(Rena singing in Yiddish) (Erika softly chuckles) (Emil faintly chattering) - Surprise!

- Woo!

- Surprise!

- Surprise!

(guests laughing) (guests applauding) (man singing in Yiddish) - [Man] Mazel tov, mazel tov!

(laughs) (man singing in Yiddish) - [Man] Mazel tov, mazel tov!

(train chugging) (soft music) - [Narrator] Over one million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz.

This is the story of six women who survived.

(guns banging) (tanks rumbling) With Soviet troops approaching Auschwitz, prisoners were forcibly marched to concentration and labor camps in the west.

At these labor camps, the Jews were forced to do grueling work supporting the German war effort.

There were no thoughts of liberation as the Germans promised to leave no evidence of their crimes behind.

- [Newsreel Voiceover] As the British and Canadians swerve toward the Zuiderzee, the Americans cross the Elbe, and the Russians the Oder.

(explosion booms) Germany is crumbling.

(buildings rumbling) - [Narrator] As the Allied armies surrounded German forces, SS guards fled from concentration and labor camps killing tens of thousands of Jews in the final weeks of the war.

- [Erika] The day before liberation, we were digging our graves.

That was the order.

They kept repeating it, "You're not gonna get away.

"You'll be dead before they get here."

(missiles hissing) (eruptions booming) (explosions banging) - [Renee] We were in the middle of a forest; there were three factories in this forest.

(missile hissing) (explosion booming) They were bombing all night long.

(eruption rumbling) (glass shattering) But we were glad that they are bombing.

We didn't care, even if we die.

(explosion booming) (fire whooshes) (gentle music) - [Erika] We woke up very early the next morning and we didn't hear any wake-up calls, and no dogs barking.

It was totally quiet.

We took the shovels that we used for our graves to dig under the fence.

(solemn music) I was very skinny and very little, and I was the first one to get out of the camp.

There was nobody around me who would stop me.

I started to walk, alone.

It was a beautiful spring day.

The sun was getting up on the horizon and that's when I said, "I am going to hold up this sun "so never let it go down."

That was the first morning.

The rest of the day wasn't so great.

(somber music) - [Newsreel Voice Over] It was long ago, in the spring of 1945, but we'll never forget it.

We saw liberty.

It was a rush of excitement.

It was a feeling that couldn't be controlled because it hadn't been controlled for so long.

- [Lili] When we looked out of the door of the barracks, we saw a man wearing a completely different uniform than the Germans.

And then all of a sudden, more came, and they started to scream, "British, British, British!"

They told us that they are our liberators.

- [Narrator] In April of 1945, American, British, and Soviet troops liberated concentration camps across Europe, including Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and Sachsenhausen.

- [Rena] We were liberated by the Russian.

The day of liberation was May 8th, my birthday.

I was 19 years old.

They opened the gates and they said, "You're free."

- [Female Survivor] From the 5th of May, the American Army arrived here, welcomed by every capture.

They made, from us, people again.

They brought us food: rice, bread, potatoes, eggs, sugar.

- [American Soldier] God bless you.

I'm glad we're here.

- [Survivor 1] Thank you very much.

(boat horn wails) - [Survivor 2] Thank you.

- You're welcome - [Survivor 3] Thank you.

- Thank you very, very much.

- [British Officer] I am the officer commanding the Regiment of Royal Artillery guarding this camp.

Our most unpleasant task has been making the SS, of which there are about 50, bury the dead.

(somber music) - [Narrator] British soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen were greeted by 27,000 unburied corpses.

(Survivors speaking) (Suviviors shouting) (soldiers speaking) - [Lili] Those German SS carried the dead bodies on a big pile.

(Surviviors shouting) I said, "We cannot let them carry the bodies," and I started to scream.

(women survivors screaming) And I started to walk to carry the bodies and put them on a big pile.

(crowd of survivors shouting) (excited music) (crowd cheering) - [News Reporter] Throughout the world, throngs of people hail the end of the war in Europe.

It is five years and more since Hitler marched into Poland.

Years full of suffering and death and sacrifice.

Now, the war against Germany is won.

(crowd cheering) - [Linda] I was liberated in January of '45.

That's when I went to the Russians.

I was scared of the Russians because I didn't know what they were gonna do to us.

When they first came in, they raped a lot of girls that were left behind.

But I became a nurse in the Russian army.

(soft dramatic music) - [News Reporter] Allied soldiers had silenced German guns, but Allied doctors still fought against the death the Germans had left behind.

Typhus and dysentery were as common as a cold in the nose.

- [Lili] I was a skeleton and, physically completely broken.

The Red Cross doctors gave me a blood transfusion and the numbness dissolved.

(slow music) - [Narrator] Liberation did not come quickly enough for many.

Of the 55,000 prisoners liberated at Bergen-Belsen, more than 13,000 would die in the next 12 weeks as a result of their years of mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis.

- [Lili] I stayed in Bergen-Belsen 'til beginning September.

- [Eva] I had the most fantastic experience.

