Holocaust+Survivor+Story

**Before the Holocaust**
I am doing a paper on Solomon Radasky and how he survived the Holocaust. Here is a little information about him before the Germans captured him. Solomon was born in Warsaw, Poland on May 17, 1910. All his life he lived in the Ghetto part of Warsaw. He owned his own shop where he would make fur coats. In Warsaw there was a lot of Jewish people, for if a Jewish holiday came around all the stores would be shut down. Solomon had a mom, dad, two brothers, and three sisters. His parents were Jacob and Tony; his brothers were Moishe and Baruch, and his sisters were Sarah, Rivka, and Leah. Solomon Radasky’s whole family perished during the Holocaust. His relatives also all perished so he really was the only one left out of his whole family. The war started for him in the last week of January 1941 when he was captured by the SD and the Jewish Police while walking in the street. They forced him to work with a lot of other Jews clearing snow from all the railroad tracks. Unfortunately that winter was one of the coldest winters and there was loads of snow. When he returned after winter he found out that German soldiers had killed his mother and his older sister for not doing what they demanded. April 1942 the next year Solomon’s father was killed. He went to buy bread from two boys who were sneaking food into the Ghetto when a Jewish Police man pointed Solomon’s father out to a German who shot him in the back. Solomon was devastated, he was trying to keep his two sisters and two brothers his as safe as he could but he couldn’t keep him as safe as he wanted too. For on July 22, 1942 the Germans started to deport the Jews to concentration camps. During deportation Solomon was separated from his sisters and brothers because he was to go somewhere else than them. They went to Treblinka, that is the last time he saw them. Solomon was put to work making things for the German Army. In the morning he was fed bread and soup; in the evening they had bread and coffee. Occasionally they would get a potato or a piece of salami. One day about one month after him and his siblings were separated he was pulled away from work and told he was going to a concentration camp. That was until a Volksdeutscher said that Solomon was a good worker, he was then allowed back and the workshop and unfortunately someone else took his place. Then a couple days later one of Solomon’s friends told him he had seen his sister in another workshop called Shultz’s shop; Solomon didn’t know how to get there. Luckily a Jewish Policeman did he said he could order a German solider to take him but it would cost 500 zlotys (141 dollars) and he would have to go as a prisoner; Solomon said shakily okay. He made it to the little workshop but his sister wasn’t anywhere to be found. What he did find out was that he was to be stuck there because German soldiers surrounded the little ghetto town. The next morning on April 19,1943 the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising started. On May 1, 1943 he was shot in the right ankle and then deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Treblinka could only take 10,000 people a day though and he was in a group of 20,000 so how of them along with him were sent to Majdanek witch was another death camp. Once at Majdanek Solomon's clothes and shoes were taken and he was given striped shirts, pants and wooden shoes. His feet and legs were not only hurting because of no support for his ankle was still broken. It was swollen and infected. A man who slept in the same Barracks as him said that he could help Solomon and fix his ankle, for he had been a doctor in Paris. The first night that Solomon met the man he operated on his ankle. The man told Solomon that he didn't have any bandages of medicine. He said all I have is a pocket Knife. Solomon says that till this day he still can't understand how the man kept a pocketknife in the camp. Any way after the operation was over the man told him to keep the cut from getting infected again he is to use some of his urine as an antiseptic. Work at the camp for Solomon was very painful. When they were to go to work they were to tie their shoes over their shoulder because they weren't aloud to where them to work, at work, and not even coming back from work. The Germans covered the road that they had to walk down to get to work with rocks. Solomon said that his and others feet were just covered in blood just from going to work. Some couldn't even take it anymore and they would get shot from sitting down on the way. Solomon says the saddest part of going to work is that if one did get shot on the way to, or on the way back from work the other workers were to carry them. Because the German soldiers would say if 1,000 go to work 1,000 have to come back from work. The German soldiers at the camp after a while started to call the prisoners dogs because they were to where tags with numbers. Solomon says that the first time he was called a dog was when one of the prisoners, who was a heavy smoker found a piece of paper rolled and found a way to start it on fire. Just to feel like he was smoking something. Any ways a German guard saw the cigarette on the ground in front of us still letting of smoke and he gave us 3 minuets to tell him who smoked a cigarette. No one answered because no one wanted to rat any each other out. So the guard said he was going to hang 10 dogs (prisoners) because that one person didn't answer. Solomon was one of the ten that were picked. After the ten were picked the guard took them to the bench and ask who was to go first. Once again no one answered, so he chose the first one himself. What you were to do was to stand up and a bench and put the rope around your neck then the guard would beat