Rosalie was born in 1931 in Velka-Kriva, Czechoslovakia. She was the youngest of six children, five girls, and one boy. "During Passover of 1944, she and her family were deported to a ghetto. After 2 months in the Ghetto, Rosalie and her family were transferred to a concentration camp." Her family was divided into different lines, each line would determine if they would be dead or alive in a matter of seconds. Rosalie's love for her siblings and the idea of being all together as a family is what saved her from the gas chambers. Sadly, her mother and brother were killed. All five sisters, Helen, Charlotte, Lenka, Rajzi, and Rosalie, survived together, and were later reunited with their father. Rosalie has dedicated herself to teaching her story to others, believing she is the voice for all those silenced by the Nazis. She currently lives in New York. We barely stop and take a moment to feel grateful for our siblings. Rosalie's love for her siblings, it's what saved her life from being killed in the gas chambers. On January 6th, 2023, Rosalie got together with his grandkids Jared, Daniel, Erik & Matthew to talk about how surviving the Holocaust changed her life forever. That experience changed the way she raised her children. She emphasized how important it was for her that her children had a higher education, something the Nazis took away from her growing up. Until today, 79 years after Rosalie was put in the cattle car to Auschwitz, she still gets transported back there whenever she hears a train whistle. “One person at a time”, says Rosalie Simon. It is important that as a community, we can get to tell our story one person at a time, and that those who still don´t know, believe, deny or promote what happened during the Holocaust, learn, know and collaborate with memory. Because knowledge of history and memory are what save us from the horror happening again. There are many people who still don´t know this part of history, and that is why, each person with a Jewish identity understands and learns from a very young age that they have a duty greater than all the rest, to be proud of that identity, of the strength of their ancestors, and to communicate, so that strength continues to live. Because there is a collective history that precedes our individual history. We fight ignorance and discrimination with pride, courage, and teaching who we are and what our community has faced. And because of that, each testimony that we hear from our grandparents, who lived it first hand are the most valuable treasure. We will continue transmitting them, because we are the last generation to hear it from their own words.
