History of a Holocaust Survivor: The Life of Steve Berger

History of a Holocaust Survivor: The Life of Steve Berger

History of a Holocaust Survivor: The Life of Steve Berger

Authored by Ashley Walker

Steve Berger, Holocaust Survivor, on the division between races in the United States today.

Steve Berger is a Holocaust survivor that was born and raised in Debrecen, Hungary. In the year 1941, Jews comprised 7.3 percent of the population (Shoah Resource Center n.d.). Growing up as a Jew in Hungary, Berger has always been aware of Antisemitism. The Jewish population was separated from the rest of the population through the numerus clausus. In fact, as Berger points out, Hungary was the first country after WWI to institute the numerus clauses in universities (Berger 2017). The numerus clauses were passed, “limiting the number of Jews in institutions of higher education” (Kenez 2001).  Additionally, Jewish men were removed from the Hungarian army, instead pushed into the labor services. This further separated the Jewish people from the remainder of the population.

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Watching My Mother: Memories That Never Wash Away

Authored by Abena Amoh

Jewish people scrubbing the sidewalk in Austria (1938).

“I watched as my mother was forced to scrub the sidewalks with other Jews shortly after the Anshluss.”
Vienna, Austria (March 1938)

On March 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler officially announced an Anschluss between Austria and Germany (History, n.d.). The German term Anschluss means union (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d.). Hitler claimed that his desire was to unify all European countries that spoke German. Interestingly, the idea of this type of unification was initially proposed by Austrian socialists in 1919 (Low 1974, 1).

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