Biographies In this gallery you will see faces of Tennesseans who are both survivors and liberators of the Holocaust. This exhibition exists because each of these courageous individuals was willing to revisit painful memories, telling his or her story in hopes that history might never repeat itself. Sixty years ago, during the last days of World War II, American, British, and Soviet troops stumbled upon thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The soldiers, surrounded by starvation, disease, and death, were stunned by what they found: tens of thousands of people were being held against their will by Nazis (members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party), who had gained control of the German government in 1933, and their European collaborators. While some survivors of Nazi persecution went into hiding or managed to flee, the vast majority of those targeted by the Nazis were confined in concentration camps, forced into slave labor, and worked nearly to death. The survivors in the camps saw the soldiers who found them as liberators; the liberators fought to open the camps and stayed long enough to start massive feeding and first aid programs. At long last, the deliberate and systematic effort to kill all the Jews of Europe had come to an end. Through these accounts of Holocaust survivors and liberators, we become witnesses to an important and frightening period—a time when government leaders persecuted and sought to kill ordinary citizens because of who they were. Their history is a part of our collective memory; their strength and resiliency inspire us all. Categories of Experience  Survivor Survivors managed to stay alive in spite of the deliberate and systematic plan by the Nazis to kill all the Jews of Europe. Refugee Refugees escaped Nazi-controlled Europe, usually before 1939, and found refuge in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Palestine (now Israel), South Africa, some South American countries, and even Shanghai, China. Hidden Child Hidden children were Jewish children who were given false identities and hidden from the outside world by foster families or in orphanages, convents, or monasteries. They frequently had to live indoors, never seeing the light of day. Many did not see their parents again. Liberator Liberators were Allied soldiers who invaded German-occupied territory in 1944 and 1945 and fought to enter the camps. Some even stayed long enough to begin massive feeding and first aid programs for the desperate inmates. U.S. Army Witness US Army witnesses were members of the armed forces stationed in Europe who, after the war ended, either visited concentration camps to see the grim consequences of Nazi policies or took part in a multinational effort to bring Nazi perpetrators to justice. |
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