We were loaded on wagons in Germany after labor camp because the Russians were coming from one side and the Americans from the other.

We went to the nearest station.

From there, we marched into Theresienstadt.

To us, it was like coming home.

The elation, you cannot imagine.

- [Narrator] Well-intended liberators told the survivors, "You're free, go home."

- [Renee] That moment was one of the saddest, most difficult moments of my life.

(woeful music) I know that my mother did not make it.

My sister never came back.

I had no idea what happened to my father or my brother, so what am I gonna do?

Where am I gonna go?

- [Erika] Having the Germans gone, the Russians there, and not having food were pushing us into survival mode, and we went and looted the city.

When I broke into a house, I destroyed whatever I could.

I just had to express my anger.

I stole a white table cloth, an apron, because girls wore aprons, a little cup and I thought we could make Kiddush.

It has the initials of E.F., my grandfather's initials, so I thought I had a right to have this cup.

- [Renee] I walked into a restaurant and the restaurateurs asked me "Are you coming from a camp?"

and I said, "Yes."

And he says, "Go in the kitchen and they will feed you."

I said, "We have six people out there.

"We all are hungry," and they fed us.

- [Erika] We were Orthodox Jews.

So we broke into a butcher store and I took this half pig, and I carried it back to this house that we decided to occupy.

15 of us camped out in the hallway, and my mother said, "Okay, we're gonna cook it."

It smelled horrible and, of course, we hadn't eaten for a long time heavy food, and we all got sick.

(fire crackling) - [Lili] The military did not know how to feed us.

They want the best for us, so the condensed sweet milk, fat food, which we could not digest.

We were hungry and couldn't eat, so there were sicknesses because of the food.

(dramatic music) - [Erika] The civilians were leaving town already.

And believe it or not, I felt so sorry for them.

They were carrying their bundles like we did.

Their children, they were walking out of town.

I even told my mother, "I feel sorry for them," and my mother just looked at me, "How can you feel sorry for them?"

(women faintly chattering) - [Eva] The fact that the war was over and we kicked out the Germans and kicked out the SS from Theresienstadt, all that was happy.

Then, of course, the curtain fell.

Everybody gone, nobody survived.

Everything gone, stolen.

Where do you start?

(somber music) - [News Reporter] Then it began, the homeward trek.

Home was Holland, or Russia, or Belgium, or Czechoslovakia, or France.

- [Lili] We did not have a home.

We don't have four walls.

We want to look for our loved ones.

We did not know how to start it.

- [Narrator] Some 11 million people were displaced in Europe, with very little support to help them return home.

With a complete breakdown of European society, there was no way for survivors to know if any of their family members remained alive.

- [Rena] We didn't know where to go, who was waiting for us.

So we went in groups through the forests.

And the forests were very dangerous because there was dynamite.

(explosions booming) (brooding music) (singer vocalizing) We walked and walked and walked for days.

Sometimes, we slept where the cows are.

We had sore legs, but we walked.

(singer vocalizing) (brooding music) (building rumbling) - [Renee] People ask, "Did you feel hatred or anger?"

That was not on our minds at the time.

On my mind was, "How am I gonna survive now?"

(brooding music) (singer vocalizing) - [Erika] All the train tracks were bombed and trains were sometimes coming.

Sometimes, weren't coming.

We got out of this station and we are looking for food again.

There were no people around these destroyed cities.

(slow piano music) And we're walking and there's this plaza, and there are two old people killing the lice in each other's hair.

I felt ashamed looking at them because they had no humanity.

They were old and that's all they had, each other and the lice.

I remember coming back to the station and I said, "We have to go, we have to get home.

"We have to get back to normal."

(forlorn music) - [Linda] The conductor, he spoke Dutch.

(train chugging) I went right to Amsterdam, to the train station.

I got off the train and I was all by myself.

A policeman came up to me, so I said I was in a camp and I want to go home and he said, "Where's home?"

- [Eva] We headed back to Prague where I cam from.

I knew that there was no home anymore.

That was gone.

I was standing on Wenceslas Square, no money.

Where could I go?

It was the most shocking moment.

- [Linda] My cousin came down and I said, "Where's my mother?

"Where are my brothers and sisters?"

And he started to cry and he said, "There's nobody came back yet."

- [Narrator] With train tracks often destroyed by advancing Allied troops or retreating German forces, survivors had to overcome incredible obstacles as they tried to make their way home.

- [Renee] The train rides were amazing, but you never were inside the train.

You only sat outside the train, whether it was on the bumper or whether it was on top of the coal.

(train chugging) - [News Reporter] A hundred mile journey takes days, instead of hours, and the ordeal is one that only the fittest can face.

(intense music) - [Rena] Me and my sister decided that we're gonna go back to Poland.

Perhaps, somebody's alive.

(train chugging) So we went from one train to another.

We arrived after one month and we went to our home, and this was a disaster.

- [Erika] When we went back to Miskolc, it was not a victorious entrance into a city which was waiting for us.

The population said, "Why did you come back?

"More came back than left.

"You want your stuff back, you're never gonna get it."

