Heinrich Schoenker:  I Was Eight and Wanted to Live

A Childhood Lived Through the Shoah

Heinrich Schönker’s memories of his childhood are unique for two reasons: he survived the Holocaust, despite growing up in the town of Auschwitz (now known by its Polish name of Oświęcim), the later site of the Nazi extermination camp. He and his family escaped death only because his father hurried to get the family out of the town early enough. Schönker tells of how his father represented the Jewish Council of Auschwitz as its last chairman and even met Adolf Eichmann in Berlin. He wanted to organise the mass emigration of the Jews from Upper Silesia. These plans failed as a result of apathy from other countries.