I attended a lecture at college today given by an 86 y.o man. His story is one of amazing perseverance, overcoming unbelievable obstacles, suffering for years, and an eventual triumph of will. His name is Norman Frajman.
Mr. Frajman was born in Warsaw Poland, and was 10 years old when the country was overrun by the Germans in WW II. He survived the German assault on the residents of Warsaw, what came to be known as the Warsaw ghetto. He was sent to a number of German concentration camps and he lost 126 members of his extended family to the Nazis, including his mother and older sister, who were separated forcibly from him one day, in a concentration camp, never to be seen again.
He asked a guard, "where are my mother and sister going?"
The guard pointed to a crematorium chimney spewing smoke and ashes and said, "that's where they are going."
At the end of the war, the Germans were trying to destroy the camps, and the prisoners were moved from one location to another. Finally, one night, the guards, who were under the SS, disappeared, and the next day the Soviet Army came into the camp. They were liberated. Majdanek is one of the camps where Mr. Frajman spent time, he said it was the worst. Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Dachau are other camp names you may recognize.
He lived in the Soviet-occupied country and worked as an interpreter after the war, at 15 yers of age, while the captured war criminals were prosecuted, and finally emigrated to the USA about 1947, when one of the military told him, "you need to leave, now." Soviet prosecution of Jews was beginning.
He came to the USA, married, raised a family, and he and his wife just celebrated their 60th anniversary. Now he spends his time as a retiree in FL traveling to schools and speaking there about his experiences as a Jew in the Warsaw ghetto, who survived.
Viktor Frankl, another holocaust survivor, who wrote of his experiences, said this in regards to facing the inhumanity of life in a concentration camp, which speaks to Mr. Frajman's strength, too:
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.
In those circumstances, their achievement was to survive, and not to lose their sense of humanity, and their strength of purpose. Mr. Frajman did both. He is one of the strongest men I have met and though he is slight of stature he stands tall in his daily resolve, which has allowed him to survive to tell his story.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
Mr. Frajman was born in Warsaw Poland, and was 10 years old when the country was overrun by the Germans in WW II. He survived the German assault on the residents of Warsaw, what came to be known as the Warsaw ghetto. He was sent to a number of German concentration camps and he lost 126 members of his extended family to the Nazis, including his mother and older sister, who were separated forcibly from him one day, in a concentration camp, never to be seen again.
He asked a guard, "where are my mother and sister going?"
The guard pointed to a crematorium chimney spewing smoke and ashes and said, "that's where they are going."
At the end of the war, the Germans were trying to destroy the camps, and the prisoners were moved from one location to another. Finally, one night, the guards, who were under the SS, disappeared, and the next day the Soviet Army came into the camp. They were liberated. Majdanek is one of the camps where Mr. Frajman spent time, he said it was the worst. Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Dachau are other camp names you may recognize.
He lived in the Soviet-occupied country and worked as an interpreter after the war, at 15 yers of age, while the captured war criminals were prosecuted, and finally emigrated to the USA about 1947, when one of the military told him, "you need to leave, now." Soviet prosecution of Jews was beginning.
He came to the USA, married, raised a family, and he and his wife just celebrated their 60th anniversary. Now he spends his time as a retiree in FL traveling to schools and speaking there about his experiences as a Jew in the Warsaw ghetto, who survived.
Viktor Frankl, another holocaust survivor, who wrote of his experiences, said this in regards to facing the inhumanity of life in a concentration camp, which speaks to Mr. Frajman's strength, too:
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.
In those circumstances, their achievement was to survive, and not to lose their sense of humanity, and their strength of purpose. Mr. Frajman did both. He is one of the strongest men I have met and though he is slight of stature he stands tall in his daily resolve, which has allowed him to survive to tell his story.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
