Mayer Hersh

Mayer Hersh was thirteen years of age when World War II broke out; very soon after, he and his brother were taken from their home and put to work as slave laborers on a railroad. The rest of his immediate family ultimately perished in the death camps of the Holocaust. Mayer and his brother Jakob were separated at Auschwitz, Jakob to work the coal mines in Silesia, and Mayer was eventually transported to Buchenwald, and seven other work camps, just ahead of the Russians, until he was liberated from Theresienstadt, in May of 1945. Jakob also survived, and eventually made his way to Germany, then to the United States, and ultimately to Israel, while Mayer arrived in Manchester, England, with a refugee group, and stayed, where he worked as a tailor. For many years, he kept silent about his losses and his experiences during that time, but in his latter years, he spoke loudly and often of that time, stating "To me, this is a fulfillment. But why is it a fulfillment? Because I'm talking about my family, whose lives were extinguished and whose voices were obliterated. The perpetrators also wanted the memory of these people to be obliterated, and that's something I don't want to happen. I want their memory to be preserved for eternity."