[ Clicking ] [ Phone chimes ] [ Clicking ] [ Phone chimes ] [ Clicking ] [ Phone chimes ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Hi, my name is Tova Friedman and I'm a Holocaust survivor.

And I appreciate all of you who are listening and asking questions.

I'll try to answer as many as I can.

♪♪ [ Clock ticking ] -So we're going to start filming.

I have a couple ideas for some TikToks we can do today.

-Yeah, yeah.

Tell me about the questions.

-Um... I gotta straighten that out.

Hold on.

Okay.

So one of them I think is going to be, uh, why are you doing this on TikTok?

Why do you speak on TikTok?

-Well, because it's extremely important for me.

First of all, to remember those who have been killed and aren't here to speak for themselves.

And I also tell them of the danger of prejudice and meanness.

The world right now is in a terrible place.

I'm speaking to the young people because they still have a chance to change something.

That's why I'm doing it.

You know?

♪♪ -Is that good?

-Oh, yeah.

That's perfect.

-This is so impressive.

-So right in here.

-Can you see me?

♪♪ -Pardon my reach for a second.

I'm just going to slate.

Good on A and B. Marker.

♪♪ -We're good?

Alright.

Tova.

Tova, I think we're ready to start.

♪♪ [ Train whistle blows ] [ Train clacking ] -I was born in a place called Gdynia.

Which is part of Danzig in Poland.

It was half German, half Polish.

And I was born in the Polish side of it... in 1938, which is exactly one year before the war broke out.

♪♪ -[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Explosions ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I don't remember anything before the war.

♪♪ My memory started at the age of two, and that's only sporadically.

I remember only being in the ghetto.

I don't remember anything before.

♪♪ I remember playing under the table because there was no space for me to be anywhere else.

♪♪ The ghetto was very large and very dirty, and very crowded.

♪♪ They moved us to a very poor section of the town.

We couldn't find my mother's family and there was no communication.

♪♪ My mother came from a very Orthodox Jewish family, from a dynasty.

They were Hasidim.

And she talked about the wonderful life they had.

My mother was studied, and my father loved music, and singing, and dancing, very large families.

They had wonderful Sabbath dinners.

And I remember my mother kept saying to me, "After the war is over, you will see what a real Jewish family is like, holidays and birthdays, and I couldn't wait.

♪♪ My grandma, my mother's mother, came with us.

And then one day, Germans came and they got her by the house.

♪♪ That's when I really heard the machine guns.

[ Machine gun firing ] And my mother was holding me on her lap.

So we were just left, the three of us.

♪♪ In 1944, they sent us all to Auschwitz.

♪♪ My mother was 32, and I was five and a half.

♪♪ My mother and father were separated.

My father was taken away with men and I was with women, with my mom.

♪♪ [ Bell dings ] ♪♪ It was very hot.

We were sweating, because there were so many women altogether.

People were throwing up.

Everybody was going to the bathroom where they stood.

There was so much noise, screaming and crying and so forth.

And my mother was holding me around the whole time... until we arrived.

♪♪ There were all these soldiers.

She said, "Don't look at them.

Look down at their belts."

[ Speaking in global language ] [ Dogs barking ] Many of them had dogs.

I was tall enough to look straight into their eyes as they looked at me.

♪♪ And I remember saying to my mom, "I'm going to be killed by them."

And she said, "No.

They're trained only to kill if you run, and you're not going to run."

[ Speaks in global language ] ♪♪ And then they made us undress.

I said, "Why?"

She said, "Because they want to check that we're healthy.

If we're not..." She pointed to the crematorium.

♪♪ She never hid anything from me.

♪♪ And I looked up... ♪♪ You could see the dark smoke, and then pieces like were falling like black soot or something was falling all around.

Now I -- I -- [ Sighs ] I can't even talk about that, alright?

Do you mind?

♪♪ You know, entering the cattle car, you were still sort of human.

I was with my mother, and I had my own clothes.

I looked like skinny, hungry, but like a person.

That was a -- a point where you separated.

You stopped being a human being.

♪♪ They took away my clothing, cut my hair.

♪♪ My braids were lying down and I was standing naked in all that hair.

♪♪ You entered a person, and you walked out on the other side, you were no longer yourself.

♪♪ The living quarters was just a barrack with very little light.

You woke up in the morning, they would take you to a communal wash place, very quick.

Then you went to the toilet.

My mother taught me that you have to learn to control your bowel movement, because you can't go to the bathroom anytime you want to.

