What it feels like when they turn against you –
Remembering those who stood up

Excerpts from the Centropa interviews

Between 2000 and 2009 Centropa interviewed 1,200 elderly Jews still living in 15 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Baltics, and the Balkans.

The most dramatic times of their lives began with the rising tide of antisemitism in the 1930s, and in Bullying Stories, you’ll find excerpts from our interviews, when our respondents recalled that very first time when they were bullied, taunted and made fun of by classmates or even strangers on the street. They never forgot those incidents. More than 70 years later, they relive them with us—and you.

For Standing Up Stories, we’ve chosen excerpts from the Centropa interviews where our respondents told us—often in some detail—about the people who risked their own lives to save theirs, and made it possible for them to survive the Second World War.

FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: please read this short essay about teaching Bullying and the Holocaust. Can they, in fact, be taught together?

BULLYING STORIES

Bullying Stories

“It’s something that never leaves you. It’s something you never forget, no matter how long you live.”

STANDING UP STORIES

Standing up Stories

“The priest gave me a Christian name for my false papers. I’ve kept it ever since because he didn’t just give me a name, he gave me a life.”