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15 | Friday, November 4, 2 0 1 6 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com `I hope you will remember me' - Holocaust survivor by David Lea Oakville Beaver Staff It' s been more than 70 years, but Helen Yermus clearly remembers the moment Nazis tore her five-year-old brother from her arms. How she survived, while her little brother, father and so many others did not, is something the 83 year old could not answer at a presentation at St. Simons Anglican Church Wednesday (Nov. 2). Yermus shared her experience before a group of 40 people as part of a Holocaust Education Week (Nov. 2-9) organized by the church and the Shaarei-Beth El Congregation. The Thornhill resident was born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1932. She said her early childhood was the norm. Her father, Yitzhak, installed home heating systems and made a good enough living to support Yermus, her mother, Tabe, and her little brother Abraham. Her early memories are happy revolving around going to school, playing with friends, reading books and going to museums with her father. Things changed, however, June 22, 1941 when Yermus was just eight. Nazis had taken over much of Western Europe and turned their attention east with a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. Lithuania fell to the Germans within a week. Yermus remembers the windows of her family home shaking as the war approached. "That very first day of the invasion, my parents and thousands and thousands ofJews decided to go," she said. "Nobody owned cars so everybody went by foot and tried to get farther into the Soviet Union." Yermus said this plan failed due to the speed of the German advance and her family headed back to Kovno after German tanks and truckloads of soldiers began passing them on the road. When they returned to Kovno, they found the Nazis had occupied the city and the family faced a slew of new anti-Semitic Helen Yermus was born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1932. She had to endure hardship, intim idation and fear in the Kovno Ghetto. Her brother was taken away and murdered. In 19 4 4 the ghetto was liquidated, and her father was deported to Dachau, where he died of starvation. Helen and her m other were taken to the S tutthof concentration cam p in Germany. Both survived. | Riziero Vertolli/M etroland laws, which banned Jews from attending certain stores or going to school. Even walking on a sidewalk was suddenly forbidden. Jews were also ordered to wear a yellow Star of David at all times. Worse was to come in August when all Jews within the city and surrounding area were ordered to leave their homes and move to the Kovno Ghetto, a section of the city cordoned off with barbed wire. They were only permitted to take what they could carry. The Ghetto soon became overcrowded with tens of thousands of people and disease and food shortages became rampant. For the next few months, Yermus' father and mother worked as slave labourers for the Germans. Yermus stayed at home and looked after her brother while they were away. She said her mother was permitted to leave the Ghetto for work and during these outings she would risk her life getting food, which she would smuggle back inside for her family. Things took another turn for the worse in October when the Germans ordered everyone in the Ghetto to gather in a large open square. The penalty for not attending was death and Yermus remembers people being brought to the square who were so sick they could not even stand. Over the course of the day Yermus said the Germans, who were assisted by Lithuanian and Ukrainian volunteers, selected around 11,000 people, loaded them onto trucks and took them away. Yermus' great aunt and her cousin were among those selected. She didn't know it at the time, but Yermus later found out these people were taken to an old fort, where she and friends used to play, and were shot. "We were very lucky" said Yermus. "My friends, neighbours, my mother's friends, my father's friends.. .nobody who we knew returned from this." Yermus and her family continued to survive in the Ghetto for the next couple years. By 1944 it was clear the Russians were beating the Germans and that the war would be over soon. However, instead of slowing down the Holocaust intensified. On March 27, 1944 Yermus said a large group of German see Her on p.16 EXPERIENCE THE HALTON VACUUM DIFFERENCE BEAM CLEAN YOUR HOME. While quantities last. Promotion ends November26,2016. G re at V a lu e b e a m Performer · 5 0 0 Air Watts of power · Powerful en ough for a v e r a g e h o m es · Basic Electric Power head and Hose kit C om plete s e t of attac h m en ts FALL SPECIAL EDITION Central Vacuum System! 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