Victoria Hyde- Survivor Testimonies

Brigette Altman was a Jewish girl born in Memel, Germany. She lived with her two parents who were wealthier than most, and who had inherited that wealth from their parents. When the war started her and her familiy was put into a ghetto that contained four streets. They luckily got to stay in their own home and lent extra rooms for family members who lost their homes. They lived in the very top room of their house in the tiny attick. Brigette eventually got a job in the ghetto as a nursery and green house worker. Her boss was a Jewish man who she spoke very fondly of. They grew all sorts of vegetables (that usually couldn't be grown there) for the officers and for others to buy. When Brigette's family felt that it was too dangerous for her to stay any longer, she was relocated to live with a host family in the city. She helped them with daily chores etc... Once again though the people she was living with found the city to not be safe either. So, she then was sent to the husbands farm out in the country where it was safer. There was not pleantiful food there and things were not too great for her, but she was safer and out of the way of being sent to death. One night a man who lived down the hall forced her into his room and tried to raped her. She quickly made it known to a woman who lived in the house what was going on and it never happened again. After months of waiting, Russian soldiers came to the farm saying that the war was over. Brigette stayed at the farm an additional two weeks to make sure that all the chores were done. When she left she took a little girl who lived at the farm with her... They were later greeted by a medical crew who took care of them the best that they possibly could. They were given bread, ciggarettes, and were cleaned from head to toe. She later got married in Chicago to an American Air Force officer. There were two things that Brigette talked about that stuck in my head.. She said that she was able to get past the terrible things from the Holocaust because she still had "The bloom of her youth". She seemed very happy and bubbly despite what had happened to her. She also spoke of how much the war had aged people.. She said about a man she had known... "When I saw him walking up the steps he looked just like my Grandfather, he had aged so much." I loved listening to her... Over all she seems to have lead a happy life. Kurt Messerschmidt was born on January 2, 1915, in Werneuchen, Germany. He was raised by his mother, Else. Kurt moved with his mother to Berlin in 1918. Kurt had a younger half-brother, Henry Oertelt.. He had a normal child hood. On January 29th 1933 he attended a concert performance in the Judische Kultur Bund, which was a theater group that was created just for the Jews to enjoy and participate in. Kurt said, "I remember going by tramway, streetcar,to the theater. All of a sudden, we were stopped. And there were marching masses of people carrying torches." This was the great torch march of the Nazis celebrating taking over of power. This was when Kurts life had a turn around. He became a teacher in the city of Berlin. His (future) wife attended school there and was about to graduate. Kurt was a linguist and would assist the children in learning new languages to where they would be deported. Soon the parents of the children were assigned to work in factories.. Kurt became more than just a teacher. Kurt said, "The children were left to themselves and I had to be more than just teacher. I had to be friend, I had to be father and mother, protector, everything in one person." November 9th, 1938 Crystal Night took place. At two in the morning all of the Synagogues were set on fire.. Windows were shattered, houses were burnt, and people were killed. The next morning Kurt rode his bike to school and at the end of the day he had to walk his children outside to protect them from other (non-Jewish) children with rocks. Kurt and his brother were deported to Auchwitz.. Were they were starved and worked to the bone. Despite sickness and harsh conditions he was able to survive until he was libarated in the forties. He was later reunited with his girlfriend where they were married and lived in Munich. He was a soloist on a radio show.. He later died, but lived a normal happy life.