Search results
- At age 11, Arek Hersh was taken by Nazis to a small church in his hometown of Sieradz along with his family and members of the Jewish community. There, Arek was separated from his family and would never see them again. Arek survived his time in two ghettos and several Concentration Camps, before being liberated at age 16.
www.holocaust.org.uk/FAQs/arek-hersh
People also ask
What happened to Arek Hersh?
Who was Arek Hersh?
Is Arek Hersh a Holocaust survivor?
What happened to Arek in 1945?
What happened to Arek?
Why did Arek go to Yorkshire?
Arek Hersh. Born in Poland, Arek was imprisoned in Łódz ghetto and later at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Arek survived a death march before finally being liberated from Theresienstadt in 1945. He was then sent to Britain as one of the “Windermere Boys”.
As the war approached its conclusion and Germany was surrounded by the Allies, Hersh and the other Jews at Auschwitz were transported across the country. He was eventually liberated at Theresienstadt (Terezin, Czechoslovakia) on 8 May 1945 by the Soviet Army.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Arek remembers witnessing one of the first war planes flying above his house followed by heavy rifle fire. Poland was defeated quickly, and with the occupation of Poland by the German army came an immediate persecution of the Jews.
On 8 May 1945, he was liberated by the Russians and by 14 May he was on a Lancaster bomber heading for England. He settled in the UK and made Yorkshire his home with his wife Jean. He later discovered that only 40 people from his hometown survived the war.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. Arek was born and brought up in Poland, the son of a boot-maker for the army.
Arek survived his time in two ghettos and several Concentration Camps, before being liberated at age 16. Almost all of his family were murdered. Arek now shares his testimony and does everything he can to counter assertions that the Holocaust was just a ‘detail of history’.
Jan 27, 2020 · A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor recalls how he was one of only three out of 183 young people to be spared on their arrival at the Auschwitz death camp. Arek Hersh, who now lives in Leeds, says...
