As preparations for their third album, Survivor knew they still had a lot to prove. Everything was about to change in a big way thanks to some unexpected interest from Sylvester Stallone.
The band’s chief songwriters – Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan – agree they were at a crossroads at the time. “Probably this is either going to happen, or they’re going to drop us,” Sullivan tells UCR. “We never thought that, but probably in reality, that’s what they were thinking, because that’s what labels did back then.” But Scotti Bros. were committed to the band.
I had the privilege to interview Jim Peterik, last April when we talked about Eye of the Tiger and other songs he wrote.
Lynn is a psychotherapist and clinical social worker. She is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. In the interview, we discuss the mental impact her parents’ ordeal had on her and also how that translated into her work as a psychotherapist. She was voted The Best Therapist of 2008 by the Main Line Times newspaper in Pennsylvania, USA, and she specializes in anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and grief.
The story of her parents isn’t just a story of survival. It is a story of kindness and bitterness, a love story, a story of perseverance. It is also a tale of despair and disappointment but in equal measure—a story of victory and hope.
Lynn sent me a number of documents relating to her father, Wicek Friedman, which changed to Victor Friedman. That fact on its own is a good indication that after the Holocaust, the struggle continued—changing your name is not something you do lightly. I presume he changed it to make it easier for the people in his adopted land to be able to pronounce his name. I say adopted land because that is what struck me when I saw the document of the Displace Persons registration (photo at the top), which says, “Does not want to return.” He was born in Krakow, Poland on October 5, 1925.
Victor survived Auschwitz (where he escaped), Sachsenhausen, and Dachau. Lynn received the following information about her father from the International Tracing Service.
“Your father was in Auschwitz Concentration Camp where he had two prisoner numbers, 110225 and 199815. At the beginning of May 1944, he was arrested in Kolozsvár, Hungary, and sent by the Security Police in Budapest to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany. On November 17, 1944, Wicek was transported to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. His Dachau prisoner number was 127009.”
Lynn’s mother, Ella, had also been in Dachau. She was born in Berehova, Berkstad, Czechoslovakia in 1927. After she saw how Victor had been tortured for stealing potato skins to give to those who were starving, she told a friend, “Do you see that brave man—if he survives, I will marry him.”
They did get married in 1950.
Victor and Ella had different outlooks after the war. Victor, although he survived, had many medical complications due to the torture he received in Dachau. Victor’s aim was to replace the horrors he witnessed with acts of kindness. Sadly, he passed away in 1974, just before his 49th birthday. What saddened me to hear is that Victor knew that the hate against the Jews had not disappeared after the Holocaust. He advised his daughter to always be ready to leave.
Ella was basically always in survivor mode as she didn’t show love towards her children. That is not uncommon with survivors—and in a way—it is understandable because she had lost many of her family. She probably was afraid to get too attached again.
She had lied about her age when she was taken to Dachau, giving her year of birth as 1929, but in fact, it was 1927. She reckoned she would have a better chance of survival if the Nazis thought she was younger. Her younger sister had been murdered by the Nazis when she was at the train station—they shot her. Ella passed away in 2017.
This is Lynn speaking about her parents, and it’s just as important as her own experiences.
Music soothes the savage beast, that is what Shony Alex Braun must have thought when he played for the SS.
Shony’s story may seem like he had it relatively easy life, playing for the SS. However, I believe that could not be further from the truth. It wouldn’t take much for the SS to suddenly take a dislike to his music, potentially causing his death. Additionally, he would have known the fate of many around him.
Shony was born to religious Jewish parents in a small Transylvanian city. He began to learn the violin at age 5. His town was occupied by Hungary in 1940 and by Germany in 1944. In May 1944, he was deported to the Auschwitz camp in Poland. He was transferred to the Natzweiler camp system in France and then to Dachau,
This is one of the memories he had of that time.
“When I got out of the barrack, I figured when my turn comes to play, I’m gonna play which I feel comfortable. I’m gonna play either a sonatina by Dvorak, which I performed, in fact, later I performed in Radio Munich, but which…or I’m gonna play, uh, a Kreisler composition. But when, when I saw what I saw, and the violin in my hand, my mind went completely blank. Nothing came to me. And I said to myself, “God, how is it that sonatina starts? How is, how is, how is the, the Kreisler piece starts? My God, how, how does anything starts?” I couldn’t think of anything. And now I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, that the murderer Kapo picked up his iron pipe again and was walking toward me. And I knew I’m gonna be killed. I knew it. So my right hand and my left hand all of a sudden started moving in perfect harmony. And the Strauss Blue Danube was heard coming out of my violin.
