I Have to Survive: Miriam Garvil’s Story

This is based on oral history recordings that Miriam Garvil made with me in 1993-1994. She is now 91 years old and eager to have it published in a book. It's the story of her life beginning with her childhood in Poland, surviving the holocaust in three concentration camps, and then living with her husband and son in New York and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Miriam Garvil was born in Lodz, Poland on May 23, 1921. In 1938, she and her family were forced to leave Lodz to escape the Nazis. At age 18, she jumped from a train that brought her mother and sister to their deaths. She managed to survive through three concentration camps until liberation by the British at Bergen Belsen in 1945. She married her husband, Julian, in Paris. They later moved to New York with their young son and then in 1977 the moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan to be close to their son who was working at General Motors. Miriam is still living in Ann Arbor.