Every Holocaust survivor has a different story

Holocaust Testimony: Eve, Rudi and Paul Oppenheimer: The Last Train From Belsen

Every Holocaust survivor has a different story. This is certainly true for the story of the three Oppenheimer children, Eve, Rudi and Paul, who were fortunate to survive for five years under the Nazis in Holland, and in the camps of Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen, and who finished up on ‘The Last Train from Belsen.’
Our parents, Hans and Rita Oppenheimer, lived in Belsen. We were a typical middle-class family of assimilated Jews, who rarely ventured into a synagogue. Paul and Rudi were born in Berlin in 1928 and 1931, respectively.
With the advent of Hitler and the Nazis, life became progressively more difficult for all Jewish people living in Germany. Many Jewish families wanted to leave Germany, but most other countries would not accept these refugees. Our father, Hans, worked at the Mendelssohn Bank in Berlin which had a branch office in Amsterdam in Holland. He had managed to obtain a transfer to the Amsterdam branch in 1936 and the family went to live in Holland, near the seaside in Heemstede. These were happy days for the Oppenheimer children, but they only lasted for four years.
In May 1940, the Germans invaded Holland and within five days, the Dutch army surrendered. The Germans occupied the whole country, took over its government, and soon started to persecute the Jews who lived there. Anti-Jewish Laws were introduced in an insidious step-by-step manner to restrict the life of all Jewish people in Holland. We were not allowed into public places like parks, zoos, restaurants, hotels, museums, libraries and swimming pools. We had to attend Jewish schools. We had to live in Amsterdam. We had to wear the yellow star. We had a curfew. We had to hand in our bicycles. We were not allowed on the bus or tram.

Having now heard this story as well as that of Oskar Schindler, what will you do to ensure such restrictions on a whole race do not happen in your community? Make your pledge at http://buildabridge.hmd.org.uk/ and for more survivor testimonies visit http://hmd.org.uk/resources/survivor-stories.