I I’m just I’m a little bit overwhelmed to be that honest and thinking about how he was only I think five years old maybe six but I think he was five and he was brought here without his sister without his parents and marched into this fort by himself and and just like shot to death just because he not useful to the Nazis.

I can’t I don’t know.

[Music] More than 90% of Jewish children were killed in Nazi occupied Europe.

Avam was one of them.

But his sister’s story of survival had only just begun.

For years I was wondering why me? What did I do to deserve to be alive? This is with me for the rest of my life.

[Music] And I remember my father always singing while he was working.

I still remember like Kinder, Shaina Kinder.

He used to sing that song always while he was working.

That’s the memory of my father.

Rose’s father was taken away on a truck in 1942 and Rose believes he may have been brought here to Maidanic.

Built in the suburbs of Lublin, Maidanic could hold up to 45,000 Polish and Jewish prisoners at a time.

Rose wants to know if her father was one of them.

And she hopes Yakub, a researcher here, can give her the information she needs.

That’s why I’m here.

I want to know anything what happened in that time.

So they they must have slept one on top of the other practically.

Maidanic functioned as part of Operation Reinhardt, the secret Nazi plan to eliminate Poland’s Jews and to profit from their murder by seizing their valuables and personal possessions.

It became a major storage and sorting depot for these looted goods.

[Music] [Music] for tailor were useful to the Nazis.

Not only did they mend these looted clothes destined for Germany, but they were forced to search for valuables hidden in the linings and seams.

His skills as a tailor may have kept Rose’s father alive.

Laser Handlesman was his name.

Yeah.

We don’t we don’t know anything.

So you don’t have any documents that my father was here at any time? We don’t have any documents.

By November 1943, Operation Reinhardt had come to an end with the death of nearly 2 million Polish Jews.

With no more loot to be seized, the workers at Maidanic were no longer needed.

All the Jews which were prisoners at the Maidanic were killed during the action.

Executed.

Executed.

[Music] Jews were shot one by one in large pits at the perimeter of the camp.

Music was played through loudspeakers to mask the noise.

The slaughter of more than 18,000 was completed in just one day.

These are all shoes all the way down.

Shoes.

Oh my god.

This is [Music] unbelievable.

Oh my god.

It is believed that this photograph shows the thousands of Jewish inmates at Maidanic marching to their death.

Rose’s father may have been one of them.

But what happened to her mother and brothers? She looked me straight in the face.

I want you to understand I was 13 years old at the time and she said they taking us to our death.

That was her conclusion.

We knew about the concentration camp gasp chambers.

We knew that there is such a thing.

4 months after Helen’s little brother Avam was snatched from her arms in the Kinder action, the Nazis closed the Cauno ghetto.

Along with thousands of other Jews, Helen and her parents were loaded into cattle cars and deported west.

We didn’t know where we were going or what was happening to us.

Finally, it stopped and we were able to get ourselves out of the train.

But that is when I lost my father.

Helen’s father was sent to Dao concentration camp and never seen again.

Helen and her mother were sent to Stutohof.

She was just 11 years old when she arrived.

She was taken with her mother into a room full of pipes and showerheads.

My mother and I were standing there waiting and we are both naked standing holding each other and I remember showerheads over our head and after a few minutes water came out.

So here I am sitting talking to you.

I I can’t explain this, but I was there for the taking.

According to Nazi procedure, as an 11-year-old child, Helen should have been killed in this gas chamber.

So how did she cheat death when thousands of others did not? [Music] Helen’s grandson, Andrew, has come to meet Denuda, a researcher at the Strof Archives, to find out.

This is the original card, of course.

That’s the original card.

And there’s her number.

So 43971.

I wonder if she remembers that was her number.

So it says here that she was born in 1927.

Mhm.

But I know that wasn’t her birthday.

I know that she was born five years later.

So why did they do that to her age? They decided to change the dates because if someone was too young and they add some years, it was high possibility that that this person would be able to survive in the in the camp.

So my grandmother is reporting that she’s 17, but actually she’s just 11 or 12.

Mhm.

So, if she was unlucky enough to look younger than she was, she may have been sent rights to her death.

