The FHM highlights the individual stories of 25 Holocaust Survivors
July 25, 2017 [St. Petersburg, FL] – The Florida Holocaust Museum (The FHM) has partnered with Eckerd College to release a 25th Anniversary oral history series titled “25 Survivors, 25 Stories… Celebrating 25 Years!”
Over the next 25 months, the Museum’s oral history series will feature a different Holocaust Survivor on the 25th of every month. Each Survivor brings to the series an individual voice that enlivens our understanding of the Holocaust; the war’s effects on individuals, families, and communities dispersed across the world; and its reverberations into the present moment.
The fifth story was released this morning and features Holocaust Survivor Jerry Rawicki. An excerpt from the piece is as follows:
Jerry’s deportation occurred on a freezing day in January. He waited in the cold for the flat-bed trucks that would take them to a transit camp in Northern Poland. Because there was no room on the trucks for the belongings they had packed, they were told, “leave it, we will send it to you.” Again, Jerry said, they were deceived.
Upon arriving at the transit camp, barren barracks with locked restrooms and nothing but straw on the floors for sleeping served as an introduction of what was to come. After three days in the transit camp, Jerry was loaded onto a train with five hundred other Jews and sent south to a small village where about one hundred Jews had lived before the war. “They had little store fronts,” he recalls, “but they were told by the Germans to vacate those stores, and that was our housing.”
The conditions in this small ghetto were cramped and unhygienic. “You can imagine, five hundred people descending-or dumped, so to speak-on a small community like this, where there were a few empty storefronts. And that was our home.” There, Jerry lived in a room with three families, fourteen people in total. Conditions were horrible. There was only one water spigot with dirty water, no place to wash, and no soap. Lice spread quickly and there was no medication, which led to people becoming ill with typhus. “We were being decimated by the disease,” Jerry remembers…
To read Jerry’s story in its entirety, please visit:
In the coming months, The FHM will present numerous 25th Anniversary celebratory programs, events, and exhibitions, along with its daily educational and outreach efforts.
August 13- The Florida Holocaust Museum’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Gelman will sing the National Anthem at the Tampa Bay Rays game on Sunday, August 13th at 1:10 p.m. when the Rays take on the Cleveland Indians! For just $25 ($36 value), your ticket includes a discounted seat in the lower level and $5 from each ticket donated back to the Museum. To place your ticket order, call 727.820.0100 ext. 301 by August 7th.
To learn more about The FHM’s upcoming 25th Anniversary events and exhibitions, visit the Museum online at www.TheFHM.org/25th.
The Florida Holocaust Museum is located at 55 5th Street S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.
About The Florida Holocaust Museum
2017 marks a monumental milestone for The Florida Holocaust Museum (The FHM) as the Museum celebrates its 25th Anniversary. One of the largest Holocaust museums in the country, and one of three nationally accredited Holocaust museums, The FHM honors the memory of millions of men, women and children who suffered of died in the Holocaust. The FHM is dedicated to teaching members of all races and cultures the inherent worth and dignity of human life in order to prevent future genocides. For additional information, please visit www.TheFHM.org.
Photos and credits
Jerry around age 2 with his mother in Płock, Poland.
Photo credit: The Florida Holocaust Museum, courtesy of Jerry Rawicki.
Jerry’s University ID, 1948.
Photo credit: The Florida Holocaust Museum, courtesy of Jerry Rawicki.
Jerry in 2008.
Photo credit: Bob Croslin, Tampa Bay Times.
Jerry speaking to students and visitors at The Florida Holocaust Museum in 2017.