Now, how? I never thought of the Blue Danube. Never. I heard it, in fact, I, I am even, hate to admit to you, I never even played it really. I heard it many times from the Gypsies, and my brother, who was a fantastic accordionist in his high school group. But playing, I was not even allowed to play anything else but classical. And the Kapo looked at, eagerly, to, to the SS, “When shall I whack him? When shall I hit him?” Instead, the SS guard was humming the melody and was beating the rhythm with his fingers–like 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And he, he just smiled and, “Let him live.”
The camp was liberated by US troops in April 1945. In 1950, Shony Alex Braun immigrated to the United States and became a composer and a professional violinist. On 4 October 2022, he died in Los Angeles, California.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
I recently interviewed Eddy Boas and his son Phil. Here are some of the subjects we touched on.
Eddy Boas is a Holocaust survivor and author of the book I’m Not a Victim— I Am a Survivor. He was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1940. Eddy was just three months old when the Nazis invaded and three years old when his family was rounded up and sent to Westerbork and from there to Bergen Belsen. They were the only family unit sent to the camps that survived the Holocaust.
After the war, the Dutch government treated the Boas family very poorly. They left the Netherlands for Australia. The Dutch government issued a public apology about the Dutch and their involvement in the Holocaust on Eddy’s 80th birthday on 26 January 2020.
I spoke to Eddy about the rise of Anti-Semitism and the oft-forgotten victims of the Holocaust. The quote, “If you want to improve the future, you have to learn from History” comes from his granddaughter.
I also spoke to Eddy’s son Phil, to get a perspective of the son of a Holocaust survivor.
Below is a video of Eddy’s granddaughter Sarah Jane, speaking up about Anti-Semitism. During the interview, she coined the quote, “If you want to improve the future, you have to learn from history.” I think that is a powerful and effective bit of advice.
It is rare to have three different generations of the same family in the room. I am honoured to have had the opportunity to hear from a Holocaust survivor and the second and third generation adding to the interview.
Some people will probably accuse me for using specific words in the title as ‘clickbait’, and to an extend that is true. But anyone who writes a blog, and especially one with an extraordinary story, want readers to click on that link to read that story.
I make no excuse for the use of the title, basically because all the words are linked.
There were an approximate 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki ,Greece, before World War 2. Only 2000 of them survived.
In the summer of 1942, the persecution of the Jews of Thessaloniki started. All men between the ages of 18 and 45 were conscripted into forced labor, where they stood for hours in the hot summer sun and were beaten and humiliated. The Jewish community was depleted of its wealth and pride. Jews were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David and forced into an enclosed ghetto, called Baron Hirsch, adjacent to the rail lines.
On March 15, 1943, the Nazis began deporting Jews from Thessaloniki. Every three days, freight cars crammed with an average of 2,000 Thessaloniki Jews headed toward Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the summer of 1943, the Nazi regime had deported 46,091 Jews.
Two of the survivors were the parents of Albert Bourla. For many of you the name Albert Bourla will mean very little. However is the CEO of a company which will have made an impact to millions ,and possibly billions, of people across the globe. The company if Pfizer, the first company ,the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was the first approved vaccine used to provide protection against infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in order to prevent COVID-19. Of Course Pfizer is also known for Viagra, initially used as a treatment for heart-related chest pain. But is now primarily used as a treatment of erectile dysfunction (inability to sustain a satisfactory erection to complete sexual intercourse). Its use is now one of the standard treatments for erectile dysfunction.
Dr. Albert Bourla joined the Sephardic Heritage International on January 28th for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he shared his family’s story of tragedy and survival during the Holocaust.
Below is an excerpt of his speech.
“My father’s family, like so many others, had been forced from their homes and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos,” recounted Bourla. “It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto as long as they were wearing the yellow star.”
“But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupational forces and the exit was blocked. My father and his brother (my uncle) were outside when it happened. Their father (my grandfather) met them outside, told them what was happening and asked them to leave the ghetto and hide because he had to go back inside as his wife and two other children were home. So later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife Rachel, his daughter Graziella and his youngest son David were taken to a camp outside the train station and from there, left for Auschwitz. My father and uncle never saw them again,”
“When the Germans had left, they went back to Thessalonki and found that all of their property and belongings have been stolen or sold.”
