Max Eisen, holocaust survivor and author of the book By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz, spoke about the day Sgt. Johnnie Stevens liberated him from the concentration camp, at this year’s Remembrance Day event at Centennial College Progress campus, on Tuesday.
While some victims of the Second World War consider the Allies their liberators, one Holocaust survivor considers music his liberator.
In 1941, following their eviction from Romania, Joseph Leinburd and his family took all of their belongings with them on a train, endured a death march, then sold most of their belongings for some shelter in Ukraine.
Under such harsh conditions, Leinburd said he relied on his attachment to music, to bring hope during the war.
“I listen to music every night,” Leinburd said. “I do many things that other people in my situation don’t do.”
Renate Krakauer’s parents, William and Charlotte, lost many of their relatives and friends that day. “They came knocking on doors and dragged all the Jews out and they took them to the Jewish cemetery, where they had dug these deep pits,” Krakauer said. “And they had people lined up, [naked]. They would line up at the edge of the pit in rows. First row, bang, bang, bang, bang, into the pit. Second row, bang, bang, bang.”