The Bleeding Sky-Recollections of the Shoah

Louis Brandsdorfer
  • 4.0 (7)
  • JUDAISM
The Bleeding Sky-Recollections of the Shoah

My mother, Malka Brandsdorfer, lived in a small Polish town near the German border. At the start of World War II she was married and had a young daughter. During the war her married name was Goldratt. She recorded her recollections of the Holocaust. The conditions in the town. Her family's struggle and the ghetto and camps she lived through. She tells of how many of her family died and how only she and one sister survived. Her recollections are told in Yiddish. There is a written version of my mother's story in English that can be downloaded at the website.

  1. 06/04/2008

    Chapter 1

    My mother begins her recollection of the Shoah with a conversation she had with a friend and fellow survivor.

    10 min

  2. 06/04/2008

    22_Wesbaden

    Leaving Poland for good, my mother travels looking for surviving family and friends. She finds very few, learns of the fate of many of them. Settling in a displaced persons camp in Wesbaden Germany, she meets my father and starts a new family before moving to America.

    8 min

  3. 06/04/2008

    21_Returning

    Returning home after the war. My mother travels on foot and by train through war torn Germany and Poland. She finds other survivors, among them her younger sister Fay. Her homecoming is bitter sweet with the realization of how few survived and the hostile greeting the returning Jews received from the Polish townspeople.

    11 min

  4. 06/04/2008

    20_Liberation

    The labor camp at Neustadt is unexpectedly liberated when the German guards abandon the labor camp. The Germans move west to excape the advancing Russian army.

    6 min

  5. 06/04/2008

    19_Neustadt

    My mother spent the last few months of the war in the labor camp at Neustadt, which is near Hamburg.

    9 min

  6. 06/04/2008

    18_Death March

    With the Russian army nearing Auschwitz in January 1945, the Germans evacuate the camp and force march the prisoners to the concentration camp at Gross Rosen. Known as the Death March, it lasted many days with the prisoners walking through the bitter cold and heavy snow. Many did not survive, as the German guards killed any who stopped walking.

    5 min

  7. 06/04/2008

    17_Auschwitz

    Toward the end of 1944 my mother's kommando is moved from Birkenau to the main camp in Auschwitz.

    11 min

  8. 06/04/2008

    16_Blue Affect

    My mother bribes her way into the Blue Affect. It was the building where the clothes of Auschwitz's victims was sorted for use by the Germans.

    8 min
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About

My mother, Malka Brandsdorfer, lived in a small Polish town near the German border. At the start of World War II she was married and had a young daughter. During the war her married name was Goldratt. She recorded her recollections of the Holocaust. The conditions in the town. Her family's struggle and the ghetto and camps she lived through. She tells of how many of her family died and how only she and one sister survived. Her recollections are told in Yiddish. There is a written version of my mother's story in English that can be downloaded at the website.

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