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The Bleeding Sky-Recollections of the Shoah

Louis Brandsdorfer

My mother, Malka Brandsdorfer, lived in a small Polish town near the German border. At the start of World War II she was married and had a young daughter. During the war her married name was Goldratt. She recorded her recollections of the Holocaust. The conditions in the town. Her family's struggle and the ghetto and camps she lived through. She tells of how many of her family died and how only she and one sister survived. Her recollections are told in Yiddish. There is a written version of my mother's story in English that can be downloaded at the website.

  • 10 minutes 4 seconds
    Chapter 1
    My mother begins her recollections of the Shoah with a conversation she had with a friend and fellow survivor.
    4 June 2008, 6:49 pm
  • 8 minutes 11 seconds
    22_Wesbaden
    Leaving Poland for good, my mother travels looking for surviving family and friends. She finds very few, and learns of the fate of many of them. Settling in a displaced persons camp in Wesbaden Germany, she meets my father and starts a new family before moving to America.
    4 June 2008, 6:49 pm
  • 11 minutes 22 seconds
    21_Returning
    Returning home after the war. My mother travels on foot and by train through war torn Germany and Poland. She finds other survivors, among them her younger sister Fay. Her homecoming is bitter sweet with the realization of how few survived and the hostile greeting the returning Jews received from the Polish townspeople.
    4 June 2008, 6:49 pm
  • 6 minutes 17 seconds
    20_Liberation
    The labor camp at Neustadt is unexpectedly liberated when the German guards abandon the labor camp. The Germans move west to excape the advancing Russian army.
    4 June 2008, 6:49 pm
  • 9 minutes 4 seconds
    19_Neustadt
    The labor camp near Hamburg, where my mother spent the last few months of the war.
    4 June 2008, 6:49 pm
  • 4 minutes 42 seconds
    18_Death March
    With the Russian army nearing Auschwitz in January 1945, the Germans evacuate the camp and force march the prisoners to the concentration camp at Gross Rosen. Known as the Death March, it lasted many days with the prisoners walking through the bitter cold and heavy snow. Many did not survive, as the German guards killed any who stopped walking.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
  • 10 minutes 48 seconds
    17_Auschwitz
    Toward the end of 1944 my mother's kommando is moved from Birkenau to the main camp in Auschwitz.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
  • 8 minutes 14 seconds
    16_Blue Affect
    My mother bribes her way into the Blue Affect. It was the building where the clothes of Auschwitz's victims was sorted for use by the Germans.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
  • 11 minutes 46 seconds
    15_The Bleeding Sky
    With the fires in Birkenue burning all the time, to dispose of the bodies of the murdered Jews, the ash turns the evening sky blood red. My mother describes this vision of hell that was Auschwitz.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
  • 9 minutes 38 seconds
    14_ Yenta and Sara
    Yenta and Sara, my mother's 2 youngest sisters come to Birkenau. The three of them are reunited, but only for a short while as disease and the gas chamber take both of them.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
  • 3 minutes 35 seconds
    13_Mala Zimetbaum
    My mother is rescued from the gas chamber by Mala Zimetbaum. Later Mala Zimetbaum escapes from Auschwitz with a male accomplice. After a few days they are caught and executed in front of the whole camp.
    4 June 2008, 6:48 pm
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