you. Solomon really thought he was going to die because, well, he was the third person to go and the to people before him died. Solomon was beaten so badly that blood was running down his head. Luckily for him a German soldier had come earlier that day to take 750 prisoners to another camp, he was one of them. So while he was being abused that soldier came to collect him and seen what the guard was doing and yelled, "HALT, what are you doing." The Guard said a dog smoked a cigarette and they won’t say which one. Then the soldier yelled at the guard for beating them because he was to transfer those people and they were suppose to come alive. Then he took off the rope that was around Solomon’s neck. Solomon was thankful that, that German soldier came even though it was a German soldier. He was happy because if he did not come he wouldn’t have made it through the beating. The next day that same soldier put them on the train that was to leave for Auschwitz. Solomon was on the train for one day and two nights. He didn’t get to change his shirt or wash himself. He said they were getting eaten up with lice, and many of them were swollen from hunger. Right when they got of the train at Auschwitz half of them were picked of and machine-gunned in a field. None of them were taken to the gas chambers. Solomon was in the other half, that half was taken to get numbers tattooed on his arm. His number was 128232. After he got his number he was given a potato. Then he was put to work on building railroad tracks. Once while he was working he fell down and couldn’t get up one of the guards started beating him before he could really try to get up. Then he pulled him a side and he told him to take of his clothes. Then he made him stand naked in the field the whole night. Then the next day a truck with a red cross on it came and soldiers pushed him and others in there one on top of another. He thought they were going to the gas chambers. Instead of going to gas chambers he was taken to the man in charge. He was a polish man so when he asked Solomon what is your name he said it in polish, Szlama Radosinski. Then the man started cussing at Solomon, and then he pulled him out of line, took him to the Barracks, and gave him a blanket to cover up with. In the Barracks he met a man and the man told him where he was and what was going on. Solomon found out he was in the hospital Barracks for that was for soldiers. He also found out that here a doctor will come twice a week to make sure everyone in the hospital barrack will get well. The man also gave Solomon bread since he hadn’t eaten for three days. Then one day the friend he had met in the hospital barrack said, you need to leave form the barrack. Solomon didn’t understand, so his friend explained that if he didn’t leave by tomorrow he would be dead. So the next day when the guard came in looking for people healthy enough to work Solomon pleaded to go. Even though he was being feed and washed and cared for where he was. Solomon then walked to work, but the gaur their couldn’t let him into work till 9:00, so Solomon waited. At nine the men working came out and asked him some questions. Then they gave him a big piece of bread and some cold soup. After the men ate they asked Solomon where he is to work he said in a Coal mine. All the men said, Oh No! Solomon got really scared because they said the longest people live working there is 2 weeks. The men said they would help him and they did because the next day he walked out with those men and 6,000 other prisoners to their job. Which was loading wagons with sand and then dumping the sand over all the ashes of all the people that were killed. (The sad thing about this job is that while he was covering the ashes he heard and seen the scared and hurting people go into the gas chambers one way and come out another.) Solomon said that they did not just help them with that though they helped him live, for they found him soup, bread, and little pieces of salami. The boys also gave Solomon material, a little bit of thread and string, so he could make a hat for the German guard/Capo. Solomon made the Capo a hat and he loved it, and even though Solomon could have used the material for himself he did a good deed for someone else. Since he did that good deed the Capo never hurt, yelled, or beat Solomon again. Solomon said everyday there was a different problem at the camp, but life went on. On some days he thought he would never make, but he did. Solomon was liberated on January 18, 1945. After liberation Solomon had to walk a long way to find people that could help him. After his second day of walking he found an American family that took him in, “and for weeks” Solomon said, “they gave him 3 meals of food a day. It felt so good.” Then he met a new friend. Him and his friend left the American family and went on the highway to hitchhike. A year after Solomon met his wife, Frieda. His wife was very shy and at first she wouldn’t come downstairs to met Solomon. So her sister said peek out the window, and then it was love at first sight. Then on November 1946 Solomon and Frieda decided to get married. They married on November 11, 1946 and became husband and wife. Him and his wife were very poor when they first got married so their wedding wasn’t very big, but it was very nice. Solomon’s friend was best man. Four years after their marriage Solomon and Frieda moved to the United States. Then on May 13, 1948 his son was born. After his son was born they moved to New Orleans. That is also where he found work as a fur shop and he tried to live happily ever after. Solomon always thought about how many Jews were lost though, he says he couldn’t ever forget.
 * During the Holocaust**
 * Liberation and After Liberation**

Here is my source- I only had one. 1. []