Bourla’s mother was well known which caused her to hide at home “24 hours a day” out of fear of being recognized on the street and turned over the Nazis . She left the house very rarely, but it was during one of her rare ventures outside that she was captured and taken to a local prison.
“My Christian uncle, my mother’s brother-in-law, Costas de Madis approached a Nazi official and paid him a ransom in exchange for a promise that my mother would be spared,”
“However, my mother’s sister, my aunt, didn’t trust the Germans. So she would go to the prison every day at noon to watch as they loaded the truck of prisoners. One day, her fear had been realized, and my mom was put on the truck. She ran home and told her husband, who then called the Nazi official and reminded him of their agreement – who said he would look into it. That night was the longest night in my aunt and uncle’s life because they knew that next morning, my mom would likely have been executed.”
“The next day, my mom was lined up with other prisoners. And moments before she would have been executed, a German soldier on a motorcycle arrived and handed some papers to the men in charge of the firing squad. They removed my mother from the line. As they rode away, my mom could hear the machine gun slaughtering those that were left behind. Two or three days later, she was released from prison after the Germans left Greece.”
Eight years later Bourla’s parents met by way of matchmaking, through which they agreed to get married.
I fully respect anyone’s decision whether to take or not to take the vaccine, or any vaccine for that matter. Once this decision is based on sound, verified and peer researched information, and not by social media memes or sources which can’t be traced or verified.
However I will never condone the current vaccinations being compared to the Holocaust, it is absolutely vile and disgusting.
I have to make this clear upfront, some of this blog is not based on facts I can proof. It is purely based on my presumptions but also a good dose of common sense,for lack of a better description.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that the total of deaths during the Holocaust is 17 Mullion, 6 million of which were Jewish. The second biggest group deaths were Soviet citizens 4.5 million.Followed by 2.8–3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war and 1.8–3 million Polish followed by several other groups which the Nazis deemed subhuman.
The above numbers are estimates,verified and compiled by the USHMM and also other Holocaust organisations.
But I believe the overall number must have been higher. In those stats are not included the number of the unborn children. Many pregnant women were killed immediately after arriving at the camps. Or otherwise they were forced to have abortions.And sometimes babies were killed straight after birth.
Additionally not all the victims of the einsatz gruppen were registered either. Nor is taken in consideration the number of survivors who committed suicide after the war,because of survivors guilt or otherwise.
One thing I do know for certain though. There are many people who just can’t fathom the amount of victims and great numbers like that become statistics.
The statistics become more of a mathematical equation. Merely a scientific footnote and as times passes the human stories are forgotten. All that is spoken about is the Holocaust statistics.
But these victims deserve better, they are not a statistic but a human being who once were flesh and blood.
Human beings like the 2 sisters Eva and Leah(Liane) Münzer.
In February 1944 they were sent to Auschwitz and were killed three days after arrival. They had been in hiding with a friend of a neighbour. But as a result from a domestic dispute the girls were betrayed. The husband of the woman ,in whose house they were hiding, denounced her and the girls to the authorities. All three were arrested and sent to Westerbork. On February 8, 1944 eight year old Eva and six year old Leah were deported to Auschwitz where they were killed three days later
On the other hand there was their baby brother Alfred who survived the war, but nearly wasn’t born.
His parents were from Galicia but moved to the Netherlands in the early 1930’s.Alfred was born November 23, 1941. But his mother’s obstetrician had urged her to have an abortion. “It would be immoral,” to bring another Jewish life into the world.” he told her. But his Mother Gisele did have Alfred and he was rescued by an Indonesian family living in the Netherlands, Indonesia was a Dutch colony at the time.
Only Alfred and his Mother survived.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
I have often wondered how the Sonderkommandos coped with their work.
Sonderkommandos were forced labour units made up of Nazi death camp prisoners. usually Jews.They were forced to help with the disposal of gas chamber victims among other duties. Sometimes even removing family members.
It is not like they had a choice, it was either work and have a chance to survive or get killed themselves. I have heard people call them traitors but I don’t subscribe to that point of view, The basic instinct of any human being is to survive.
How hard it was for these victims, for they to were victims, is illustrated in the testimony of Filip Müller, a Slovak Jewish member of the Sonderkommando.
