Anna Reese Mr.

Nueburger ENG 102-127 9 October 2012 Survivor Testimony Summary: Ester Fiszgop Ester Fiszgop was born in 1929 in Brest, Poland. She came from an upper middle class Jewish family with a mother and a father and a loving and talented younger brother. They had a good life, until she was 10 years old and the war broke out. Fiszgop lived with her family in a ghetto for a couple of years, the living conditions were terrible, but they were together. Fiszgop had gone to visit her grandparents in a different ghetto two weeks prior to the one her family was in being liquidated. She never saw or heard anything from them again. Fiszgop lived and survived the terrible conditions in the huts in the ghettos under the Germans rule with limited food and no sanitary conditions at all. They had nothing for entertainment whatsoever, and she says she never bathed once in the ghetto. She lived this way for some time before escaping with her grandmother and others by digging under the barbed wire fences. After escaping the ghetto however, they were forced to just wander the woods and sleep on the forest floors, and eat whatever they could to live. At one point, she and her grandmother and cousins were being hidden in a dugout hole underneath a pig sty, approximately 4x4 feet in diameter. For 6 months, the 6 of them sat cramped in the hole, living off handouts of scraps, and barely ever coming out. Wherever they

stayed however, they were always eventually kicked out, for they couldnt be discovered. Fiszgop was eventually separated from her grandmother, and spent months just wandering around hiding in fields and barns, just surviving. By this time, her braids were nothing but thick matted rats and she was being eaten alive by the lice. She had scabies, and sores all over her face and swollen knees from sitting in the hole so long, but she just kept living. One of the worst parts, Fiszgop says, was constantly hearing such terrible things spoken about Jews, and knowing how hated she was wherever she went. After they war, she was able to stay with her supportive aunt and uncle in the U.S. and go to school. She wasnt really able to speak with anyone about her experiences however, but rather listen to how hard the war was for them. She ended up graduating, then attending medical school and becoming a doctor who practiced for 30 years. Ester Fiszgops unbelievably sad story is so inspiring, because of the fact that what happened to her did not stop her from persevering and thriving regardless afterwards. Every ounce of energy, every hope, every dream was about survival no room to want something just to surviveits an innate instinct. When wandering the forests I fell of the frozen ground hit my face and I was bleeding terribly but I didnt feel a thing.