it cannot be repeated
Load More Replies...
Doodlebug 7 years ago
Also @vonskippy, because I cannot reply directly to his/her post: you're wrong and I am living proof. I had eye surgery when I was 18 months old. I was awake for that surgery, frozen into stillness by drugs. The surgeons plucked my eye out of it's socket, cut a muscle behind the eye, and put the eyeball back in place. The doctors told my parents not to tell me anything about the surgery, as they believed it would only traumatize me. For years, I had a recurring dream - a nightmare - about my eyeball dangling from its socket, held to my socket by "slimy, stringy things." I told my parents about this dream and their only reply ever was, "Mm, that's terrible sweetie." Nobody told me about the surgery until I was 16 - that's when I told my stepmom about the nightmare. She replied, "For goodness sake, has no one told you about your surgery?" She described it to me. I never had that dream again. Not even once. Yes, little ones can and do remember trauma.
anarkzie 7 years ago
Yeah, the reason we forget most of our memories when we are young probably comes down to the fact that we have very few meaningful memories to hold on to, eating, sleeping etc are not the type of things that even as adults we remember, your eye surgery much like what happened to this women, even if it was not something you fully understood at the time would have stuck with you as it would have been very distressing.
Load More Replies...
Doodlebug 7 years ago
My dad was 17 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. He persuaded his mom to sign the papers by threatening to run away and join up under a false name. He joined the navy TO FIGHT NAZIS. He said he would've joined the army but they wouldn't let him in with his flat feet. So he joined the navy. He said they knew about the camps by then, and he had to do something, anything, to stop these insane fascists. Yeah, my skinny, 5'6", 17-year old, flat-footed, pre-me father. WTF IS WRONG WITH ANYONE WHO FLIES A NAZI FLAG IN THE 21ST CENTURY. They are all NOTHING but cowards, terrified of having to share a world with people who are not exactly like them, desperately in need of some fascist dictator to lead them because they have no courage and inner compass of their own. My skinny, short, 17-year old father had more guts than them.
Bea Mee 7 years ago
it honestly makes me sick to think that people can think that it's ok to treat people like this!?!!?!
Load More Replies...
anarkzie 7 years ago
This is why all this c**p about hate speech being protected by law is b******t, every single genocide has started with someone whiping up hatred about a group of people, be it the Nazis in Germany or the Hutu killing the Tusi in Rwanda, it's all the same. The Alt-right trying to piggybank their hate on the back of freedom of speech needs to be called out, it's no longer a debate when they get enough idiots to start putting their "freedom of speech" into action, it's too late.
Dániel Horváth 7 years ago
So we just use ignore and ban and censorship? Even if it would be for good sake, but power determined by usage too. And democracy's one most important fundament, is to avoid the power using methods wich could harm the society. That's why the law enforcement, the judicature and the goverment are separated to each other, to control each other to make the power balanced, and that is why citizens have rights. If you take the right from a group even when it's for good, you make a precedent, that rights can be removed by any reason. So even if you get succes in short term, you actually undermine the system in long term. And actually, just act like a fascist too... The democratic way is education and communication.
Load More Replies...
Monika Soffronow 7 years ago
Growing inequality, fewer and fewer opportunities to find work for those who have no education to speak about, the ease of spreding disinformation and invented "truths" online are all creating fertile soil for cold blooded demagogues and populists. As the German people found out much too late, they should not have listened. We must not listen now.
anarkzie 7 years ago
Why is this getting down voted you make some good points?
Load More Replies...
Loveyiii 7 years ago
I was moved by your telling of your Grandmother's story. It made heart ache with sorrow and pain of what she and others went through during that time. I can not even imagine what fear and helplessness that people must of felt. It also made me think of the madness that is going on today and the growth in inequality. It make me very fearful of what our future will be.
Wil Vanderheijden 7 years ago
We should learn from history so that it doesn't repeat itself. Sadly a lot of people never learn and so Trump gets elected president. He used the same method like Hitler did: Pick an ethnic group and blame them for everything that's wrong. Promised the poor that he will take care of them. Promised jobs, and a better economy so that everyone gets a better life. And now he is in power he's picking fights with almost every other country in the world. (Russia, Turkye, China, and every European country). That man is a threat to America and to the world.
diane a 7 years ago
the flack comes from WW2 and was to decieve the enemy - think it was aluminium strips
Load More Replies... Bunzilla 7 years ago
My grandmother lived through WWII, in Amsterdam. As a young girl, she was very nearly taken away by Nazis, who thought she looked 'Jewish' because of her darker complexion and darker hair colour. My Great Grandmother had to march down to their office and insist that she was a 'good catholic girl' to get her free. She was saved. Her best friend and neighbour, however, wasn't so lucky. After those neighbours had been taken away, she never saw them again. Later on, many were starving since the Nazis were blocking all aid to the Dutch citizens. One relative, a single young man, starved himself to death giving all of his food coupons to his brother who had 5 children. My Grandmother herself very nearly starved to death as well. The Nazis held onto Holland with a death grip, and as a result, it was the one of the very last countries to be liberated. So when I see anyone trying to justify hate toward other people for the way they're born, race, etc... it makes my blood boil.
