Peter was born in Amsterdam in 1935. In 1942, when Peter was 7, the Nazis seized Peter's entire family except for Peter and his mother. Peter's mother contacted the Dutch Underground for help. The Underground found Klaas and Roefina Post who agreed to shelter Peter and his mother on their small farm in northern Holland, putting their own lives at risk. For two years they lived with the Posts until it became too dangerous and they found another hiding place with two women in The Hague. Peter, his mother, and his aunt were the only survivors of his family. Klaas and Roefina Post have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
After the war, Peter and his mother immigrated to the United States in 1949, arriving in New York. Peter was 13 and didn't speak any English, but was placed in the 8th grade. Peter had a long career as a radiology technologist. He and his wife Bea raised two children from Pete's previous marriage and had a third son in California. The Metzelaars moved to Seattle in 1997. Peter continues to be an active member of the Holocaust Center for Humanity's Speakers Bureau.
"My mother and I slept together in a bed that was inside a closet. I remember lying in that bed trembling in fear at times." - Peter Metzelaar
Survivor Encyclopedia: Washington State - Peter Metzelaar. Read more about Peter, view photos and watch video clips.
In 1959, at a time of political unrest in Rwanda, Paul Karemera’s grandparents on both sides of his family left their homes in Rwanda and became refugees in neighboring Uganda.
They belonged to the Tutsi tribe – the group targeted in the Rwandan genocide. Throughout the 1960s through the early 1990s, tribal tensions flared back in Rwanda. Paul, his siblings, and parents remained refugees in Uganda.
As a young student, Paul was harassed and bullied as an outsider in Uganda, despite having been born there. When civil war and then genocide gripped Rwanda in 1990-1993, Paul’s father was active in transporting soldiers over the border of Uganda into Rwanda. These soldiers were part of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that fought the genocide’s perpetrators and eventually took over the nation’s government.
At 16, shortly after the genocide against the Tutsi, Paul went back to Rwanda as a “returnee” to the country. Many friends and family had not survived. Paul’s next years involved attending an English language high school and settling into life in Rwanda, which was not easy for him. Nationwide, the genocide’s wounds were still raw. Gacaca courts for restorative
justice were instituted, but many Hutu perpetrators were never apprehended.
Paul has been an English interpreter and travel guide since 2000. In 2009 Paul and his wife, Shelly, founded a travel company, Intore Expeditions, in Rwanda. He now splits time between Seattle and Rwanda. Paul wants students and other audiences in the United States to learn more about Rwandan history and the genocide.
The daughter of two survivors, Naomi tells the stories of her parents from primary source documents and historical records.
Naomi is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. She tells the stories of both of her parents with details from primary source documents and historical records. Their survival is truly remarkable.
In 1938, Naomi’s father Eric Weiss, attended a rally in Vienna after the Germans occupied Austria. He sensed that he had to get his parents out of Vienna and escape himself. He arranged for his parents to take an Eastern escape route through Russia to Yokahama, Japan and finall y to Portland, Oregon. Eric’s acceptance to the Hebrew University allowed him to leave Germany for what was then Palestine under British rule (now Israel). While in Palestine, Eric was recruited to work for as a spy for the British and traveled to Egypt, Algiers, Tunisia, Libya, and Italy in that capacity. He served from 1939-1944.
Naomi’s mother, Gerda Feldmann, was born in 1923 in a small town in what is now the Czech Republic. The Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 when Gerda was 16. She was sent to a series of slave labor camps in Poland and was finally liberated by British forces at Bergen-Belsen. Gerda, ill with typhus, was sent by the Red Cross to Sweden to recuperate, and eventually she too arrived in Palestine.
Gerda and Eric met in Israel, but Eric left in 1950, traveling to Portland to reunite with his parents. Gerda followed and they were married in 1950. Naomi grew up in Portland hearing parts of these stories. Her mother died when Naomi was 17, but her father lived to be 100.
Naomi calls her story, “Resilience: My Family Story .” She gathered all the documents and pictures she could find, consulted with relatives, and researched many details of this story. Her hope, as one of the Holocaust Center’s Legacy Speakers, is to reach young people and help them to understand the way our lives can be threatened, and what each one of us can do to make a difference.
Michal’s father, Arieh Engelberg, was born in Tanobrezg, Poland in 1934. “I am the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. There are many and different Holocaust survivor stories. My family was expelled from their home town of Tarnobrezg, Poland where they had resided for generations. My family was expelled for one reason only – because they were Jewish. They were not alone. Thousands of Jews were expelled from Polish towns – where did they go? How did they know to go there? How did they survive? This is the story of my family.”
In 1939, when Arieh was only 5 years old, Germany invaded Poland. As part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, Polish Jews living close to the dividing line with the Soviet Union in Poland were forced to leave their homes.
Arieh’s family decided that it would be safest to move east into the Soviet Union with the hope that they would be able to return to their home soon. Instead, they became part of a migrant group sent to various labor camps as far away as Siberia. When the war ended, they were loaded onto railcars and sent back to Poland. They applied for visas to Israel, which were granted in 1950.
The Engelberg family traveled over 12,000 miles between 1939 and 1950 escaping the Holocaust.
In Israel, Arieh served in the Israeli Defense Forces and became a mechanical engineer. He married Michal’s mother, Sarah, in 1964. In 1975 Arieh moved to Vancouver, BC, accepting a job as an off-shore and sub-sea engineer. In 1976 his wife and family joined him.
“My father’s family was propelled into a life they didn’t wish for and had no control over. With the help of the Holocaust Center for Humanity, my father’s oral and written testimonies and his school certificates, I was able to trace my family throughout the war. My father’s school certificates became important historical documents to unravel my family’s route as dictated by the communist regime.”
With primary sources, maps, and her father’s video testimony, Michal brings life to her family history.