January 19th.

“..Having survived many tragedies during ..years of The Holocaust I met my freedom with an empty heart. I saw ..vastness of orphanhood and ruins and ashes in the post-war Warsaw ..Poland ..but nothing around me or inside me. At last ..I held a whole loaf of bread in my hands and could slice off it as much as I wanted to ..but I felt hemmed in by ..four walls of my home and within myself. I did not want to be like my Mother before ..war ..and be only taking care of home ..cooking and cleaning. I was so much older than she had been ..with all my 15 years of age. In ..years of ..war and German occupation I had travelled a huge distance from my childhood to an old age and to death. So many times had I stared at ..eyes of death ..while petrified by fear and tension of ..penultimate moment ..so many people were burned alive in front of my eyes. How with all that can you enter ..ordinary everydayness of freedom ..while at ..same time you have been imprisoned by those images and voices. I always dreamed that if I survived this hell ..I would settle on an uninhabited island. If I survived ..which in my case was highly improbable since Hitler’s laws condemned ..entire Jewish nation to The Holocaust ..starting from ..elderly ..sick and ..Children. Even in Death Camps I stayed illegally as in there they kept alive only ..young and ..healthy ..and even that depended on how many of them they actually needed for slave labour. ..rest ..sent to Gas chambers. My life and my survival turned out to have been a series of chances. And it has remained so till today.” Halina Birenbaum.

“..January 19th. 1942 Grabow ..place where everyone is being put to death is ..Chelmno. ..People are ..shot or gassed. ..I am wearied by ..suffering of Israel. ..My heart is breaking. ..perhaps ..almighty will ..save ..last remnants of our People.” Jakub Szulman. (Rebbe of Grabow).

January 19th. 1942 Russian troops recapture Mozhaisk.  Moscow will not be taken.

Tuesday January 19th. 1943 “..I cannot grasp that it is 4 years since this hell began. ..days pass by quickly ..every day ..same frozen and oppressive boredom.”  Rutka Laskier.

January 19th. 1944 Siege of Leningrad lifted. The Germans take control of Hungary and its more than 800,000 to 900,000 Jews. Germany implements its tried and true practices of dealing with the Jews: definition, confiscation of property, ghettoization, and deportation to death camps. The implementation of The Final Solution in Hungary  will take less than four months.)) The Russians retake Novgorod.

January 19th. 1945 Russian forces liberate Lodz. More than 200,000 Lodz Jews were murdered. Less than 900 of the Jewish community Survive.


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