(heavy music) - [Rena] The Polish people wouldn't let us in our house.

They were wearing our clothes.

They had children.

They went to school.

They had babies in the buggies and we were orphaned.

Homeless.

Hopeless.

So we sat on the steps and cried.

(woman sobbing) - [Narrator] Violence against Holocaust survivors was widespread.

Several thousand were killed upon returning home.

- [Erika] They caught two Jews and they blamed them for black-marketing, and they tied them to a horse and buggy and dragged them through the city.

And, of course, they were killed.

(looters shouting) - [Lili] We have a lot of anger.

We did not know how to use this anger.

(crowd shouting) - [Narrator] Facing no other choice, many survivors returned to Germany to live in displaced persons camps.

- [Rena] I was very angry and when I arrived to Germany, I hate them so much.

I hate the ground, the bloody ground.

I hate every person.

When I was riding on the streetcar and I saw an American soldier was kissing a German girl, I'm ashamed to say, but I pushed her out from the streetcar.

I couldn't calm down myself.

I think, if I had gun, I would kill lots of people.

I just couldn't forgive 'em what they'd done to us.

(train rumbling) - [Erika] Everybody who survived went to the railroad station every day.

To wait, not just for your own family, but for anybody who came back.

- [Linda] Every time a train came in, I would go to the station and see if any of my family came back.

I just was hoping my mother would be there.

She was only 48.

My brother, he was married, had a little girl.

And I was almost sure my oldest brother would come back.

- [Renee] I never expected my mother and I didn't have much faith in finding my sister, but I was hoping that my brother and my father would maybe survive.

- [Erika] The anticipation of knowing that, now, we will find out who is there.

And the joy, when we arrived to the station in Miskolc, my brother was there.

(slow dramatic music) - [Linda] I never found any of my family, and I had a huge family.

I never saw anybody come back.

- [Narrator] According to a post-war survey, 75% of the survivors were the only member of their family to survive the Holocaust.

- [Renee] There is a school in Budapest where survivors register.

And I stayed there all day long reading names, hoping that I'm gonna find somebody I know.

There was not one name that I recognized.

So it got late afternoon and we decided we're gonna go out and see if we can find some food.

And I reached a door and the door didn't open because someone was pushing it from the other side.

So I stepped back and the door opened, and my brother stood there.

(soft dramatic music) We just held onto each other and cried.

- [Narrator] Entering Auschwitz on January 27th, 1945, Soviet troops only had to open doors to storage buildings to reveal seven tons of human hair, 836,255 dresses, and thousands of pairs of shoes.

- [Lili] The scope of it we realized after the people were coming in.

(slow dramatic music) - [Linda] It went around that six million of us were killed.

I just can't believe anymore.

I don't believe anybody.

- [Erika] I did break down when I heard how my father and brother was killed.

But we hardly talked about all these aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents who disappeared from our lives.

(fire crackling) - [Eva] I stopped counting at 50, but those were cousins and second cousins and numbers.

The only one that really meant a lot was my father because he was all I had.

The rest, there was no mourning for them.

It was sad; we mentioned it.

We counted them, but you adjust to it.

- Renee] My brother and I found my father in the tuberculosis sanatorium called Kirsch.

He asked me whether we were at home and whether I saw, in the backyard, a little aluminum milk can.

Well, when the Germans came into Hungary, they dug up the backyard looking for, I guess, treasures.

Then, the Russians and, sure enough, on top of all of this mess, is this little milk can.

And there is $300 American in it.

We lived on those $300 for a long, long time.

(brooding music) My father died four months later.

- [Eva] You lost everything.

Not only people, but your apartment.

Even the money was changed.

I thought I was going back to the same world I left, which, of course, I didn't.

(intense music) - [Erika] Nothing was as it had been.

Kids didn't go to school as they should have.

Parents were not with their children.

It was a crazy upside-down world.

- [Rena] I was angry that I can't get back what they done to us, that I can't get back my family.

And I kept going back to Poland.

Why did I go back?

I had to calm down.

I said, "Come on, Rena, you're free now.

"You've gotta be nice."

- [Eva] I found a job with HIAS, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

They needed someone speaking English, which I was fluent in.

We processed thousands of immigrants who left DP camps and emigrated.

- [Narrator] Countries outside of Europe did not open their doors to survivors.

Strict quotas kept many from finding new places to call home.

- [Erika] As soon as we saw the destruction of our homes, we were too scared to stay in Miskolc, so we moved up to Budapest where there was more of an organized Jewish life.

(train chugging) The Jewish community now set up a community kitchen and they wanted my mother to manage that.

And Russians came to eat there, but the Russians didn't just eat.

They drank and they became very viscous and crazy, and so I always had to hide because they liked girls.

(Erika speaking Russian ) "barishna, za vai barishna" (soft dramatic music) (airplane engines rumbling) - [Renee] My brother and I bought up a lot of English parachutes, which were made of pure silk.

At that time, it was fashionable to have these full circle skirts and we were painting the skirts and selling them.

