Never Forget: Live from the Illinois Holocaust Museum
“I made a promise that if I survived, I would tell the world what happened.” — Fritzie Fritzshall
On this week’s episode of Chicago Stories, Mayor Emanuel had the deep honor to sit down with Holocaust survivor and president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center Fritzie Fritzshall to hear her incredible journey of survival and life dedicated to education and advocacy.
Mayor Emanuel was also joined by the museum’s CEO Susan Abrams to talk about the institution’s recent history and mission. This episode was recorded live at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and took place on the 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Fritzie was born in 1929 in Mukachevo, then in southeast Czechoslovakia — now present-day Ukraine — to what she has called “a normal Jewish family” where she grew up with her mother and two younger brothers, along with her extended family. At the time Fritzie’s father had moved to Chicago during the Depression for work.
Fritzie’s life quickly began to change with her first experience of anti-Semitism following the rise of Nazi Germany, which led to increasing Jewish discrimination, her move to a Jewish ghetto, and then finally being transported to Auschwitz.
“I was one of the lucky ones.” — Fritzie Fritzshall
Looking back on the horror of her experience, Fritize says there were still moments of humanity and grace that ended up saving her life.
“Even during those darkest, darkest days there were good people that tried to help other people,” Fritzie said.
One of those moments came when Fritzie first arrived in Auschwitz. This is what she told Mayor Emanuel:
“There were two Jewish men who were trying to take everybody off the train — the bodies, of which my grandfather was one of, in this boxcar, going to Auschwitz,” Fritzie said.
“They came onto the boxcar and walked amongst children like myself and kept whispering in Yiddish: ‘You’re 15 when you get off, remember you’re 15.’ I was 13 when I got on. And so when we got off I saw the separation. I saw my two younger brothers going with the children. Didn’t understand the situation. Didn’t know what was happening. But I knew enough not to go with the children. And so I went and lined up with the adult women where the separation started at that point. I stood in line with my mother and other women.”
The horror was still unimaginable.
“You need to remember what was going on there. There was the fear. The adrenaline. The unknown. The SS people. The guns. The dogs. The separation. And all this is going on. My mother and I are standing in line and they called age again. And I didn’t know, I didn’t know. I told her she was in the wrong line, she went into one line and I stood in another line. When I came to Auschwitz-Birkenau and I asked when I would see my mother, they showed me the smoke. I have lived with this all my life — would she have lived had she been in the same line I was in? I don’t know, but it’s been something I have carried with me all my life.”
“I considered them my mothers.” — Fritzie Fritzshall
Another moment of incredible humanity came when Fritzie was taken to a slave labor factory, which was a sub-factory of Auschwitz. She was among 600 women, and as the youngest, the one they believed had the greatest hope of survival.
This is what Fritzie told Mayor Emanuel:
“When I came there I came from Auschwitz-Birkenau. I came hungry and cold and beaten up and full of lice, and I thought we had it the worst, until I came into this factory where I saw what these women went through. They were skin and bones. They were so hungry. They were so beaten down. And they did slave labor even though they could hardly move at that point anymore. After the day was over everybody would say ‘Who is going to believe us? Who is going to believe that humanity can do these things to other human beings? Who is going to tell the story and who will live?’ And so they looked around and I was the kid. I was the youngest that came there. And the decision was that I was the chosen. I was going to carry the story. And if they could help it, they would help me survive.”
“People think that hunger is dieting. It’s not having lunch. It’s skipping breakfast. And ‘oh, I’m so hungry, I’m starved.’ Let me tell you, when you’re hungry, it is when the pit of your stomach is so bitter and hurts that you’ll sell your soul for a crumb of bread. And that’s what I did, literally. Every night 599 women lined up. I extended my hand and I had 599 crumbs— crumbs — that maybe would have saved their life. Maybe they would have lived another day if they ate that crumb, but they gave it to me. In turn I stood, every night, and repeated: ‘If I live, if I live, I will carry their story. I will tell their story of what happened. Not just here in this factory, but what happened in Auschwitz. What I saw, and what I lived through.”
“I often wonder if I sold my soul for those crumbs of bread. [The Illinois Holocaust Museum has] moved from Main Street [in Skokie, Ill.] to [its current location on] Woods [Drive]. It’s going to be 40 years. I’ve worked with the U.S. Holocaust Museum before and I’ve told my story over and over and over and over in the name of — in the memory of — those 599 women. But also, in the name of the 6 million. In the name of a million-and-a-half babies, and others, innocent people that have died during the time of the Holocaust.”
In the closing days of the war, Fritzie was forced to join “death marches” where she was eventually liberated by the Russian Army.
Following her liberation, Fritzie returned to Mukachevo, then moved to Chicago in 1946 to live with her father, where she was determined to bury her past and live the life of a normal American teenager and woman.
Then, in 1984 at the instigation of her son, Fritzie recorded her story as part of an oral history conducted by the Holocaust Museum. As Fritzie said, it was then that “the floodgates opened” and she decided to dedicate her life to speaking of her experience and educating the public about the Holocaust.
Today, Fritzie serves as the president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and continues to work and tell her story. Recently, Frtizie participated in the museum’s Take a Stand Center, which features the “Survivor Stories Experience.”
Created in response to the increasing age of Holocaust survivors, the museum recorded 13 survivors from around the world using interactive, 3-D holographic technology, making it the first museum in the world to do so in a permanent space.
Seven of the survivors recorded were residents of the Chicago-area, including Fritzie.
Despite the efforts of Fritzie and countless others, the work to educate the public about the Holocaust and other mass genocides never stops.
“I have a job to do. I made a promise. They helped me live. I must — I must — carry their story and I must tell their story, and this is what I’ve done all of these many years. And I often wonder when am I done, when have I repaid. I don’t know . . . [but] whenever I stand up, whenever I speak, it is in the name and in the memory of those skinny, sick women.”
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