'Nobody believed their accounts of the Holocaust'
Eighteen-year-old Mascha Nachmansson, an outstanding student and rabbi's daughter, is dreaming of going to university. But Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany has just invaded Poland and his troops are about to descend on the city, tearing apart Mascha's life forever.
It is the first days of September 1939 in the Polish city of Lodz (Łódź
, the bustling heart of the country's textile industry.
One of 12 children raised in a loving family, Mascha has already witnessed the antisemitism that has followed her community for hundreds of years. But the horror of what happened to her next will not be revealed for decades, her daughter Jeanette Marx said.
"Some survivors used to say they did try to talk to people immediately afterwards, and say what had happened to them, but people just looked at them as if they were totally mad, delusional," Jeanette says.
"'These things can't happen, you know. You grew up in in the civilized world. You grew up in Europe. These things don't happen in Europe.'
more...
= new reply since forum marked as read
