Survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution
From Slovak Teacher to Auschwitz Prisoner (Part 1): Magda Hellinger:
13m
Before the number 2318 was tattooed on her arm, Magda Hellinger was a devoted kindergarten teacher and youth leader in Michalovce, Slovakia — a young woman whose kindness and integrity inspired everyone around her. But when Slovakia embraced Nazi ideology, antisemitic laws stripped her community of dignity, property, and finally freedom. In 1942, Magda was among the very first Jewish women deported to Auschwitz, betrayed by a neighbor and torn from her family.
This first episode follows Magda’s path from an ordinary life filled with compassion and purpose to the inhuman world of cattle cars and roll calls — the moment when a teacher of children became a prisoner in the largest killing center of the Third Reich.
Up Next in Season 1
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A Leader Who Saved Lives in Auschwitz...
Inside Auschwitz-Birkenau, surrounded by death and terror, Magda Hellinger became a prisoner-leader responsible for 30,000 women. Using courage, empathy, and extraordinary presence of mind, she risked her life to shield others from selections, starvation, and the gas chambers — even saving hundre...
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Hidden in a Sack: Joseph Schleifstein...
On April 8, 1945, desperate prisoners at Buchenwald sent a secret SOS to the approaching U.S. Army, pleading for rescue before the SS could destroy them. Three days later, American troops liberated the camp and found over 21,000 survivors — among them a 4-year-old boy with tear-filled eyes and a ...
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Dita Kraus (Part 1): From Prague’s Ch...
September 1938. Hitler’s demands tear Czechoslovakia apart, and a young Jewish girl named Dita Kraus (née Polachová) watches her peaceful childhood in Prague vanish.
This first part follows her early years under Nazi occupation — from losing her home and her father’s work to the harsh realities o...
