Susan Jacobowitz

“Far From Childhood” tells the story of the fellow’s father, who survived the Holocaust as a child. Born in Czechoslovakia, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz during the Hungarian deportations of 1944, when he was 15. His mother and four younger siblings were killed upon arrival, while he survived a year of captivity and forced labor at multiple camps in Poland and Germany, and then the first death march. Liberated by American troops at 16, he spent two years in displaced persons camps before arriving in the United States alone one month before his eighteenth birthday. He never wanted to speak about the past. This is the story of his survival and an exploration of identity of children of survivors; it is also a powerful personal story that draws out themes of persecution, discrimination, suffering, and struggle for students in the humanities.