I now realize it's a luxury to go to the bathroom anytime, you know?

But I had to go with adults twice a day.

I said, "Mom, I won't be able to hold it."

And she said, "Yes, you will or you'll be shot."

♪♪ My mother taught me, children were targets.

♪♪ She anticipated things.

♪♪ She said to me, "Someday you'll be alone.

So you have to learn how to save yourself."

And she was right.

We were together for about a month, after which they took me away.

♪♪ When I first arrived to the children's section, there were, like, at least 50 other children there.

I had no name.

My name was 27,633.

♪♪ All the kids were tattooed.

When my turn came, there was this young woman, she had, like, a sheet because each one had to have a certain number.

She put a needle into ink and I remember looking at it.

It hurt, but I was more interested in looking at it than the pain.

♪♪ When she finished, she said to me, "Do you know what this is, this number?"

I said, "No," because I couldn't read or write.

So she said, "If you don't remember that number, you're going to die."

So I said, "Say it again."

-[ Woman speaking in global language ] -So I memorized the way it sounded.

♪♪ And after that, she disappeared.

She was Jewish, and she was killed after her job was done.

♪♪ In Auschwitz, the shooting of individuals was at a personal discretion of the German soldier.

There were no rules.

♪♪ I got so good that when I heard steps, I knew who was coming.

There wore these high shoes.

They were very -- walking like that, and I knew who was an okay guy and which one you had to be very careful with.

♪♪ They counted you.

You got lined up and they called out the numbers.

If nobody answered, they would punish everybody.

And I had a bedmate.

I was worried that she would die because I could see her starvation signs.

♪♪ There is no way to describe what happens to your mind and your body when you are deprived of food for a very long time, with no hope of getting any.

I mean, it just -- it takes over.

♪♪ Kids would say she's got three weeks or two weeks and she died.

She was 12.

To me, she was so old.

So I remember pulling her by her feet to this spot in the front where all the kids had died that night.

♪♪ I worried that they're going to call her number, but I knew her number because I heard it so much.

So I averted the punishment by knowing her number and pointing to her.

I was so proud of that.

♪♪ By then, a dead body was as normal as somebody passing a flower in a garden.

♪♪ They were around every place you'd go.

♪♪ You know, when you grow up like that and you know nothing else... ♪♪ ...even horror becomes normal, right?

♪♪ When I came to Auschwitz, I was five and a half.

But I had my sixth birthday, September 7th in Auschwitz.

You know, I got a gift from my mother on my sixth birthday.

It was a piece of bread.

♪♪ You know, she was very clever.

And even when they separated us, she still followed where I was.

She knew where I was.

I didn't know who she was.

♪♪ I was about five or six months on my own.

♪♪ By then, I didn't even miss her.

I forgot.

Nobody had mothers.

Nobody had fathers.

♪♪ In a sense, Auschwitz were my parents.

♪♪ [ Explosion ] [ Rumbling ] [ Gunfire ] -Berlin, the city where Hitler planned a total war, has become a vast pile of lifeless rubble by Russian bombardment, terrified Nazi soldiers and civilians fleeing from the Russian army.

-All of a sudden it was chaos.

[ Gunshots ] The dogs were barking.

-There was shooting.

-[ Gunshots ] They were lining up everybody to leave Auschwitz.

They were going to walk them to Germany.

You see, the Germans were walking around with guns, shooting everybody who didn't get into the line fast enough.

♪♪ I was in my barrack and all of a sudden my mother appeared.

Then when I saw her, it took me a while to recognize her because she was just so emaciated.

Her feet were swollen.

She looked terrible.

♪♪ My mother said that she will not survive on that trip.

It was very far, she said to me, and there was snow outside.

She said, "We'll have to hide."

♪♪ She went from corpse to corpse until she found the corpse she liked.

It was a woman, warm.

She could manipulate her body because the woman must have died minutes earlier.

She said, "Get in."

She put my head under her armpit and she said, "Try not to breathe much.

Don't uncover yourself no matter what happens."

And she disappeared.

♪♪ So I started breathing very shallow.

♪♪ And then I heard the screaming and yelling, aus, aus!

Out, out!

So they started walking all around and somebody stopped by my bed.

And I remember I stopped breathing.

I thought at any moment, I would be dead.

♪♪ By luck, the person moved on.

[ Breathing heavily ] By the time I couldn't hold anymore, she uncovered me.

And these were her words, "They're gone."

