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Survivor Stories

Testimonies of Holocaust and genocide survivors give us a unique insight into the experience of those who have suffered exclusion and persecution.

It’s not possible for a survivor to attend every HMD event that is held in the UK, so organisers may wish to consider inviting a local community or faith leader or young people from their area to read extracts from the survivor stories we supply.

If you are organising a HMD activity, please ensure that you sign up to our newsletter to be kept up to date with our free resources.

• Armenian survivor story: Satenig Ehranjian

  I felt I must tell this tragic tale for the sake of my grandchildren so that they in turn learn and know their own background.

• Arrange for a survivor to speak at your event

  HMD event planners wishing to secure a survivor speaker for their event are advised to contact one of the organisations detailed here.

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  Cambodian Testimony: Denise Affonço

  Denise is a survivor of the Cambodian genocide. In 1975, Denise was a civil servant living in Phnom Penh and mother to two children when the Khmer Rouge forces all city-dwellers into the countryside in their attempt to create ‘year zero’. Denise’s husband was taken away and never seen again, and she was separated from her son. Her daughter died of starvation.

• Cambodian Testimony: Mardi Seng

  Mardi Seng was 10 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh.

• Cambodian Testimony: Ranachith (Ronnie) Yimsut

  Ronnie Yimsut was 13 years old when the Khmer Rouge swept into Phnom Penh in 1975. He and his extended family were removed from their homes in Siem Reap, near the famed ruins of Angkor, and forced to work in collective camps. During the last week of 1977, Ronnie’s family was hoarded up for the last time before being killed by the Khmer Rouge. Of the dozens killed on that December day, only Ronnie survived.

• Cambodian Testimony: Sophal Leng Stagg

  Sophal Leng Stagg was nine years old when she and her family were forced to leave their home in Phnom Penh in April 1975, joining the millions of Cambodians who were devastated by the Khmer Rouge.

• Gypsy (Roma and Sinti) - The History of the Bock Family

  The Bock Family have spent most of their lives fleeing persecution and prejudice because they are Romany.

• Hidden Histories - Iby Knill

  Iby Knill survived Auschwitz with her father’s watch chain. She tells the amazing Untold Story of how she kept it hidden.

• Hidden Histories - Jack Kagan

  Jack Kagan protected an object from a destroyed synagogue in the 1940s. It is a stark reminder of the lives which were destroyed with it.

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  Hidden Histories - Kemal Pervanic

  Kemal survived the genocide in Bosnia. He was 23 when he and his brother were imprisoned at the notorious Omarska concentration camp. He was subjected to violence, starvation and the threat of murder. After he was released, he came to the UK and was reunited with his family thanks to the British Red Cross.

• Hidden Histories - Lily Ebert

  Lily kept a pendant given to her by her mother, hidden in her shoe during her time in Auschwitz.

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  Hidden Histories - Martha Blend

  Martha came to the UK on the Kindertransport – part of an operation which brought 10,000 unaccompanied children to England as they sought refuge from Nazi persecution. Martha originally came from Austria and rebuilt her life in London. Her entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.

• Hidden Histories - Sabina Miller

  Sabina Miller survived the Holocaust. She shows us her cardigan which survived with her and shares its Untold Story.

• Holocaust Testimony: Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

  I was born in the town of Breslau, which was German then and is Polish now. My father was a lawyer and my mother was a beautiful lady and a very fine violinist.

• Holocaust Testimony: ‘Mimi’ Eva Jirankova

  I lived with my family in Prague during the winter, but from May to October we lived in our country house, in Revnice, which is 30 kilometres from Prague.

• Holocaust Testimony: Esther Brunstein

  More than half a century has passed since the events I am going to describe took place, but for me not a single day has gone by without me reliving at some point the pain and the trauma. It just comes and haunts me. I still cannot come to terms with – let alone comprehend – the total, calculated destruction of the world I knew, and the life I was born into.

• Holocaust Testimony: Eve, Rudi and Paul Oppenheimer: The Last Train From Belsen

  Every Holocaust survivor has a different story. This is certainly true for the story of the three Oppenheimer children, Eve, Rudi and Paul.

• Holocaust Testimony: Freddie Knoller

  I was stunned looking at a bundle of letters and seeing the unmistakable, elegant handwriting of my father who perished in Auschwitz in 1943…

• Holocaust Testimony: Istvan Domonkos

  In 1940 our country joined the axis alliance; which consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. Peter, my brother, joined up as an officer, but in 1941 he was ordered to remove his uniform and like so many Jewish men and women, he had to sew a yellow armband onto his civilian clothes.

