Asaf Auerbach at school

This is one of those typical school photos. I could have been in about Grade 4. I took going to school as more or less a matter of course. That I couldn't wait until 1st September would finally arrive, that I for sure can't say. Going to school was normal, so I went. My attitude wasn't one of enthusiasm, but neither was it one of repulsion. I took it pragmatically, that this it the way it's got to be, that it's a fact. What did I like? I don't know, it's been so long...Whether history interested me? Back then they called it something different, homeland studies. I liked math. Writing undoubtedly less so, let alone drawing. I don't remember much from school. Not long ago I found some class photos, the lady in them seems completely foreign to me, even the children, I can remember perhaps one, two boys that I was friends with at the time, but the other faces don't mean anything to me any more. The way one was yanked out from it, into a completely different environment... I've also always had quite a half-assed memory, I've always had problems with it, that cramming in high school, that wasn't anything for me. This is also one of the reasons that I never had very good grades. If it wasn't a D, it was always a C. I don't want to brag, but it wasn't due to some insufficient amount of intelligence, my memory simply somehow has a low capacity. It's really that we'd memorize something, and a while later I no longer knew anything about it. So when I was tested in something three months old, I stammered and stuttered. And my marks ended up accordingly. My mother paid attention to me when I was studying. So that I'd study. She checked my homework, that's normal, she also had me recite poems. That was a problem, to learn a poem with my memory...But otherwise in elementary school it wasn't all that necessary for her to keep an eye on me.

Centropa Collection acquired by USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. 

USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". Please contact collection [at] centropa.org.