Janos Strauss was picked up by the Nazis at age 15, but lied and said he was 17, which saved his life. He was liberated during a transport in 1945.

Joe Frank's family lived in Germany during Kristallnacht, and was able to escape to England in 1939. They came to the United States in 1940.

Judy Newman describes her early life in an orphanage in Poland, and went to Israel in the 1950s, where she met her husband.

Lucy Gliuck Jacobs describes her time in Auschwitz, where her parents perished. She was the only survivor of her family of seven children.

Meta Doran's family was deported from Germany to Poland in 1938. She was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 1944, where her mother perished.

Miriam Ziadman Borowsky's family moved from Palenstine to France in 1938, where her father surrendered to the Nazis and was sent to the Drancy internment camp. She recounts the rift in her family after she realized her father was not returning. Her essay includes photographs of her family and documents related to her father's military career.

Rachel Taylor describes her family's experience during the Holocaust in Poland in the Kutno and Gubin ghettos. She was able to escape with her sisters and brother with the help of a Polish priest and nun, and her parents survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. Taylor came to the United Staes in 1961.