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  Holocaust Testimony: Kitty Hart-Moxon

  Kitty grew up in Poland. She was 15 when she and her mother were deported to Auschwitz. Whilst imprisoned there she was forced to work in the notorious Kanada block where the possessions of those arriving on cattle trucks were sorted on arrival. In 1944 she was transferred to work in the Phillips factory in Germany. Today, she tells her story to people across the UK, she has even taken a group of Neo-Nazis to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

• Holocaust Testimony: Malka Levine

  I was born in 1939 in a town called Vladimir-Volinsk in western Ukraine. I am one of three children and my two brothers, Chaim and Shalom, also survived the Holocaust.

• Holocaust Testimony: Martha Blend

  When, in 1938, the Germans invaded Austria, my parents knew that as Jews, we were in for a hard time. They had read about Hitler’s harassment of the Jews of Germany in the newspaper, but had thought wrongly that he wouldn’t invade our country.

• Holocaust Testimony: Nicole David

  I was born in Antwerp in September 1936, the only daughter of Chawa Matzner and Munisch Schneider, my parents having moved to Belgium from Poland in the 1920s.

• Holocaust Testimony: Regina Franks

  For more than 30 years, Regina Franks wore the number 34679 on her forearm. She vowed that it would be part of her always – a searing reminder of the two years she spent in Nazi concentration camps.

• Holocaust Testimony: Renee Salt

  I was born Rywka Ruchla Berkowitz in Zdunska-Vola, Poland, in 1929 and lived with my parents and younger sister. My father was an accountant and my mother a housewife.

• Holocaust Testimony: Roman Halter

  I was 12 years old in September 1939 when Hitler’s troops entered Poland. I was the seventh child in our family and the youngest…

• Holocaust Testimony: Ruzena Deutschova

  In 1938, when the Hungarians came in, the very next week, they expelled us from the village, saying that father was a ‘Bolshevik’. We didn’t even know what it meant at the time.

• Holocaust Testimony: Trude Levi

  I was born and brought up in Szombathely, a provincial town on the Austrian border in Hungary. My mother came from Vienna and was a language teacher

• Iolo Lewis' story

  Iolo Lewis witnessed the liberation of Bergen-Belsen.

• Kindertransport Testimony: Wolf Blomfield

  I came to Britain when I had just turned ten. I was a Kindertransport boy and came over on a train full of German Jewish children, on 15 March 1939.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 1 - 16.11.1938

  When we arrived at the camp, first of all our names were called and entered in a register, then we were made to line up in the courtyard from about five in the morning till about two in the afternoon.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 10 - 10.11.1938

  On the evening of 10 November we discussed the recent occurrences in Paris and decided to bring our son to safety as soon as possible.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 2 - 11.11.1938

  At 5.30 on Friday morning, two officers came from the local police station and instructed me to accompany them at once- there was to be a passport inspection. You can imagine the apprehension we felt.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 3 - Undated

  At about 3.30 in the morning on 10 November, I was warned by telephone not to stay in the flat, as my arrest was imminent. I immediately left the flat with my wife and son, and wandered around the streets.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 4 - 27.11.1938

  At exactly three in the morning the house in which I lived, in which there was a small Jewish business, started to shake. Both window-panes were shattered and the contents of the shop-windows ruined.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 5 - Undated

  With reference to recent events in Germany, I would like to give the following account of what I experienced during the night of 9-10 November.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 6 - Undated

  The mob can be seen everywhere, looking happy; after all, they have accomplished a great feat. Families have had their homes stolen.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 7 - 15.12.1938

  I would like to outline our situation to you very briefly: as a result of the events of recent weeks, we are completely impoverished. Neither my parents nor I nor any of my siblings have any prospect of earning a living – and we are a family of seven. Can you imagine how the future looks for us now?

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 8 - Undated

  Concerned by reports of the destruction of religious objects, I arranged for the Torah scrolls and other religious objects to be removed from the synagogue on 9 November 1938, so they were safe when the synagogue was destroyed on 10 November.

• Kristallnacht Eye Witness Account 9 - 20.11.1938

  My dear Otto,

  You cannot imagine how things have been with us. Papa with a head-wound, bandaged, myself in bed with severe fits, everything devastated and destroyed.

• Rwandan Testimony: Beata Uwazaninka

  My name is Beata and I was born in Rwanda in 1980. At the time of the genocide, I was 14 years old. My father’s name was Joseph Nemeye and my mother’s Devotha Uwimana.

• Rwandan Testimony: Clare

  My name is Clare. I am a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. This is my testimony. I was born in Kibuye, Gitesi. I was married to Leonel. Both he and my two children were killed in the genocide. Only my brother and I survived. I am now 30 years old.

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  Rwandan Testimony: Freddy Mutanguha

  Freddy was 18 years old when the genocide in Rwanda took place. He was brought up in a loving family with four sisters and his mother and father. His mother was a primary school teacher who was determined that Freddy should get a good education, despite Tutsis not being encouraged to excel academically. Freddy’s family was murdered on the 13 April 1994 by their former friends and neighbours. Only he and his sister survived.