Holocaust survivors ordeal largely untold

For some, such as the ones at a Rockville senior living center, the memories remain too painful to recount more than half a century later.

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Holocaust survivor Henry Blumenstein, 76. He was a young boy when his father was arrested in Vienna and sent to a labor camp. His mother, Else, was able to pay for his release and quick escape to Cuba. Meanwhile, Henry and his mother Else were sheltered together, then separately, by the Dutch resistance, but his mother was arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1943, where she died.

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post

Franz and Else Blumenstein with their son, Henry, in Vienna in the late 1930s. Henry now says that he finds it “healing” to talk about the past but that he can understand why other survivors don’t.

Photo courtesy of Henry Blumenstein

Henry Blumenstein was hidden by the Dykstra family in this farmhouse (shown here around 1965), in Oosterwierum, the Netherlands, from 1943 to 1945, when the war ended.

Photo courtesy of Henry Blumenstein

Sjoukje and Johannes Dykstra hid Henry Blumenstein on their farm.

Photo courtesy of Dykstra Family

Henry Blumenstein, his mother and grandmother are among the mostly Jewish passengers pictured aboard the SS St. Louis in 1939 as they tried to seek asylum from Germany in Cuba. They were turned away, and two-thirds of the Jews who were on this ship eventually ended up dying during the war.

Photo courtesy of Henry Blumenstein

Sjoukje Dykstra, granddaughter of the Dykstras, with Henry Blumenstein at the assisted living facility in Rockville. The family and Blumenstein have stayed in close touch.

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post

Holocaust survivor Blanche Juris, 98.

Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

Blanche Juris, prewar. SS troops killed many of her friends and relatives in her home town in Lithuania, and she was eventually sent to a labor camp in Siberia.

Courtesy of Blanche Juris

Blanche Juris, prewar.

Courtesy of Blanche Juris

Blanche Juris.

Courtesy of Blanche Juris

Blanche Juris, with a niece.

Courtesy of Blanche Juris

Blanche Juris.

Courtesy of Blanche Juris

Gisella Simon, after World War II, with her two surviving sisters.

Courtesy of Gisella Simon

Gisella Simon.

Courtesy of Gisella Simon

Arie Nabozny, 89, was 17 and living in Poland when the war broke out. He, his brother and father fled but were captured in Kazakhstan before being arrested and sent to Siberia.

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post

A prewar photo of Nabozny’s family.

Courtesy of Barry Nabozny

An April 2012 photo of Arie Nabozny and his family.

Courtesy of Barry Nabozny

Martha Strauss, 98, was born in 1913 in Speyer, Germany. Her parents sent her to the United States in 1938 and sent her younger sister, Carol Ann, to Australia in early 1939. However, it was too late for her parents to flee. Her father, once a prominent businessman in Speyer, died before the war started. Her mother was taken to Gurs, an internment camp in France. She was able to escape from Gurs and rejoin her daughter in the U.S. in 1940.

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post

Martha, right, and her younger sister, Carol Ann.

Photo courtesy of Martha Strauss

Martha.

Courtesy of Martha Strauss

Courtesy of Martha Strauss / A photo from Martha Strauss of a street scene.

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