Filip had become so desperate that he tried to commit suicide by smuggling himself into the gas chamber.
Below are some excerpts from his testimony taken from his book ‘ Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers’
“In the great confusion near the door I managed to mingle with the pushing and shoving crowd of people who were being driven into the gas chamber. Quickly I ran to the back and stood behind one of the concrete pillars. I thought that here I would remain undiscovered until the gas chamber was full, when it would be locked. Until then I must try to remain unnoticed. I was overcome by a feeling of indifference: everything had become meaningless. Even the thought of a painful death from Zyklon B gas, whose effect I of all people knew only too well, no longer filled me with fear and horror. I faced my fate with composure.
Inside the gas chamber the singing had stopped. Now there was only weeping and sobbing. People, their faces smashed and bleeding, were still streaming through the door, driven by blows and goaded by vicious dogs. Desperate children who had become separated from their parents in the scramble were rushing around calling for them. All at once, a small boy was standing before me. He looked at me curiously; perhaps he had noticed me there at the back standing all by myself. Then, his little face puckered with worry, he asked timidly: “Do you know where my mummy and my daddy are hiding?” I tried to comfort him, explaining that his parents were sure to be among all those people milling round in the front part of the room. “You run along there,” I told him, “and they’ll be waiting for you, you’ll see.”
The only reason he survived is because he was approached by a few girls.
“Suddenly a few girls, naked and in the full bloom of youth, came up to me. They stood in front of me without a word, gazing at me deep in thought and shaking their heads uncomprehendingly. At last one of them plucked up courage and spoke to me: “We understand that you have chosen to die with us of your own free will, and we have come to tell you that we think your decision pointless: for it helps no one.” She went on: “We must die, but you still have a chance to save your life. You have to return to the camp, and tell everybody about our last hours,” she commanded. “You have to explain to them that they must free themselves from any illusions. They ought to fight, that’s better than dying here helplessly. It’ll be easier for them, since they have no children. As for you, perhaps you’ll survive this terrible tragedy and then you must tell everybody what happened to you. One more thing,” she went on, “you can do me one last favour: this gold chain around my neck: when I’m dead, take it off and give it to my boyfriend Sasha. He works in the bakery. Remember me to him. Say ‘love from Yana.’ When it’s all over, you’ll find me here.” She pointed at a place next to the concrete pillar where I was standing. Those were her last words.”
Müller first testified during his recovery in a post-liberation hospital and subsequently in several trials. His testimonies were included in “The Death Factory” written by two fellow Holocaust survivors, Erich Kulka and Ota Kraus. He was also interviewed for the 1985 French documentary Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, who himself had been a Holocaust survivor and French resistance fighter.
Müller died on November 9, 2013. In my opinion there is only one word to describe him. Hero.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
I don’t know how often I have watched this movie but it is one of my favourite war movies.It is funny though that you never really know anything about the real lives of actors or actresses. You may know something about the big stars in movies, but when it comes to the people who play the smaller parts, you just know nothing about them.
Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East Berlin stage, however, she did not appear on screen until well into her twenties.
Ingoushka Petrov was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a German father of Russian descent and a Polish Jewish mother.During World War II, she and her family were imprisoned in Stutthof concentration camp in Sztutowo, Free City of Danzignow present-day Nowy Dwór Gdański County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland.
She survived, and in Berlin, in the 1950s, married American soldier, Laud Roland Pitt Jr. and moved to California. After her marriage failed, she returned to Europe, but after a small role in a film, she took the shortened, stage name, “Ingrid Pitt” and headed to Hollywood, where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in films.
In the early 1960s, Pitt was a member of the prestigious Berliner Ensemble, under the guidance of Bertolt Brecht’s widow Helene Weigel. In 1965, she made her film debut in Doctor Zhivago, playing a minor role. In 1968, she co-starred in the low-budget science-fiction film The Omegans, and in the same year, played British spy, Heidi Schmidt in Where Eagles Dare opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.
But she was best known as Hammer Films’ most seductive female vampire, Countess Dracula, of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror.
She also played in “The Wicker Man” and several episodes of “Dr Who”But I will always remember her as Heidi Schmidt in “Where Eagles Dare”
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
Captain Roy Wooldridge, who was in the Royal Engineers, was taken prisoner during a covert night-time mission to examine submerged mines along the French beaches weeks before the D-Day landings.