This little birthday change here may have been one of the many things, but one of the most important parts of her story that kept her alive.

Helen and her mother were deemed fit for work and shipped out to Stud’s network of sub camps.

I was doing heavy labor.

We were digging trenches every single day from morning till night.

I mean, we had a dark life, I can assure you.

But there was around that time that I met Rivera and her mother, Mrs.

Rubin.

Rivera was from the same ghetto as I was, the Kovno ghetto.

We were the same age.

We had the same history.

We both had little brothers and we would chat about them.

We had each other.

She had me and I had her.

We’ve become as close as a family can be.

In the 75 years since Helen was at Stohoff, she has never forgotten her friend Reva.

Another little girl from her hometown caught up in the horrors of the Holocaust.

My grandmother talks about a friend that she made in the sub camp and her name was Reva and she always wanted to know more information about her.

I think her last name is Reuben.

They came in on the same day, didn’t they? Yes, they were together.

They were together and both from Cowas.

Mhm.

Do you see this? She signed her name.

Yeah.

It looks like a kid’s signature that just learned how to write cursive writing.

My gosh.

She was just a kid.

Mhm.

These are the cards of two best friends that went through the Holocaust together.

And today, this is as close as it can get to having Reva back for my grandmother.

I made a friend but unfortunately this friend did not [Music] survive.

I still feel responsible.

If I wouldn’t save the baby, Yanek would have been alive with me today.

Maxwell wants to know if there is any other living person who remembers his friend Yannik.

So he’s flying out to the one place where it might just be possible to find out.

This is my destination to go to Israel and to clear my conscience at least in one part.

[Music] He has come to the hall of names at Yadvashm in Jerusalem.

Researchers here have taken on a colossal task, attempting to name every single Jewish victim of the Holocaust.

We are in the Hall of Names.

Yeah.

What you see here are Yeah.

pages of testimony and photographs of victims of the Holocaust.

These binders hold names of close to 5 million victims identified by family members.

In each one, there are 300 pages of test.

300 pages.

Yes.

We still don’t know the names of more than a million victims, many of them children.

Yadvashm is on a mission to identify them all.

And their database offers an incredible resource for Maxwell to find out more about Yanuk and his family.

During the Holocaust, I was hiding with a boy.

I know his name is Yanuk.

This is for sure.

Where were you at the time? In what place? In the butches area.

Maybe 15 miles away.

Okay.

So, let’s try to see if we can find something.

We have Yanek and try Aronson.

So, we have a Yakov Yanek Yanek and his he was from the Okay.

So, let’s see what we get here.

So, uh we’ll go into details.

Okay.

This is what we call a page of testimony is a declaration of somebody who knew the victim and they uh register here all the information they know about the victim for Yanek Arber he was born in Zoev it’s in the area used to live in BH right and he according to this he was born in 1931 1931 yeah I remember I was older than him what do you think about the photograph I’m telling you he looked like That this the eyes the eyes tell me that that this is this is Yanuk.

Mhm.

The expression of the eyes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The express you know why you always looked at me sad.

Very sad.

He’s a he’s a sad kid.

Well, he had a sad story.

Yeah.

Haunted for nearly 80 years by the death of his friend.

Maxwell has finally found a testimony filed by someone who knew Yannik.

So what we have here is Shimon Shiferis was the nephew of this person.

He’s the uncle of Yanek.

Mhm.

Here we have an address in Israel in Gatim.

There is an address.

Yes.

This makes sense.

I would like to speak to this man.

Okay.

So you said your friend Rever died.

Were you there? Oh yes I was there.

Ria Reva died and I was lying right beside her when she passed away.

Helen and her best friend Reva had managed to survive Strut Huff work camps until the very last stages of the war.

In January 1945, as the Soviet army advanced on Poland, the Nazis began evacuating the camps.

They either forced the surviving Jews to walk to Germany in what became known as death marches or they were executed in their camps.

Helen Reva and their mothers were selected for immediate death.

We were told to come in and lie down on the bare floor and we were told not to move.

And that very same afternoon we were injected with some substance that to this day I have no idea what it was.

I was thinking that this is the end of us that this is finished.