In Yiddish, [ Speaks in Yiddish ] Just like that.

♪♪ And I looked around.

So many people had also hidden with corpses.

♪♪ We walked out with everybody towards the gates that were still electrified.

♪♪ And there was January 25th.

They left two days before the Russians came.

♪♪ They came in these gigantic, gigantic trucks.

♪♪ All I could see is a different uniform, screaming and yelling in Russian, because they had trouble with the electricity.

♪♪ And then they opened the gates.

♪♪ And people were crying.

People were crawling and kissing their feet.

♪♪ They saw the children.

♪♪ They were kissing all of us.

♪♪ ♪♪ One Russian soldier picked me up and threw me in the air.

And I remember looking at my mother and she smiled, so I knew it was safe.

That was the day of liberation.

♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] -[ Singing in global language ] -The Russian army set up the hospital.

♪♪ And within no time, they set up a kitchen.

And my mother taught me how not to eat much because my stomach wasn't used to food.

She showed me around how other people were overeating and dying.

She stabilized me, but she was too weak to walk.

♪♪ Hope kept all of us going.

♪♪ My mother's promise to me, you'll go home and you'll see how many wonderful cousins you'll have.

And aunts and uncles.

You have the most wonderful family that you don't even know about.

But we have to get strong.

♪♪ So we stayed in Auschwitz for a few months.

♪♪ Before we left, she's showing me to all the different places where the clothing was kept.

♪♪ Where the shoes of children, where the teeth.

There was jewelry, eyeglasses and furs.

♪♪ And she said to me, "You see, I can take any of this.

Nobody's here to stop me, but I'm not going to.

I'm not going to benefit from somebody who was murdered."

♪♪ She was very careful to teach me to respect the dead, the murdered people.

♪♪ When we walked out, she took my hand.

And I remember she said, "Remember what you saw.

Remember this.

Remember all of this."

[ Speaks in global language ] ♪♪ When I walked out of Auschwitz with my mother, I was six and a half.

♪♪ -An historic moment arrives.

The end has come.

♪♪ This is a solemn but glorious hour.

♪♪ The forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations.

♪♪ [ Explosion ] -Now the war against Germany is won.

♪♪ -It was a very difficult time going back.

The city was bombed.

There is no place to eat, no place to live, no place to sleep.

My father wasn't around.

We didn't know where he was.

We were just the two of us walking in like, on the street.

And then within about a year, my father came back.

It was very interesting to me.

Human nature is that people came back to the place where they saw their family last, without ever saying to each other, I'll meet you here one day.

♪♪ Once you're no longer in danger, then you think about life and you think, "Where is my family?"

I remember my mother said, "Where is -- Where's my brother and sister?

She had 10 of them.

The Jewish community and the Red Cross put, like, an information board of living people.

And then my mother checked to see if any of her family was alive, and they were all dead.

♪♪ And that's when the agony comes.

♪♪ I think my mother suffered probably more after the war when she realized that she was a sole survivor.

♪♪ And that's when she got very, very, very depressed.

♪♪ My father found out that his two sisters were there, three sisters, but one was killed after the war by one of the anti-Semitic Polish gangs.

And I refused to go to school because they called you dirty Jew.

Europe was still terribly anti-Semitic, too many refugees, too many homeless.

Who needs those people?

You know, refugees are not loved anywhere.

♪♪ -Ignoring the Yalta agreements, Moscow begins to set up puppet governments in every area into which its army has gone.

-And then, the communism takes over.

So we had to decide if we've got to leave.

Again, we've got to leave.

We had enough of discrimination.

We wanted to reach Americans.

We wanted to go where you could at least start healing somewhere.

We were accepted more.

♪♪ -Past the Statue of Liberty and into New York Harbor sails an Army troop ship with over 860 refugees from Europe, victims of Nazi persecution.

In the notorious Auschwitz camp, these girls' arms were indelibly tattooed with prison numbers, but in America, life will begin again.

♪♪ -When I first came to the States, I was ignored.

Nobody was interested.

And in fact, my teachers told me to cover up my arm, the long sleeve.

She said, "Forget about it."

That was in seventh grade.

"Forget about it.

You're here.

Look more like an American.

Cut your braids.

Change your clothes.

Don't look like a refugee.

And don't talk about the atrocities.

We don't have to know about that.

♪♪ And that's why for many, many years that I didn't talk about it.

♪♪ In the beginning, we didn't know any English.

We spoke Yiddish.

