Herman Grossman Project - HGP

27/01/2022

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, I remember the Grossmans who lived in Hungary who were killed because of baseless hatred. I remember my grandfather’s story of moral triumph. Despite the darkness of losing everything at Auschwitz and becoming an orphan — despite the brutality he witnessed from the N***s — Herman Grossman remained a kind, selfless, generous, compassionate, loving, and always-smiling human being.

Our circumstances are what they are — but it’s our responses that defines us! If Herman can overcome what he did to become the incredible person he became — we all can!

Learning about his story through my continuous research at Arolsen Archives and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has changed my life for the better.

Thank you dear grandpa for your legacy! May your memory never be forgotten.

15/09/2021

Today, is Herman Grossman’s yahrzeit. Herman Z”L overcame so much during his lifetime as a survivor of the Holocaust. Despite the brutality he faced, he approached his fellow man with kindness, generosity, good humor and compassion.

It is possible to rise above adversity and to thrive. If Herman can muster the strength to start over and lead his life with kindness, then we all can.

As King Solomon once said, a righteous man falls down seven times and gets up! ✨

16/05/2021

Chag Sameach! Pictured here: U.S. servicemen who liberated my grandfather from Buchenwald concentration camp gather with Jewish survivors to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot.

03/05/2021

New Law Requires Wisconsin Schools To Teach The Holocaust, Other Genocides

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/04/28/new-law-requires-wisconsin-schools-to-teach-holocaust-genocides/

Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill on Wednesday requiring Wisconsin middle and high school social studies classes to teach the Holocaust and other genocides.

19/03/2021

“Given your nation’s history....” NYC councilmembers seek a reckoning following the detention and unlawful treatment of Hasidic Jews for over 10 hours within Germany.

08/03/2021

God does not always make life easy for humankind, but he is always guiding each human being within a grand plan of good which we may or may not see. The goal is not to abandon him, even when we feel abandoned. To love him even when we feel forgotten. To fight to sanctify his name even though the world tries to oppress people and the truth in horrible ways. To live with self-respect, and to treat others with dignity. We should always try our best to invite God’s presence into our lives, even when we feel He is not there. Because indeed, he is always there. Indeed, he is always loving all his creatures. Indeed, he is with you today, right now, exactly where you are; tomorrow, yesterday, and forever.

Buchenwald survivors arrive in Haifa (1945).

27/01/2021

Herman Grossman’s mother, Helena, was killed in an Auschwitz gas chamber. The entire camp remains an unmarked mass grave for over a million souls who perished there, including Herman’s parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends.

This video addresses three issues that Holocaust survivors faced:

1) A cruel day of liberation that was filled with joy of freedom, coupled with the agony of facing what was lost and what the uncertainty and grief that posed for the future.
2) survivor’s guilt
3) perpetual life-long loneliness

The narrator is the manifestation of those sentiments many Holocaust survivors endured, but the narration does not necessarily exactly describe what Herman Grossman said or felt.

The Auschwitz drone footage is from the BBC, video is by

18/01/2021

Herman Grossman is on the move. Around this time in January, Herman was sent, on what became known as a death march, from Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland towards the devil himself in Germany.

There were no facilities, and there was hardly any food or water on this journey. The prisoners satiated themselves with snow.

As this was a march against the incoming Russian front, the N***s took out their anger at losing the war on the inmates. Anyone who stopped marching was shot, anyone who walked too slow was shot.

It was through miracles that a handful of those who left survived.

On this journey they faced below freezing temperatures and death encircled them at every moment.

It was a miracle that Herman survived. God bless his memory.

Elie Wiesel, with whom Herman was acquainted, said of the experience:

“We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything—death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.

At last, the morning star appeared in the gray sky. A trail of indeterminate light showed on the horizon. We were exhausted. We were without strength, without illusions.”

Herman arrived at Buchenwald concentration camp on January 26, 1945.

15/01/2021

“We must see racism for what it is. It is the false and tragic notion that one particular group, one particular race, is responsible for all of the progress, for all the insight, and the total flow of history. And another group is totally depraved, innately impure, and innately inferior.

Racism is evil because it’s ultimate logic is genocide. Hi**er was a sick and tragic man who carried racism to its logical conclusion. And he ended up leading a nation to the point of killing 6 million Jews. And this is the tragedy of racism because it ultimate logic is genocide. If one says that I’m not good enough to live next door to them, to eat at a lunch counter, or to have a good, decent job, or to go to school with them, merely because of my race. He is saying consciously or unconsciously that I do not deserve to exist.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
‘The Other America’
at Stanford University, 1967.

25/12/2020

In 1942, Hedwig Strnad, a Jewish dressmaker, fell in the Warsaw Ghetto. Now, an exhibit has brought Hedwig’s designs to life at The National Czech Museum.

National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
📸 The Gazette

23/12/2020

Holocaust education matters.

14/12/2020

Truth and righteousness always win 🙌

Happy Hanukkah and happy holidays to all who are celebrating!