We are not surviving anymore.

But Helen did survive.

So what was in those injections? Her grandson Andrew is in Stoof to see if he can find out.

So my grandmother remembers being injected with something.

Do you have any idea what that could have been? It was the fennel injection uh which was used to kill the people to kill the prisoners.

Uh and there was a story happened in in the sub camp where your grandmother was.

The doctor she was the Hungarian doctor and she was also the prisoner.

Uh she was forced by the assessment to make a injection but she gave them the smaller dose of the injection so that she was hoping that they would be able to survive.

Really? Yes.

The full dose of the poison didn’t go into them.

That’s why they survived.

And that might be part of the story that she’s missing.

That really explains why she’s here today.

Yes.

Helen and her mother did survive, but Reva and her mother did not.

They both died weeks after the Russians liberated the camp.

Helen has never forgotten something Reva told her before she died.

She told me that she had a little brother.

I don’t know his name.

Reva told me that he was given away to a non-Jewish family for safety reasons.

Many Jewish parents gave their children to Christian families in the hope that they would survive the Holocaust.

Thousands of hidden children never saw their families again.

I know what happened to Reva, but I don’t know what happened to her little brother.

And I wonder about that.

To this day, I have no idea if anybody survived to take him, claim him back.

Where is he now? And who’s who raised him.

Here at Yadvashm, there is a way to search for people who died in the Holocaust and perhaps even trace any living relatives.

Dr.

Abraham is scouring the database of 4.

8 million victim’s names to see if there are any matches for Reva.

So we actually have one Rifka Rifka Rubin from KNO.

She was born in 1931.

It is written that she died in the area.

Let’s go into details.

So it’s a page of testimony in Hebrew that was submitted in 1999.

Someone submitted this testimony about Reva and included a photo taken several years before the war.

The page of testimony was reported by one Elhan and Rubin and Lee apparently is her brother, Rifka’s brother.

Do you recognize this girl? Oh my god, I don’t know.

Do you recognize this woman? Is there a name here? Rubenovich.

Would that be You’re talking about Mrs.

Reuben or does you mean that this could be Reva? Oh my god.

I’m not This This is a It’s It’s blowing me away.

So this is my arrival.

What a beautiful girl.

She looks like she’s a a princess.

Beautiful and not lacking for anything.

I wish I’d known her the before the war.

So, we found Reefer’s brother.

Oh, what are you telling me here? Oh my god.

How did you What miracle? How is that that the mother died and and she died? Oh, would I like to meet this man? Oh my god.

Having lost her own brother to the Holocaust, Helen has wondered about Reva’s little brother her entire life.

Since he was a boy, this man has been searching for someone who knew his sister and has traveled from Israel for this moment.

Now, after 75 years, oh, they’re knocking the door.

They finally get to meet [Music] Oh, very nice to meet you.

So, you’re here.

Oh my god, this is like a a dream.

Yes.

Yes.

Your mother and your sister upstairs in heaven are looking down smiling.

Yes.

Hello.

This is my This is my son.

Nice to meet you.

Oh, nice to meet you.

You I wor a lot about you for coming all this way.

Be happy to to hear all these stories.

Yes.

You don’t have any information, so you’re the last chance.

I I’m the last.

[Music] Yes.

Does it deserve to know the whole story? How they died? There will be questions.

Very difficult questions.

Yanik is actually a hero.

He did a very great thing.

He saved a child.

Just imagine.

Over 75 years ago, Maxwell’s friend Yannik died after they rescued a baby during World War II.

Maxwell has just found out that Yannik has a surviving uncle in Tel Aviv.

I didn’t know that Yanuk had any family left.

I never knew.

We never discussed it, but I’m very excited to meet anybody of Yanuk’s family.

The family don’t know how Yanuk died.

Maxwell plans to tell them the truth.

By saving the baby, Yanuk sacrificed himself.

He became a hero in my eyes.

I would like to tell that to to his uncle.

So, we’re here.

We are here.

We are here, Maxwell.

This is You’ve been waiting for this long time, my husband.

Here we are.

Mary.

Hi, Mary.

My god.

Oh my god.

