Holocaust memorial testimonies

1. ZIGGI SHIPPER
Zigi was born on 18th January 1930, to
a Jewish family in Łodz, Poland and
attended a Jewish school. When he was
five years old his parents divorced but
because they were Orthodox Jews and
divorce was frowned upon, he was told
that his mother had died. Following his
parents’ divorce he lived with his father
and his grandparents. In 1939, when
war broke out, Zigi’s father escaped to
Russia, believing that it was only young
Jewish men who were at risk, and not
children or the elderly. However, in 1940
Zigi and his grandparents were forced to
move into the Łodz ghetto. During this
year his father attempted to return to see
Zigi but could not get into the ghetto. Zigi
never saw his father again and still does
not know what happened to him.
In 1941, all children, elderly and
disabled people, including Zigi and his
grandmother, were rounded up and put
on lorries to be deported from the
ghetto. Zigi managed to jump off the
lorry and escaped back into the ghetto
where he remained, working in the metal
factory, until the ghetto’s liquidation in
1944. When the ghetto was liquidated,
all of the people from the metal factory
were put onto cattle trucks and sent to
Auschwitz-Birkenau. On arrival, they
were sent to the showers, where they
were stripped, shaved and showered.
Everyone else from the ghetto had to go
through a Selektion, where a Nazi officer
decided who was fit enough to work and
those who should be killed immediately.
Within an hour of the Selektion, those
from Zigi’s transport who were not
classed as fit for work had been
murdered.
A few weeks after arriving at Auschwitz-
Birkenau, all of the surviving workers
from the metal factory were sent to a
concentration camp near Danzig. Once
there, Zigi volunteered to work at a
railway yard, where he was able to get
more food. With the Russians
advancing, Zigi and the rest of his group
were sent on a Death March, arriving in
the German naval town of Neustadt.
Here they were told they were going to
Denmark. However, before this could
happen there was a British air attack,
and during the chaos that followed Zigi
realised that all of the Nazis had left.
They were surrounded by British troops
and liberated on 3rd May 1945. As soon
as they were liberated, Zigi and his
friends from Danzig and the march went
looking for food. Three days after
liberation, Zigi ended up in hospital for
three months due to the effects of
overeating after a long period of
malnutrition. Once he left hospital, he
and his friends were sent to a Displaced
Persons’ Camp.
Zigi finally arrived in the UK in 1947,
where he married and had a family. He
now lives in Hertfordshire and regularly
shares his testimony in schools across
the country.

2. JOANNA MILLAN
Joanna was born Bela Rosenthal in
August 1942 in Berlin.
At the end of February 1943, Bela’s
father was taken from the streets of
Berlin and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau
where he was killed. Later that year in
June, Bela and her mother were taken
from their home and sent to
Theresienstadt, a concentration camp
50 miles outside of Prague. In 1944,
when Bela was 2, her mother contracted
TB due to the conditions in the camp,
leaving Bela orphaned and alone in the
camp.
Some of the women working in the
kitchens would take food to the orphans.
One woman, Litska Shallinger, knowing
that the food in the camp was
contaminated and working in the
vegetable patch, would bring back fresh,
clean vegetables hidden under her
clothes, some of which she would give
to Bela. After the war Litska wanted to
take Bela home with her, but the
authorities did not think that she had the
means to care for a child. On 3rd May
1945, the Red Cross took over control of
the camp and Bela was liberated by the
Russians.
After the liberation Bela, along with five
other surviving orphans, was flown to
England in British bomber planes which
had been used to return Czech pilots
who had been flying with the RAF during
the war. After transferring through a
series of children’s homes, Bela was
adopted by a Jewish couple living in
London. They decided it would be better
to have a less German sounding name
and so her name was changed to
Joanna. Joanna was told not to mention
that she was Jewish or that she was
born in Germany and to pretend that she
was their natural daughter. Growing up
and hiding her identity was hard for
Joanna, but she says that the scale of
antisemitism was such that Jews were
discriminated against in all spheres of
society, even in England. Just before
they died, her adopted parents told
Joanna that they had considered
committing suicide during the war
because they were so afraid of what
might happen to the Jewish people in
England if the Nazis had won the war.
Joanna went on to marry a Jewish man
and has 3 children and 8 grandchildren.
She is a magistrate and today speaks
regularly about her experiences during
the Holocaust.
Joanna’ testimony can also be found in
the following books and films:
 Love Despite the Hate, by Dr
Sarah Moskovitz
 Survival: Holocaust Survivors tell
their Story, by Beth Shalom
 The Children of Bulldogs
Bank(Film)

