 |
| |
WEB
EXHIBIT - THREADS OF MEMORY |
| |
Libby
Schwerd
|
 |
| |
| After
the Holocaust |
| |
Libby
Schwerd made a quilt for her husband Leo Schwerd, a survivor.
This is his autobiography. Her quilt, After the Holocaust, consists
of picture of their family in the USA after the war. |
| |
| I
Leo Schwerd was born in Bukowsko, Poland and I lived there with
my parents, two brothers and two sisters. There was so much
anti-Semitism in my town, in fact, in all of Poland. My parents
owned a grocery store and I enjoyed working there after school
and cheder. In 1939 the Germans took over Poland and my male
cousins and I worked daily fixing roads. In 1942 we were rounded
up and taken away to a labor camp near Sanuk where we continued
to repair roads. At the end of 1942 I escaped to the woods where
my family was already hiding and remained there through part
of 1943, living in a bunker my father built. |
| |
| We
then went to Hungary and lived there as non-Jews. After the
Germans occupied Hungary, we returned to Slovakia where we heard
the Jews were no longer being shipped to their death. We remained
in Slovakia where we heard the Jews were no longer being shipped
to their death. We remained in Slovakia until being liberated
by the Russians in May of 1945. My family, who had been separated
in 1943, was reunited after liberation. |
| |
| In
1946 I volunteered to smuggle displaced Jews from Russia and
Poland to Israel. We took them through Germany, Austria and
Italy, where they left for Israel. I too was supposed to go
to Israel but was refused entrance by the English. I came here
to the US where I met and married my wife. We have three wonderful
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, (thank G-d). |
| |
| We,
and all the survivors who began a new life after the war, are
living proof that Hitler did not succeed in his plan to make
the world ‘Judenfrei’. |
| |
|
|
