Dalton Anderson Survivor Testimony Brigitte Altman

Dalton Anderson
Mr. Neuburger
Eng. 102
12 October 2011
Holocaust Survivor Testimony
Brigitte Altman
Brigitte Altman was born on the 15th of August 1924 in the town of Memel on the Baltic Coast. Her father was a business man and worked in flour, lumber, and textile mills. Her family was not really a traditional Jewish family. They did however; celebrate all of the Jewish holidays such as Purim and Hanuka in their own ways. Brigitte came from a middle class family and attended a public elementary school and later attended a private, all-girl’s school. Her private school had about 6 Jews in a class of 30, just to give you an idea of the ratio (the rest were German or Russian girls). It was typical how the Antisemitism started for her; as Hitler rose to power, the morals he imposed on the people trickled down to the younger children and they begin to exhibit that behavior themselves. Brigitte’s first awareness of Nazis was when her parents began to speak of what was happening to their relatives at dinner. The Germans invaded some time later and caused much confusion and panic. Brigitte was transported with her family to a Ghetto located in the poorest part of town. There was no sanitation, or running water and very limited space. Brigitte was assigned a job, it wasn’t bad but still it did not pay much at all. She had to live on meager portions of food, but she was able to smuggle food into her house sometimes. Her father was prompted by the children’s accione` to form a plan to get Brigitte out of the Ghetto and to a safe place. He managed to contact a friend of his and plan an elaborate escape. A group of men helped by first bribing a guard to let them pass her out of the Ghetto and onto a boat to cross the river to get to the city. She arrived at her father’s friend’s (her name was Meta) apartment and was able to stay there for a few weeks. It sounded like a nice place to live, it was certainly better than the Ghetto. Brigitte had to leave Meta’s apartment for a family (Meta’s husband’s family) farm. She lived there as a farm maid for a few years with another Jewish girl who was about six years old. She lived there for a few years and was liberated by a Russian soldier during the summertime. (Brigitte forgot rather a lot about some of the dates). She left the farm and hitchhiked to Karnoff where she spent a few days at a friend’s house. Eventually, she traveled to Poland and Austria and ended up in Dallas, Texas to meet up with family.
Brigitte said that we should give testimony “To document by word and pictures that not only did the Holocaust, unfortunately, happen, but that the so-called pseudo-Holocaust revisions are just so blatantly wrong.”
In regards to the pseudo-Holocaust revisions, “I wish they were right. I wish it didn’t happen.”