Chosen for Reasons Unknown: A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey.

The personal story of a young Jewish girl trapped in Nazi Germany. Separated from her younger sister, Edith and her mother witness the farce of the Red Cross visit to Terezin, escape the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and survive the labor camps of the Russian Front. This is a story of horror and miracles, and of triumph against all odds.

Holocaust survivor HENRY MELNICK was born in Lodz, Poland. Shortly after the Nazis occupied Poland in 1939, he was sent to do slave labour in the Nowy Sacz and Tarnow Ghettos and at Szebnie camp. He was then transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buna, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen death camps. When his parents were murdered in the Belzec death camp, he became the sole survivor of his entire family.

After liberation, Henry volunteered for the Israeli Army and fought for Israel’s independence. He came to Canada in 1965 with his wife Hela and their two children.

His story is one of strength and courage.

His survival is nothing short of a miracle.

Remarkable first-person story of survival in Nazi occupied Poland. Narrowly escaping the Nazi sweep in Southern Poland, Jafa Wallach and her husband, Natan, a physician, were able to send their four-year-old daughter to safety (they prayed) while they themselves—along with two of Jafa's brothers—managed to dig a shallow hole in the ground beneath

the cellar of an heroic Polish mechanic's shop.

Her father was a wealthy Polish farmer. She has nearly completed all the steps to becoming a Catholic Nun when the Nazi’s came to Poland. Everyone in the convent was taken to Auschwitz.

This is her life story including what happened in the camps and afterwards on the long journey back home thru the Black Forest.

This is fifteen-year-old Hanna Berkenski's journey from her family's tiny apartment in the Warsaw Ghetto, through the awful night she spends in a cattle-car with her mother and sister, to her three years as a violinist in the welcoming orchestra at Auschwitz.

The real horror begins as the train arrives at Auschwitz. Hanna's first impression is of a warm welcome because of the flowers and sunshine and music. She has been told she will be spending the next few weeks in a "work" camp until her family is reunited and relocated. Even the snowflakes make her feel a sense of relief...until she realizes they are not snowflakes at all, but ash.

Hanna is taken to Building 11, where the "welcoming" orchestra women are housed. Her red hair is shaved, her arm tattooed, and she is given a blue skirt, a white blouse, and a violin. She is also given a gray dress, which she wears when she is not performing. And then she spends three years in Hell.