Every Person = A Story

Manfred Lewin

Manfred was born on September 8, 1922, in Berlin, Germany where he lived with his Parents and Four Siblings in the predominantly Jewish section of the city.

The Family lived in poverty in three little rooms. Manfred’s Father was a Barber and his Mother Jenny, a Former Secretary, took care of the Family. She often had to find other sources of food to supplement the Family’s insufficient Jewish Food Ration Cards.

In 1942 Manfred and his entire Family were arrested and being kept at a Deportation Center in Berlin until the Germans had rounded-up enough People to put on the Cattle Cars and sent to the Death Camps.

His Friend came and got Manfred out of the Center where he could have gone into Hiding and survived the War, but Manfred told his Friend:

“I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free."

Manfred went back into the Deportation Center with his Family and they were deported to the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland on November 29, 1942 where they were all murdered.

He was 20 years old.

There are many such cases as these during the Holocaust. People who could have fought, could have hid, could have fled and survived, but they decided to stay with their Loved Ones – knowing they would be killed.

A Mother who was selected to live as Forced Labor, but decided to go with her Children into the Gas Chamber.

A Daughter who could have fled the country, but decided to stay with her Elderly, Widowed Mother as they were shot and killed over an Open Pit.

A Father who could have joined the Partisans, but decided to stay with his  Disabled Son and carried him into the Gas Van so he wouldn’t die alone.

A Son who could have hidden, but decided to stay with his Parents until the end and was murdered.

January 27^th is Holocaust Remembrance Day!

Every Holocaust Victim and Survivor was/is a Man, a Woman, a Child with a Story.