We were doing pretty well.

(bright music) - [Erika] Kids could relate to other kids, only among ourselves.

We were not exploring it with adults.

Our doors were locked.

There was one night when we were around the campfire and started to deal with it.

What's our role now?

What do we need to do to prove that we are worthy of survival?

(fire crackling) (crickets chirping) So we kept asking, "How do I fit in now?"

And that was a little bit of mourning.

Otherwise, we tried to just stay, quote, "strong."

- [Eva] You would be surprised how quickly we adjusted to a happy life.

We had fun, I was 23 years old.

- [Rena] I was still a kid.

Maybe I had a body like a woman, but I was still a innocent girl with no experience.

I just didn't wanna have anybody.

- [Linda] I had a boyfriend and his sister was a seamstress, so I had beautiful clothes.

I didn't have anything when I came back from the camp.

He was not Jewish.

He was gentile.

(chuckles) Later, one woman said, "Did you know he was gay?"

I said, "He was nice.

(laughs) "That's why I liked him."

- [Renee] You wanted to belong to somebody.

My brother had his girlfriend and they were going to get married, and here I was.

What am I gonna do when they get married?

- [Erika] When Emil came to town, he was the leader of the organization.

It wasn't like a romantic relationship.

I wanted to get his attention, so I wrote to him, "I'd like to meet with you at this and this time "on this and this corner.

"It has to do with the organization."

(laughs) And he saved that note.

(gentle music) - [Lili] We received the note on a big bulletin board.

I saw that Szlama Majzner was looking for me.

(typewriter keys clacking) Szlama Majzner was my good and close friend in Piotrkow Ghetto.

We worked together in the underground and we started to love each other.

So when I saw the note, my life changed.

- [Renee] I met Bernard before the Holocaust when I visited my brother at the forced labor camp in Hungary, and he started to come around.

And, later, we got married.

(slow romantic music) - [Lili] Szlama took a blanket and he made me a jacket and a little purse.

I was so thankful to him for it and we made legal our status.

So Szlama was my husband now.

- [Eva] My future husband, Fred, told me that my father was dead.

So I went from the arms of my father to Fred being with me.

Wedding, we met at lunchtime, went to the city office.

Two of his colleagues were witnesses and we took them to lunch.

Not a flower in sight.

- [Narrator] It was not uncommon for there to be six or more weddings in a single day at a displaced persons camp.

(survivors faintly chattering) - [Rena] He came to Marburg from Munich.

He told my sister he wants to marry me.

There was 10 people at the wedding.

The dress, from a parachute, and the veil and the flowers was from a Christmas tree.

I married him in Marburg, 1946, and I went to Munich and life was hell.

- [Lili] There's every day saying, "Oh, we want to show Hitler that we live again."

No, these marriages happened because of the big hole in our lives.

The loneliness, we did not have anybody.

And when we found the same person with the same experiences, we have this bond and we're holding to it.

- [Linda] It was 1946.

There still was anti-Semitism going around.

I just didn't know how to take that.

I thought, "Shall I go to the United States?"

But when we were liberated, the Americans, in the Army, they had segregation.

That's one thing I didn't like.

The people I stayed with, they said, "Well, we're gonna emigrate too to America.

"We don't wanna stay in Holland.

"There's nothing here."

I had my visa in three months.

- [Eva] I intended to stay at Prague.

And then, two years later, the Communists came over.

So everybody rushed out.

(people faintly chattering) I had my visa in three weeks 'cause I was born in Germany.

- We waited three years for that quota number.

My daughter was nine months old when I left Prague in 1948.

- [Rena] I just had my daughter, so it was difficult.

I had to stay in Germany five years 'til I got the visa to come to here.

- In 1950, the Korean War started to come to us.

Europe was wondering, "Oh, we will have a Third World War?"

(dramatic music) So we were all ready to run from Europe, again.

We received our affidavits and we went to Detroit.

(boat horn wails) (excited music) - [News Reporter] 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.

(crowd cheering) Many of them spent long, terrible months in concentration camps, but this is a happy day.

(crowd cheering) (excited music) - [Linda] I had three cousins waiting for me on the plank where you come off the boat.

(dramatic music) - [News Reporter] Relatives and friends are here to meet the newcomers and they get a welcome they'll never forget.

America opens her heart to those who long for life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

- [Linda] I was happy to see them, but still I was kind of scared.

(boat horn wails) - [Lili] America was a dream for us.

When the boat came close to the Statue of Liberty, we cried.

- [Eva] My heart was going like this.

(ship horn wails) Our ship arrived just as the World Series was going and there were some Americans with little radios listening to the results.

- [Sports Broadcaster] In comes Snyder followed by Furillo with the two runs that tie up the ballgame 3-all.

- [Eva] It made an impression.

(dramatic music) - [Newsreel Voiceover] This is Manhattan, business center of New York City and heart of the city's life.

Millions pour into the area every day to work and shop.

But where do all these people come from and how do they get here?

- [Eva] We stopped at Rumpelmayer's.