3. JACK KAGAN
Jack Kagan was born in 1929 and until
he was 10, lived in Novogródek, eastern
Poland with his family. In 1939 Jack’s
village was occupied by the Soviets, and
then by the Nazis from 1941.
Following the Nazi occupation, all of
Nowogródek’s Jews were ordered to
assemble: the majority, along with Jews
from nearby villages, were murdered.
The survivors, including Jack, were
forced into a ghetto, an area consisting
of 28 houses, where they lived in the
most appalling conditions. In May 1942
an order was issued to clear
neighbouring towns and thousands of
Jews from the surrounding areas,
bringing the ghetto's population up to
6,500 people.
At 12 years old, Jack and his father were
among 500 Jews who were sent to a
forced labour camp and it was here that
he heard about the partisans, a
resistance movement fighting the Nazis
from the forests of Eastern Europe and
protecting Jews who had escaped from
ghettos.
In 1943, Jack escaped from his barracks
through a tunnel dug by himself and
other prisoners. He joined the Bielski
partisans, a resistance group whichlater
became the focus of the film
Defiance. starring Daniel Craig. Along
with over 1,200 men, women and
children, the group lived and survived in
the Naliboki forest as a community and
managed to create synagogues,
bakeries, a hospital and even an airstrip.
Jack eventually came to the UK, where
he later married his wife, Barbara, and
went on to have three children. He is the
only surviving member of the Bielski
partisans in the UK.

4. GENA TURGEL
Gena was born in Cracow, Poland in
1923, the youngest of nine children. She
was only 16 when the Nazis bombed her
home town on 1st September 1939.
The bombing lasted for two days.
Gena’s family had relatives in Chicago
and they planned to leave for the States
but their decision was too late, as the
Germans had already closed all exit and
entry points. Instead, Gena’s family
moved to Borek, a town 30 kilometres
outside Cracow.
In Autumn 1941 Gena had to move to
the ghetto in Cracow, carrying a sack of
potatoes, some flour and few other
belongings. There she stayed with her
mother and four siblings. In May 1940
Gena witnessed her brother’s death as
he was shot by Nazis. Her second
brother Janek fled from the ghetto and
was never seen again. (His clothes were
discovered in a concentration camp.)
On 1 March 1942, Gena and her family
were sent to Plaszov camp, located 10
kilometres away. Gena discovered that
her sister Miriam and her husband, who
had married in the ghetto, had been shot
in 1941 after the Nazis caught her trying
to bring food into the camp. In
December 1944 the camp was
liquidated and Gena and her family had
to walk to Auschwitz.
In January 1945 Gena and her mother
were sent on a Death March leaving
behind Hela, Gena’s sister. They never
saw her again. After several days they
came to Leslau in Germany where they
were forced onto trucks. They travelled
under terrible conditions for the next
three to four weeks, eventually arriving
in Buchenwald concentration camp.
From there they were sent on cattle
trucks to Bergen-Belsen, where they
arrived in February 1945. Gena worked
there in a hospital for several months
and tried to support her mother as best
as she could.
On 15 April 1945 the British army
liberated Bergen–Belsen. Among the
liberators was Norman Turgel, who
would later become Gena’s husband just
half a year later.
Today Gena lives in England and is in
close touch with her children and
grandchildren. Gena has written her
testimony in a book called I Light a
Candle.