
Danka Schnall speaks of her experiance as a Holocaust Survivor for the Eyewitness Project produced my the Jewish Holocaust Centre Melbourne Australia. Danka was born in 1928 in Boryslaw in Polish Ukraine. In September 1939, her father was conscripted into the Polish army. She was eleven years old at the time, and never saw her father again. Boryslaw came under Soviet occupation, but life changed dramatically when the Germans invaded in June 1941. There was an initial pogrom against the Jews, with the co-operation of local Ukrainians, and approximately 300 Jews were murdered. When the Germans forced the remaining Jews into a ghetto, Danka's mother organised to smuggle her out of the ghetto, into the care of their housekeeper, Anna. Danka never saw her mother again. For the next two years, Danka moved from one Polish household to another. In 1944 she found herself homeless, as the woman hiding her became afraid. Danka decided it was best to go to the arbeitslager (work camp) for Jewish prisoners, in order to find people she knew. She did so, and was subsequently -- on 7 August 1944 -- sent to Auschwitz, where she was tattooed. From there she went to Bergen-Belsen and other camps where she worked as a slave labourer, until she was liberated in April 1945.
Jewish Holocaust Centre
Melbourne
Australia
Survivor Testimony
the Holocaust
Eyewitness