My mother said, "You know, in this country you've got to forget about Judaism, but you can't do that."

And she found a school of all places in Manhattan.

It was a Hebrew school.

So I go into class and sit down, and then the bell rings.

And I didn't know what the bell was ringing for.

Everybody disappears, but then a little boy comes back.

His name is Maier.

He says, "Oh, you have no food.

Come."

He takes my hand, and he takes me downstairs.

He bought me a cheese sandwich.

When I went home, I told my mother, "I just met my husband."

Just like that.

♪♪ She only said to me one thing.

You shouldn't marry the first person you're in love with.

My mother was very sick still with depression.

She hardly left the house.

My mother really did not want to learn English.

I made all the phone calls for her.

I spoke to the neighbors.

I went to the library and I brought her books, Polish books.

And she cried all the time.

She was telling me and telling me and telling me about the family that's no longer here.

♪♪ I did not share my story with her, because she always said to me, "Oh, I'm so glad you were young.

You don't remember some of the horrors."

And to protect her, I said, "You're right."

I think she felt guilty for being alive.

I loved her, and I understood it.

I was her caretaker.

♪♪ I was at Brooklyn College, And they were running a trip for students very cheap to go to Israel.

She begged me not to go.

She said, "You know, I just -- I just don't want you to leave."

I said, "Mom, it's only a few weeks."

♪♪ After the trip, I came back and my mother wasn't at the airport, and my father looked terrible.

I said, "Where is Mom?"

He said, "She's dead."

And that's how I found out.

♪♪ She died two days after I left.

She said she had a headache and she went to sleep, but she never woke up.

She was the age 45.

♪♪ When she passed, I left home.

I didn't have the obligation of looking at my mother, who was so sad, and my father with his issues.

It's interesting being alone at 18.

It allowed me a certain type of freedom.

♪♪ By then, Maier was in Boston studying, and then he came back.

He said, "You know what?

Let's get married."

♪♪ Maier and I were married June 11, 1960 in Brooklyn in a place called Melrose Chateau.

[ Laughs ] On Pitkin Avenue.

♪♪ I felt at home.

You know, I've been through so many places, and felt such an alienation on this earth.

And I met him.

He had a big family.

Where I come from, I never heard of people having grandparents, and he spoke a beautiful Yiddish.

And he was very, very smart.

♪♪ And I said, he -- he's all the positive that I don't have.

♪♪ And we were married 60 years.

♪♪ After I had my own children, I think I had got more respect of my mother.

How do you take care of a five-year-old, Six-year-old, protecting her from death 24/7 for years?

I look at her as very strong.

♪♪ The Holocaust was a symbol of completely unchecked hatred.

♪♪ Family and relationship inside these terrible conditions was one factor that kept you going.

♪♪ I'm trying to undo what Hitler tried to do.

♪♪ [ Singing in global language ] ♪♪ And I am not just a survivor, but I'm thriving in a way.

♪♪ It's like a tree, when a tree has very good roots, the wind cannot just destroy it.

♪♪ I'm grateful that I have these years.

♪♪ A million and a half children were murdered for no reason while the world was quiet.

♪♪ And I always felt that since I survived, I should do something with that time to the very end, really.

♪♪ I've been a therapist for at least 25, 30 years.

and I realized, what we have to do is talk with each other.

♪♪ That's the only thing to do.

-Thank you to everyone who helped us reach this milestone of 250,000 followers.

So what are we doing here?

Where are we?

-Hi.

We're in a PBS studio.

-A Holocaust survivor is turning into a TikTok star now.

♪♪ -Now, would you please welcome Mrs.

Tova Friedman?

[ Applause ] -My mother taught me to tell the truth.

The way you protect anyone is to let them know what's going on.

So when you're not around to guide them, they'll be able to guide themselves.

The pain of what human beings can do to other human beings, it's mind-boggling.

Holocaust is a warning.

It could absolutely happen again if we don't take all this evil seriously.

All of us must reawaken our collective conscience to transform society into a humane and just world.

♪♪ -And if there was one message for your TikTok followers to take away from our account, what would it be?

-Think about what you have done and try to leave this world a little bit better than you found it.

That's all there is.

You don't have to be a genius.

You don't have to be anything.

Just leave it a little bit better.

♪♪ -Do you fear your own death?

-Fear?

I don't think about it.

Having lived in all the years with fear, I lost it.

I have a lot to do here.

There's no time.

I'll do it when I'm ready, you know?

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