Kuzmino Chronicles : Memoirs of Teenage Holocaust Survival

Leib and Gittel Moskowitz were both born and raised in Kuzmino, a small town in Transcarpathia, in what was then Czechoslovakia. As children they hardly knew each other. In May 1944 when they were both fifteen years old, they and their families were herded off to Auschwitz in cattle cars. From there, their paths temporarily diverged. Each was transported to a separate series of concentration and labor camps. Both miraculously survived their ordeals and after liberation spent many years waiting to come to the USA. Leib spent this time in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany while Gittel spent these same years in the United Kingdom. Their separate life trajectories re-converged when they both settled in New York where they became reacquainted, married and raised a family. This book chronicles Leib's and Gittel's turbulent Holocaust saga in their own words. Historical documentation is juxtaposed alongside their memoirs, as well as corroboratory documents obtained from the International Tracing Services (ITS) collection held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Yad Vashem, and numerous other sources. Photographs are also included to further corroborate their very clear and precise recollections. This book hopes to honor the many family members and countless of individual souls recollected by Leib and Gittel. Their memoirs not only testify to the ordeals suffered by these victims, but also shed light on the fate suffered by millions of martyred Jews, and of those fortunate enough to have survived.