Mr Wooldridge, who was twice awarded the Military Cross, was sent a telegram ordering him to report to his unit just three days after his wedding in 1944.
The lieutenant, who was later promoted to captain, was sent to the French beaches with a colleague to ensure there were no mines which could blow up the boats during the D-Day landings.
Due to the secretive nature of the mission, he was not wearing a uniform or carrying identification
Captured by the Nazis and treated as a spy, Captain Roy Wooldridge was told he must reveal all about his secret mission or be shot dead.Despite being grilled by the Gestapo, the British soldier refused to talk .
Capt Wooldridge, a hero of the Battle of El Alamein two years earlier at which Rommel was defeated by the Allies, was stunned when he was presented to the high-ranking officer.
When Rommel asked if he needed anything, cheeky Roy replied: “A single ticket back to the UK, a pint of beer, a packet of cigarettes and a really good meal.”
To his astonishment, his wish was granted when he was ushered into Rommel’s mess where all three items were waiting for him, with the exception of the ticket back to the UK.
He later recalled “I was taken to the officers’ mess, where a waiter in white dress adorned with a swastika gave me a jug of beer, a packet of cigarettes and a meal.
From memory it was meatballs, or faggots, with potatoes and sauerkraut.”
Capt Wooldridge ate the food, drank the stein of lager and smoked the German cigarettes, but kept the empty packet as a souvenir.
That empty cigarette packet featured on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow on 23 November 2014.With Arms and Militaria specialist Graham Lay
Thanks to Rommel, he survived and was sent on to a prisoner of war camp, where he spent the rest of the war.
Captain Roy Wooldridge died in April 2017, aged 97.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
Mary Berg lived in the Warsaw Ghetto, but her situation was very unusual. Though she was born in Poland, her mother was an American, so her ultimate fate was different from most of her neighbors. Jews with American citizenship could possibly be exchanged for German prisoners of war, so they had a unique value to their captors. While 300,000 of her fellow Jews were deported to their deaths, she and her family were held in Pawiak Prison, pending the transfer that would eventually bring them to the U.S.
From a window, she could see the columns of people heading down the street to the trains that would take them to Treblinka. She later wrote, “We, who have been rescued from the ghetto, are ashamed to look at each other. Had we the right to save ourselves? Here everything smells of sun and flowers and there—there is only blood, the blood of my own people.”
Mary lived in the Warsaw Ghetto for almost two years. Although she came from a wealthy, privileged family, she was a sensitive observer who recorded the terrible ordeal of life in the ghetto with true feeling for her fellow sufferers, especially for those who were less fortunate.
This took a psychological toll on her, even invading her dreams. On July 10th, 1941 she wrote, “I am full of dire forebodings. During the last few nights, I have had terrible nightmares. I saw Warsaw drowning in blood; together with my sisters and my parents, I walked over prostrate corpses. I wanted to flee, but could not, and awoke in a cold sweat, terrified and exhausted. The golden sun and the blue sky only irritate my shaken nerves.”
In January 1943, her family was sent to an internment camp in France, where they awaited a prisoner exchange that would allow them to flee. Their journey to freedom began March 1, 1944, when they boarded a train for Lisbon. There, they boarded the ocean liner SS Gripsholm for the voyage to America. Her memoir, Warsaw Ghetto, describes her years in Pawiak.She arrived in the United States in March 1944, at the age of 19. Her memoir was serialized in American newspapers in 1944, making it one of the earliest accounts of the Holocaust to be written in English, Published under the penname “Mary Berg”
Mary was not guilty for wanting to live, but she undoubtedly felt compromised by the struggle to survive. Freedom did not entirely lift this burden, but she believed that her ghetto diary/memoir might do some good for others. When she arrived in the U.S. in 1944, some of Europe’s Jews were still alive. Saving them might be possible, but only if their plight was publicized. This was her motivation for helping to get her account published. In the end, she became uncomfortable with the celebrity that accompanied her book, and she dropped out of public view.
October 10, 1939
“Today I am 15 years old. I feel very old an lonely .although my family did all they could to make this day a real birthday .They even baked a macaroon cake in my Honor, which is a great luxury these days.
My Father ventured out into the street and returned with a bouquet of Alpine violets, when I saw it I couldn’t help crying.”
History of Sorts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.