stellermatt 7 years ago
it is so important that the people the nazis tried to 'delete' from history have their voices forever heard, not just on a 50th, 100th or 200th anniversary, but always, what happened to her Grandma happened to so many innocent people in so many ways. So many of these had stories that will never be told, but the ones that survived had and have the power to change and save the lives of many more to come. I've just finished reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, I would strongly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in this sort of thing. Also the book Maus by Art Spiegelman.
diane a 7 years ago
You just cannot read or see the things that happened from Natzi Germany without being overcome by emotion - and all they stuff that happened throughout the rest of Europe that had a Jewish population - is almost unbearable - but we have to bear it to ensure it cannot be repeated
Load More Replies... Doodlebug 7 years ago
Also @vonskippy, because I cannot reply directly to his/her post: you're wrong and I am living proof. I had eye surgery when I was 18 months old. I was awake for that surgery, frozen into stillness by drugs. The surgeons plucked my eye out of it's socket, cut a muscle behind the eye, and put the eyeball back in place. The doctors told my parents not to tell me anything about the surgery, as they believed it would only traumatize me. For years, I had a recurring dream - a nightmare - about my eyeball dangling from its socket, held to my socket by "slimy, stringy things." I told my parents about this dream and their only reply ever was, "Mm, that's terrible sweetie." Nobody told me about the surgery until I was 16 - that's when I told my stepmom about the nightmare. She replied, "For goodness sake, has no one told you about your surgery?" She described it to me. I never had that dream again. Not even once. Yes, little ones can and do remember trauma.
anarkzie 7 years ago
Yeah, the reason we forget most of our memories when we are young probably comes down to the fact that we have very few meaningful memories to hold on to, eating, sleeping etc are not the type of things that even as adults we remember, your eye surgery much like what happened to this women, even if it was not something you fully understood at the time would have stuck with you as it would have been very distressing.
Load More Replies... Doodlebug 7 years ago
My dad was 17 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. He persuaded his mom to sign the papers by threatening to run away and join up under a false name. He joined the navy TO FIGHT NAZIS. He said he would've joined the army but they wouldn't let him in with his flat feet. So he joined the navy. He said they knew about the camps by then, and he had to do something, anything, to stop these insane fascists. Yeah, my skinny, 5'6", 17-year old, flat-footed, pre-me father. WTF IS WRONG WITH ANYONE WHO FLIES A NAZI FLAG IN THE 21ST CENTURY. They are all NOTHING but cowards, terrified of having to share a world with people who are not exactly like them, desperately in need of some fascist dictator to lead them because they have no courage and inner compass of their own. My skinny, short, 17-year old father had more guts than them.
Bea Mee 7 years ago
it honestly makes me sick to think that people can think that it's ok to treat people like this!?!!?!
Load More Replies... anarkzie 7 years ago
This is why all this c**p about hate speech being protected by law is b******t, every single genocide has started with someone whiping up hatred about a group of people, be it the Nazis in Germany or the Hutu killing the Tusi in Rwanda, it's all the same. The Alt-right trying to piggybank their hate on the back of freedom of speech needs to be called out, it's no longer a debate when they get enough idiots to start putting their "freedom of speech" into action, it's too late.
Dániel Horváth 7 years ago
So we just use ignore and ban and censorship? Even if it would be for good sake, but power determined by usage too. And democracy's one most important fundament, is to avoid the power using methods wich could harm the society. That's why the law enforcement, the judicature and the goverment are separated to each other, to control each other to make the power balanced, and that is why citizens have rights. If you take the right from a group even when it's for good, you make a precedent, that rights can be removed by any reason. So even if you get succes in short term, you actually undermine the system in long term. And actually, just act like a fascist too... The democratic way is education and communication.
Load More Replies... Monika Soffronow 7 years ago
Growing inequality, fewer and fewer opportunities to find work for those who have no education to speak about, the ease of spreding disinformation and invented "truths" online are all creating fertile soil for cold blooded demagogues and populists. As the German people found out much too late, they should not have listened. We must not listen now.
anarkzie 7 years ago
Why is this getting down voted you make some good points?
Load More Replies... Loveyiii 7 years ago
I was moved by your telling of your Grandmother's story. It made heart ache with sorrow and pain of what she and others went through during that time. I can not even imagine what fear and helplessness that people must of felt. It also made me think of the madness that is going on today and the growth in inequality. It make me very fearful of what our future will be.
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