I recently had to visit my schools holocaust center during
a class to learn more about what happened and how it can relate to the U.S correctional system. We had a guest
speaker, she is a survivor of the holocaust. Here is a brief summary of her
story.
Her name is Jane. She was born in a small town in Germany to
a Jewish family. She was a teenager when Hitler came into power. For her family
the treatment of Jews was not as bad as in other places because it was a small
town away from the capital city. Because her family did not want to be around when
things got worst, and to avoid being sent to a concentration camp her father
tried to get them visas to get out of Germany. Unfortunately, many other
countries were closing their doors to immigating Jews. The only choices they had
where China and Cuba. They bought tickets to go to Cuba on a ship and because
they could not keep the German money her father decided to buy first class
tickets. She states that they rode comfortably until they arived to Cuba.
When they arrived to Cuba they came across a problem. The Cuban government had to check all the doctor records of the Jews and after
about a week they decided they could not enter into Cuba, that they could not
find the records or something of the sort. The ship set off to try and find
somewhere for them to go, or they would have to return to Germany. Her father
did not want to go back because they no longer had money and couldn't get all
their things back. They ended up in France. She was sent to an orphanage with all the other children her age. Her parent lived in France, too but separated from the children, they did however see each other occasionally. After a few months of being in France, her father found a way to get them visas to the United States. She arrived at New York, and moved to Queens and has lived there ever since.
