Arek Hersh, (born 13 September 1928) is a survivor of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Early life and World War II

Arek Hersh (Herszlikowicz - הרשליקוביץ׳) was born in Sieradz,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

on 13 September 1928. He was the son of a bootmaker for the Polish army and a homemaker. At the age of eleven, following

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, he was taken to his first concentration camp. The camp started out with 2,500 men; eighteen months later only eleven were alive. Hersh was moved around several camps before being taken to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Even as a young boy at the time, Hersh deduced that those who were placed in a group with sick, young or old people were considered by the Nazis to be of no use and would be killed. Consequently, while Jews were standing in queues of fitter and weaker people before entering the camp, Hersh crossed to the fitter queue during a commotion near the rear of the line (SS officers tried to take a child from its mother), and in doing so, saved his own life. As the war approached its conclusion and Germany was surrounded by the Allies, Hersh and the other Jews at Auschwitz were transported across the country. He was eventually liberated at

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

(Terezin,

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

) on 8 May 1945 by the Soviet Army. There were 5,000 Jews in his town but only 40 of them came out alive. The night before he was liberated, Hersh and a few other survivors found an unguarded German warehouse, from which they took as much food as they wanted; they ate so much that their stomachs hurt due to the sudden intake of rich fatty foods which they had lacked for so long. For Hersh, it was his first taste of chocolate in five years. The Soviet soldiers let all of the surviving Jews do whatever they wanted with the Germans; Arek took the captain's food to show him how it felt to starve. Hersh was included in a group of 300 Holocaust-surviving children who, following their liberation, were brought to the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

in England as part of a rehabilitation plan. Their journey is documented in the BBC film ''

The Windermere Children ''The Windermere Children'' is a 2020 biographical drama film written by Simon Block and directed by Michael Samuels. Based on the experience of child survivors of the Holocaust, it follows the children and staff of a camp set up on the Calga ...

''. They were given just seven hours of English lessons and had to learn the rest for themselves. Hersh lost 81 members of his immediate family in the Holocaust. Only one of his sisters survived.

Post World War II

In 1948, Hersh volunteered to fight in the

Israeli Defence Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branch ...

"to contribute towards the war of independence".

Personal life

Hersh met his wife Jean at a dance in Leeds at the age of 32. They have three children and several grandchildren. He currently lives near

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, England. In 1995, as part of his first public discussion of his Holocaust experiences, Hersh published his book, ''A Detail of History.'' All the proceeds go to the

Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre Beth Shalom (lit. "House of Peace"), also named the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, is a Holocaust memorials, Holocaust memorial centre near Laxton, Nottinghamshire, Laxton in Nottinghamshire in England. Opened in 1995, it is England's only ...

, where he often gives presentations about his experience.

Awards and honors

Hersh was the subject of the award-winning documentary "Arek" (2005) produced by UNISON and directed by Tony Lloyd. In 2009, he was awarded an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

for voluntary service to Holocaust education. In 2017 he was immortalised in a sculpture by Frances Segelman for the Leeds Makor Jewish Culture Office. In 2019 Arek was one of the subjects in the BBC drama "The Windermere Children" telling the story of the child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust that has devastated Europe's Jewish population on arrival to Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere in 1945.

References

*Hersh, Arek (2001): ''A Detail of History''. Quill Press.

External links