Rescuers- Agnieszka Budna-Widerschal story reflection (page 175-179)

The story of a woman named Agnieszka was very disturbing to me. She seemed to me like any other rescuer in the time of the Holocaust. She was hiding a jewish family and others in her attic of her apartment. This was very risky since her "nosy neighbors" were living on the second and first floor. She took out their waste at night and brought them water when her neighbors were sleeping so no one would notice or become suspicious. She had to make up plenty of lies and stories in her confrontations with the Nazis. Im surprised that she managed to keep them straight and that she was still able to remain un-compromised.

What was ultimately disturbing to me in her story is that hate and anti-semitism that was still arising after the war. She describes a moment at the market, a woman confronts her and says "Only jews have money to by food. Look at what you can buy; I can't buy nearly that much." She replied a very sarcastic and rude comment. Its really shocking to me that people were still categorizing people based on the stereotype of "money". It was so hateful and discriminatory. Her tragic moment of hate was when her own daughter was murdered by polish kids. Agnieszka tells the interviewer that he daughter did not come home from school on day, and a conductor at the train station saw the polish children put Agnieszka's daughter Bella in front of an oncoming train. Even at the funeral, the mother of the children at the train station says "You know, its a good thing that our children are alive." As if Bella'd death did not matter to her.

It's appalling the amount of hate people had towards another human being in this time of the world. Its still appalling to me know that hate still continues as people discriminate against each other in our own country today, as if we can not learn from the Holocaust and what the hate did to the people in that time period.

Rescuers-Marc Donadille story entry (page 114-117)

Marc Donadille was a protestant minister in the Cevennes district of France during the time of the Holocaust. He as a protestant had a strong belief that "it was inadmissible to persecute people because of their race or religion. He became aware of the anti-semitism in Germany as he studied in Geneva. He started working with CIMADE which was an organization working on helping save the Jewish people. He picked up up Jews from camps and hid them in the churches and farms in Cevennes and villages in Le Chambon.

What was interesting to me as I read this mans story was that there were rescue houses along the way to safety for people to stop and rest, eat, sleep and feel safe for a night. I did not know that people offered their homes like this. I think this was a really easy and helpful way to be involved in saving the Jews without really doing something bigger or too risky like hiding them away for months.

Marc also made fake I.D papers for Jewish refugees. He was carefully watched by policemen but never arrested for helping the jews. He discuses that getting caught never haunted him or worried him. I believe he wasn't worried because in his heart he knew he was doing the right thing and helping hundreds of people save their lives.

Another thing I found interesting and also a little humorous was the naive people that Marc encountered while helping the jews. He describes a time on a train, someone was talking about a pastor who was hiding jews in Cevennes. Marc simply replies, "You shouldn't say that. That pastor can get in trouble for that." The man not knowing that he was talking to the pastor himself very annoyingly reply "You can get in trouble for that?"

This was a tad humorous and unbelievable to me that someone could be so blind to what was going on in the world at the time of the Holocaust. Was he even thinking about saving the jews? or was he just oblivious to what was happening to Jews and caught rescuers.

USC Visual History Archive

In my session on the Visual History Archive I was interested in looking at Holocaust survivors. Here are steps to get to my interview in the Archive. My overall experience with the Archive was positive, it was easy to access and I could easily find what I was looking for.

• I visited https://sfi.usc.edu/vha
• I started my search in 'Experience groups
• Under 'European Holocaust' I chose 'Jewish Survivors'
• Under 'Interview Information' I changed the language of the interview to 'English'
• Press 'Next' and a list of interviews are displayed
• I chose 'Frieda Aaron' 

I focused on segments 52-62 in the interview

In these parts of the interview, Frieda was describing the conditions of Warsaw ghettos in Poland that she was living in at the time of the Holocaust. As people were coming into the ghettos to find shelters, she explains that there weren't many cars for people to use. People had to drag, carry, or pull their possessions in a wagon into the ghettos. The ghettos were small and crowded with people. The winters were cold and harsh, and the people did not have a lot of food due to overcrowding. People who could not stay in the ghettos as guests were left to live in the streets during the winter. Freida describes the bodies lying all over the streets due to the cold and starvation. They would have to step over them has the walked because they were not moved for a while. When they were moved, a big truck gathered them and took them to the cemetery. Frieda describes her and her families hiding place in a closet. The closet was covered with a large piece of furniture to make it look like to people that there was no other room besides the one they were in. She then goes on to describe an event where and 8 year old boy was discovered with his family. He was spared, but forced to watch his family (father and mother) shot and killed in the street. 

Her stories of the dead in the streets and the shooting of the 8 year olds family was incredibly disturbing. It breaks my heart to hear that someone had to witness all of this and go through this struggle. The way these people were treated was inhumane, and they should have been helped instead  of left in the street to die.