My Endless War. . .and My Shattered Dreams: My Survival Of The Holocaust And The Recollection Of My Unforgettable Memories Of My

This is my autobiography, and the story of my survival of the Holocaust under the Nazi regime. I am describing my life, before, during and after the war and having to face life all alone, without any of my family members left aliv

Sonia Chelemska Kaplan was born in Wlodzimierz Volynski, Poland. Her father was a rabbi and her mother owned two variety stores. In September 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. The eastern part of Poland, where Sonia was from, came under the occupation of the Russians. In 1941, the Germans pushed the Russians out and occupied the eastern part of Poland. Very soon after, the Nazis made a ghetto and they started to raid and murder as many Jews as they could. The official murdering by the Nazis began in 1942 with the first pogrom. At this time, Sonia’s entire family was murdered at the hands of the Nazis. She, at the age of twelve, was left all alone. Shortly after the first pogrom, the Nazis made a second pogrom. At the end of 1943, was the third and last pogrom, Judenrein, meaning free of Jews. Sonia managed to hide in the ghetto during this final liquidation. She was able to get out of the ghetto and was hidden with two separate Polish families for three months. Sonia left the Polish family and hid in the nearby forest, where she also met up with Russian partisans. She remained in the forest for four months, until the end of the war. In 1944, after the liberation, with no family left, fifteen year old Sonia left Poland with the intention of going to Palestine. She traveled as far as Salzburg, Austria, when the border to enter Palestine was closed. Sonia remained in Salzburg, Austria, where she met her future husband, Kadish Kaplan, in a Displaced Persons Camp. At the end of 1948, Sonia immigrated to America with her husband and her first born child. She is the proud mother of three children, six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. A documentary has been made of Sonia’s life story, entitled ＂Broken Silence.＂