(whimsical music) My friend told me, "Try a Coca-Cola."

- [Actor] The perfect refreshment every time.

There's nothing like ice-cold Coca-Cola.

- [Eva] The first Coca-Cola I ever drank and the last one.

And she said, "Order cinnamon toast," and that I liked.

That was the specialty of Rumpelmayer's.

- [Erika] The plentiness of everything, I couldn't get over it.

Go to a store and see all the food there, all these newspapers and magazines, I felt overwhelmed by it.

(lively music) - [Voiceover] Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.

The world is so full of a number of things and we don't want to miss any.

- [Rena] I didn't like New York.

It was too big for me.

I had to go underground and every time I put money, somebody else went before me.

I was still not sharp enough to know what's going on.

(air softly howling) - [Renee] I flew from Prague to Paris, then from Paris to New York City.

My brother-in-law drove us to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

He drives into the driveway and I see two little children in costumes, and I said, "Why are they dressed in these costumes?

"It's not Purim."

And he says to me, "No, it's not Purim, "but tomorrow is Halloween."

- [Linda] I came to Hoboken, New Jersey.

It was dark and dirty.

And I said, "This is America?"

As a child, when you hear America, you dream, it's all fairy tales; Cinderella and princes and everybody lives in castles.

(bittersweet music) (subway rumbling) - [Erika] September 24th, 1950.

My cousin set up the chuppah, and we got married in his living room.

He said, "You have to have guests "because they will give you presents."

And he invited a bunch of people who I didn't know.

But my mother couldn't be there and Emil didn't have siblings.

This is not how it's supposed to happen.

- [Rena] Everybody wanted to make some kind of life for themself.

They didn't talk about the camps.

They just wanna blend into the American crowd.

- [Renee] Whenever I mentioned anything about the concentration camps, "Stop, don't talk about it.

"You're now in America, forget it."

- [Lili] What bothered me was my only living uncle did not ask so many questions and I came to the conclusion that he was afraid to know.

- [Erika] Later, when I met a cousin who took us under his wing, he started to ask questions.

And when I told him that, after the war, we looted the city, he was horrified.

That was not right to do, to steal.

That shut me up; that was it.

I knew that I couldn't talk because we were judged by the standards that they had and didn't understand what other standards were there.

(subway rumbling) - [Eva] The war was behind me.

My war was struggling where my next $15 will come from to pay my room.

- [Renee] I wanted to go to work.

There was a little Italian foreman in Felix Menswear in Allentown who saw my picture in the paper, and so he gave me a job hand-finishing the menswear garments.

He was a wonderful little man.

- [Eva] I had a job a week and lost it.

Had a job for two weeks or three weeks and laid off.

It was a bad time.

It was a recession and New Yorkers are very tough.

That was the worst time in America for me.

(people faintly chattering) - [Rena] I didn't wanna stay in New York, so I didn't make lots of connections because my sister lived in California in the Valley.

- [Erika] My husband, Emil, got a job in the Valley.

He was the principal of a Hebrew school, so I thought that we hit the jackpot.

- [Renee] My aunt insisted that we come to California.

- [Eva] My husband said, "California."

- [Linda] My cousin said Uncle Jaap had a diamond factory in Santa Monica, which is the nicest place to be, and that's where we're gonna move.

- [Lili] One of our good friends decided to go to Los Angeles and Szlama said, "That's a good occasion "to close the door of Detroit."

(train horn blaring) (enthusiastic music) - [Spokesperson] Train travel USA, America's best buy in transportation.

- [Renee] We took a train ride from New York to Los Angeles.

It was a very luxurious train with a sleeper, so it did not remind me at all of the cattle car.

(chuckles) (train chugging) The train stopped and it was staying for a long time, and they said that a little girl fell into a well.

(dramatic music) - [News Reporter] The eyes of America turn to these rescue operations in San Marino, California.

Down this tiny 14-inch pipe lies the body of three-year-old Kathy Fiscus.

Since Kathy fell, she has been heard only once.

After 42 hours, the 94-foot mark is reached.

By nightfall on the third day, her body is recovered.

The world salutes a brave endeavor that ends in tragedy.

- [Renee] I thought to myself, "Look what they are doing "for one child and here in Auschwitz, "thousands of children were murdered."

(children faintly chattering) (soft upbeat music) I remember the day when we arrived, the sky was so blue.

People were walking around without coats, it was winter time.

And I saw these palm trees.

(leaves rustling) I never saw palm trees before.

And I see this beautiful country from the top of Coldwater Canyon and I said to my husband, "I never leave here."

- [Eva] Greenery in front of every house, which doesn't appear in Boston or New York.

- [Erika] It's just the opposite of what it was in New York where everybody looked into your face and you had no space or air.

(racy music) Here, there was so much space and so much air.

It was wonderful and it was also something that you couldn't hold on to, like being in space floating, rather than holding onto a building or something.

(sign pings) - [Eva] We walked up and down streets in Hollywood, saw a little single but it was $85 a month and we had $105.

So we walked some more, it was a heat wave in March.