Was I happy when I saw you? Was I happy when I saw you? This is Yanxra.

Yes.

Aba.

Jane.

Maxwell.

Maxwell.

Nephew.

Nephew.

Thank you.

[Music] is you Apostle because [Music] for the first time, Maxwell tells Yanuk’s aunt the story of how he died after saving the baby girl by the river.

Because I want to show you this is the picture of the family.

Rosa Rafael, mother of Yan.

Yeah.

Her husband Moshe Erenburg.

Yeah.

Hik.

Yeah.

And Yanek.

All my life I felt responsible for his death.

I felt responsible for his death.

I I pulled them in.

You You maybe you don’t don’t understand.

I should not think like that.

No.

I am happy you are with us and telling us this story.

For me, Yanek become alive.

He is now part of my life as a person and he’s is with me from now.

Before it was just a name and now I feel he’s a human being.

Yes.

And it’s okay.

I am happy.

I’m happy.

That’s You’re happy.

And you’re you’re crying.

You’re happy.

And I’m crying too.

You’re happy.

We were walking, my little brother, my mother and I.

It was a shining beautiful day.

And when they started walking on that road, she said, “That’s the last day on earth, and I intend to take the sunshine in.

” After being separated from her father, Rose together with her mother and brothers and thousands of other women and children were marched along this road.

This is the first time Rose has ever been back.

You see, that’s the road that I walk blessed with my mother and my two brothers.

3,000 people were walking, all of us together.

So, all the children were walking with children were walking and the women were walking and carrying the bags.

And if they were kind of trying to step out of line, what would happen? There were guards on both sides with guns.

Where do you think everyone was going? To the train station.

That was the road that was going to the nearest train station.

There were 3,000 people on that road that day.

That’s what I remember about the crowd the most.

people carrying those big bags really thinking that they’re going to be resettled somewhere else.

My mother started holding back and holding back and holding back.

She grabbed whatever I carried and threw it away.

She looked me straight in the face.

I want you to understand I was 13 years old at the time.

And she said, “They taking us to our death.

” That was her conclusion.

She looked life straight in the face.

She looked at me and she says, “You have to run.

I can’t run with you because I cannot leave that little boy alone.

And with him, none of us have a chance.

” I don’t believe the whole world has gone mad.

There is going to be somebody somewhere that’s going to help you and you will survive.

And if you survive, so a lie through [Music] you.

You see, at first I didn’t want to go.

I was holding on to a skirt so tightly because I didn’t want to go.

I didn’t want to leave my mother or my brother.

That’s the last time I saw her.

I didn’t even say goodbye.

She pushed me forcibly off the road.

I just think about like for me personally my kids and like I don’t know how your mom had the strength to do that and how you as a child like were able to leave like she’s my oldest granddaughter and she looks a little like my others.

And that’s when I started running through the fields.

Never saw my mother again or my brother again.

That was the last time I saw her.

Rose ran 15 kilometers to the house of the Yablonskys, Polish farmers who gave her refuge and a new identity.

And I slept the night on the attic.

You could see through the holes.

I remember looking out hoping maybe my mother escaped too and she’s going to come walking down that road.

But Rose’s mother and brother were already being loaded onto box cars at this station.

As part of Operation Reinhardt, the Nazis had constructed extermination centers away from centers of population and hidden far from prying eyes deep in the forests of eastern Poland.

They went to Sovipore on October the 14th.

That’s the day that 3,000 people wound up in Sovore.

That’s how I know.

[Music] Rose is now following her mother’s final journey to Soibbor.

They brought them in the wilderness.

I wonder if there is a station.

I don’t know.

There’s train tracks right there.

There is train tracks.

Yeah.

You see? So, they must have brought them must have brought them directly.

Oh my god.

Look on the left.

Looks like the train station.

The old train station that says so before train station and what do you know about Rever’s family? Precious little except that this brother of hers is given was given away.

He doesn’t know how they died.

He doesn’t know how they died.

E should he not know it? What do you think? Maybe he needs to.

I don’t know.

He needs to know.

You think? Very nice.

That’s like my sister.

Yes.

The same age.

It’s very, very nice.

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