The FHM highlights the individual stories of 25 Holocaust Survivors
October 25, 2018 [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 eighteenth story was released this morning and features Holocaust Survivor Edward Herman. An excerpt from the piece is as follows:
The liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began in the summer of 1942, following the decisions of the Wannsee Conference earlier that year. As deportations increased, Ed’s mother decided that the best chance of survival for her children was to smuggle them out of Warsaw. At eleven years old, Ed passed through various Polish cities, before eventually being smuggled out of the country, without any of his family. Ed’s mother paid for his passage into Budapest, Hungary, which, at the time, was considered a relatively safe place.
“Like the mother of Moses, my mother had to let me go, in order for me to live,” Ed says. “She didn’t know if I would survive. When I think about it, it takes a lot of courage for a parent to let their child go, without knowing if they will make it.” As Ed and the men he traveled with passed into Slovakia, however, they were captured by the police. “They took us to jail, stripped us naked, took everything we had,” Ed recalls. Since Slovakia was still independent, Ed and his group were released, upon payment.
After travelling through the night, evading guards and watchdogs, Ed finally made it to Hungary. Ed went with the man who was supposed to take care of him, while his other two companions were captured and eventually taken to Auschwitz, where they would survive the war. “I ended up with this individual, in Budapest, and he was supposed to take care of me. I was only 11 years old,” Ed says.
After being fed a meal with his caretaker’s family, Ed was taken to a coffeehouse where Polish-Jewish refugees congregated and was left on his own…
The Florida Holocaust Museum is located at 55 5th Street S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.
About The Florida Holocaust Museum
2017 marked a monumental milestone for The Florida Holocaust Museum (The FHM) as the Museum celebrated 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
Ed Herman as a child before the war began.
Photo credit: The Florida Holocaust Museum, Courtesy of Ed Herman
Ed Herman and his wife Halina, present day.
Photo credit: The Florida Holocaust Museum, Courtesy of Ed Herman