And, in the end, we came back and took this apartment.

- [Renee] I had a cousin here who was a doctor who was a Holocaust survivor, and he had a friend going back to Europe to find out whether anybody survived.

We right away had a beautiful home to live in, no rent.

That was a wonderful beginning.

(train whistling) (bright music) - [News Reporter] Flourishing in peace with 67 million people gainfully employed, the United States today represents an achievement in good government that ensure the great majority a way of life that is physically gratifying and spiritually uplifting.

- [Eva] My husband went to look for architectural work and I was looking for secretarial work.

(people faintly chattering) (car horns honking) I go to this agency on 7th street and she says, "Yes, I have a job as a showroom secretary."

608 South Hill, Vogue Optical it was called, and it was selling frames.

- [Spokesperson] These mademoiselles have an eye for what's chic.

Their vision is 20/20.

Never mind the other measurements for now.

Styles range from the streamlined to the daring and dramatic.

With or without glasses, there's no denying the eternal feminine.

- [Eva] It turns out they come from Pilsen where my grandparents lived; small world.

- [Erika] I went to a real estate agency and it was pretty insecure work because I was the only Jewish girl there.

- [Linda] I just didn't trust too many people.

I looked around and I saw the poor.

I saw Beverly Hills, but I was always nervous.

I never knew who was behind me.

(suspenseful music) - [Rena] There was constantly the memories were haunting you.

You wake up in the night, I was crying.

- [Erika] I had very tentative connection to other people.

I didn't feel I fit in.

- [Lili] You feel always an outsider.

- [Eva] We didn't have a great circle of friends.

We were very happy together, alone.

We were independent; struggling very much.

- [Lili] I built a friendship with a colored lady, the nursery school teacher and I said, "Come over, we'll have a cup of tea."

She said, "No, I am not going to white people's houses."

I could not comprehend this.

- [Renee] I joined an organization, which was called Shelters for Israel because they were Hungarians who were here during the war.

(playful music) - [Erika] We didn't keep in touch with the immigrant group.

It was more important for us to have friends among the Americans and we joined the couple's club.

Well, that was the most distant group that I could be in.

I mean, I had no relationship to that group, but we went because that's what you're supposed to do.

- [Rena] When I went with my Boyle Heights girlfriend to movies, I see in Hollywood beautiful women.

I said, "Can I ever look like them?"

She surprised me.

She wrote a letter to "Glamour Girl" and one day I got a phone from the studio.

(engaging music) - [TV Host] From Hollywood, Glamour capital of the world, we present Glamour, Glamour, "Glamour Girl"!

The program where every day we take a lady selected from our studio audience the previous day and, in the following 24 hours, we glamorize her into an exciting, thrilling, brand spanking new personality.

- [Rena] Next day, they cut my hair and the makeup in the studio, and they got me the clothes.

And I was on television.

And all the whole Boyle Heights, they still call me "Glamour Girl."

- [Linda] On Pico Boulevard was a movie theater.

And on my day off, I still learned a lot of English from going to the movies.

And across the street was a little coffee shop.

The guy was making his own doughnuts, and he introduced me to Eli and Eli said, "I'm going to marry that girl."

(commercial man singing) ♪ This dream house you and I will share ♪ ♪ Was planned for us by Frigidaire ♪ (commercial woman singing) ♪ I really can't believe my eyes ♪ ♪ In every room, a new surprise ♪ - [Linda] I married him after six months in my cousin's house because my mother-in-law, she was from Russia, and because I didn't speak Yiddish, I wasn't Jewish.

- [Announcer] Here on a warm January day, the sunshine is glorious.

No wonder Los Angeles is the promised land for migrating millions.

- [Erika] Not one person asked me, "What happened to you?"

They were so reluctant to even mention that I was in the concentration camp, and so how can you feel well when this major thing in your life is not mentioned?

- [Renee] When everybody kept telling me, "Leave the past behind," I felt, "Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do."

Starting a new life, being in a free country, and do what you have to do for the future.

- [Dinah Shore-Singing] ♪ See the U-S-A in your Chevrolet ♪ ♪ America's asking you to call ♪ ♪ Drive your Chevrolet through the U.S.A. ♪ ♪ America's the greatest land of all ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ (lips smacking) - [Eva] It took us a month or two before we had enough money, $300, to buy an old Chevy.

It looked like a bomb.

- [Erika] We bought a green Chevrolet a year after we came here.

- [Renee] In 1950, I bought a Chevy; a big, beautiful Chevrolet.

- [Spokesperson] Remember, more people buy Chevrolets than any other car.

(quirky music) - Eva] I believe in assimilation, to a point.

- [Erika] Assimilated American, I wish I could feel it now.

I am so anxious to put out the flag because I wanna be sure that they see that I am an American.

- [News Reporter] In a world torn between forces of freedom and slavery, "I am an American," takes on new meaning.

(dramatic music) - [Lili] I received my accreditation from the Bureau of Jewish Education to teach Jewish schools.

- [Erika] I actually wanted to be a doctor, but I was too old, so I went to school of social work for 11 years until I got my master's degree.

- [Linda] My schooling was interrupted.

I wanted to be a nurse, but I also had to make a living.

(smooth music) - [Renee] Somebody introduced me to a young man whose name was Rudi Gernreich.

He was a Viennese dancer.

And he decided that he wants to design the costumes for a dance group, so we made these costumes.

And then he also was friends with Stroheim, and he hired Rudi to design for a film with Lana Turner.

And, of course, Rudi said, "Renee, you have to come with me."

- [Eva] We were immigrants.

I mean, the whole country consists of immigrants.

- [Erika] I didn't think I was an immigrant.

I was a Hungarian-Jewish survivor.

- [Renee] I was an immigrant and a survivor.

- [Eva] More like a newcomer than a survivor.

That word survivor never occurred to us.

- [Linda] I had take the bus through Westwood and I saw a sign, "Nursery."

So I got off and I told them with sign language.

I said, "Me, work, babies."

They gave me a piece of paper, so my cousin called them and it was a movie star, Ricardo Montalban.

♪ I need a little more of your love ♪ ♪ A little more of your amor ♪ - Linda] And Georgiana, Ricardo's wife, said, "Something tells me I want her."

So my cousin said, "She doesn't speak English."

She said, "It's okay.

"My husband don't speak good English either."

- [Erika] I wanted to learn English and I wanted to fit into the American way.

- [Renee] I just felt that everybody felt so secure and everybody was so self-assured.

I liked that.

(dramatic music) (newsreel footage) - [Eva] In '58, we became citizens.

- [Announcer] Many of those taking the oath are newly naturalized citizens, and the last seven Hungarian refugees who have sought freedom on America's shores.

- [Erika] When I got my citizenship, I had this feeling, "Now, I am an American."

(patriotic music) - (man at desk) Your vote is your chance to do a really important job for your country.

(woman on camera) - Your vote could be the one that counts.

- (man at desk) See you at the polls.

(patriotic music) - [Eva] I voted in every election and so did Fred, my husband.

- [News Reporter] In the little Cumberland, Pennsylvania township voting headquarters near Gettysburg, America's first citizen signs the register as the nation goes to the polls.

Together with the first lady, the president is among the early voters.

(patriotic music) His democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson, arrives to cast his ballot.

At the four corners of the nation, democracy is at work.

- [Erika] We listened to Stevenson.

I liked him a lot.

- [Adlai Stevenson] I've talked with small businessmen all over the country who get smaller and smaller, and poorer and poorer, while big business gets bigger and bigger.

- [Erika] He's the one that I voted for.

(crowd cheering) (soft music) - [Renee] We had great respect for Eisenhower.

He was the one that liberated Dachau and he brought in the citizens of Germany to look at the dead people that were all over the place.

And then he brought his military people over.

- [Dwight] We continue to uncover German concentration camps in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail.

I made this visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.

- [Renee] And he said, "I want you to remember this "because there will come a day "when people say, 'This never happened.'"

(somber music) - [Lili] I had my qualms about having children.

I said, "What for to bring children in this world?"

It still was a wall between the real world and our world.

- [Eva] It was criminal to put children in our world because we had absolutely no one, if something had happened to us.

My husband was 52 when she was born and I was 37.

That's old.

- [Rena] I was a little scared, but I was grateful that I'm gonna have a child in the United States.

- [Erika] Many people lost their first child.

I had a baby; he lived only three days.

That's a very big tragedy.

It proved the future cannot be better than the past.

I faced the loss of that baby and then I go back to work.

You can't mourn when you wanna live.

- [Eva] When I was pregnant, Fred wanted me to stop, and I've never worked since.

I was always home when she came home.

- [Lili] Helen was born in 1953.

This was the big event in our lives, a colossal happening.

I was ready to face the world again.

- [Rena] I think when you have children you change.

You completely become a different person.

You have something to care about, somebody to love, somebody that, one day, you get love back.

And this what life is.

- [Erika] When the children were born, I think we all were relieved, and happy and joyous.

We didn't allow the sadness to move in until mostly when we were more normal life.

Not when we had these joyous celebration, although we did talk at that time about our losses and when we told people how they were named.

(solemn music) - [Linda] Eli said, "Whatever you wanna name them.

"Your family comes first, they've been killed."

- [Renee] In the Jewish religion, you name your first child after, if your parents are dead.

But I feel differently about the death of my parents and the death of my sister.

My father had papers for us to come to the United States in 1937, just before the trouble started and my mother refused to come.

But my little sister, 16 years old, innocent.

Why didn't she have the chance I had?

I had a vision that my sister came to me and told me that I'm gonna have a little girl and I must name her Klara after her.

And I did.

- [Erika] All parents have their anxiety.

But for us it was a repeat, almost expected, that something can happen.

- [Linda] I wouldn't let 'em out of my sight.

I never had a babysitter.

(children faintly chattering) When Steven went the first day to school, I didn't leave that gate.

I stayed there 'til he was in and he come out.

- [Rena] When the kids were younger, they start dating, I slept on the couch.

When they arrived, I opened the door and I went to bed.

- [Eva] I was never overprotective, she'll confirm that.

(laughs) I was a tough bitch.

And she turned into a very wonderful girl.

- [Erika] My Jewishness, I don't flaunt.

In the beginning, especially, I would hide it because I was sure it would create some problems.

- [Linda] Steven wanted to go to Boy Scouts.

That day they called, they were gonna pick him up.

It didn't sound right, to, "Pick him up."

The truck reminded me of the truck that picked me up.

(solemn music) - [News Reporter] A day of worship and of dedication for Boy Scouts of many faiths.

"Onward For God and My Country" is the theme of the encampment.

- [Linda] I saw these kids had brown uniforms and I said, "Is that what you're gonna give my boy?"

He said, "If he's going to be taken into the Boy Scouts."

I said, "Oh, no, he's not going to Boy Scouts, forget it."

They looked like little Nazis.

(bouncy music) - [Woman Voiceover] (speaks in German) Volkswagen.

- [Man Voiceover] (speaks in German) Ein Volkswagen.

- [Erika] When we were on the freeway and there was a Volkswagen behind my car, Benjie, who was the second child, said, "Mom, the Germans are after you."

(bouncy music) (waves crashing) - [Lili] Trust, it took probably a long time 'til we trust people.

We did not trust ourselves in the beginning.

We must realize that we were six years out of normal human life.

- [Eva] Damaged, yes.

It changed our attitude towards many things.

- [Erika] When I worked at Kaiser, all the cases of loss were referred to me.

I never told them, "That's what you should do."

- [Rena] I had a kosher business, a deli and a restaurant, and my husband used to work there.

And the kids, I had somebody home taking care of them.

I work from five in the morning 'til midnight.

I made all European food.

I had a very successful business.

- [TV Host] Is this crepe?

- [Renee (On TV)] Yes, it's a crepe chic, panel-back, reversible dress.

- [Host] Let's see another crepe dress on that wild Arlynne.

- [Renee (On TV)] Well, we call this the roaring 20's.

- [Host] Oh, Renee, what a fabulous dress!

- The Saks Fifth Avenue really believes in this look.

I was in every major department store: Saks Fifth Avenue, Nieman Marcus.

- [Host] Wish you could see these colors.

Renee really believes in color.

- [Renee] We were promoting colors because the world was drab and everything seemed to be sad and depressing, so we wanted to color it up.

I began to feel human when, on my clothes, there was a label which said Renee Firestone.

Then I kept saying to myself, "Well, this is not A12307 anymore.

"This is me."

(dramatic music) - [Actress] Your great-grandson and his mother are going to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.

- [Actor] Did you ask, Lisa?

- No, Bob did.

- [Walter Cronkite] Here is a bulletin from "CBS News."

- From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official.

President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

- [Renee] I was in New York buying fabrics and one of the secretaries ran into the room and said, "Kennedy was shot."

- [Erika] When Kennedy was shot, I remember how we all cried in the car.

- [News Reporter] A shocked nation weeps.

(mournful music) - [Erika] I was so shaken up by that.

It destroyed my fantasy about America, which was a point of security for me.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Those who sell, and all who manufacture what is sold, know that American women often have the deciding voice in whatever we come to buy.

- [Renee] I couldn't imagine that, in the United States, some people live on the streets and don't have what to eat.

(somber music) After the war, for quite a few months, I lived like a homeless.

- [Rena] Why can't you do something for the poor people where they sit on the streets?

I was there.

I know what it is to beg for food and money.

You all have the power to help.

Why not?

♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ - [Lili] The civil rights movement was a wonderful awakening for all of us.

- [Martin Luther King Jr] The promises of the great society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

Making the poor, white, and Negro bear the heaviest burden, both at the front and at home.

- [Renee] On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, I used to cook big pots of food, pack it in my car, and we fed the homeless.

(soft music) - [Erika] My children never asked questions and I never told them.

I remember there was some program on television and they were quite young, and I made them watch it.

- [Lili] It's very hard for certain people to tell their young ones about their awful life.

They have certain secrets.

Not everything can you share with your loved ones.

- [Eva] I never much talked much about the whole experience, but Paulette always had Jewish friends.

You absorb it if you're not dumb.

- [Erika] I think they just lived in our house and breathed it in.

- [Renee] Klara says, "I remember when I was about five years old, "we were on the bus and an American soldier asked you, "'Miss, what is that number on your arm?'

"And you said 'Oh, that's my boyfriend's telephone number.

"'(laughs) I was in the Navy "'and I put my number on the arm.'"

And she says, "I knew that that's not true.

"I knew you were never in the Navy!"

- [Erika] In the late '60s, I went to Camp Ramah and I became a counselor and a teacher.

The kids wanted to know what that tattoo was on my arm.

So I told them the story.

- [Lili] We start to talk to Helen when she was three years old about our experiences on her level, and I used the same method with the children in nursery school and kindergarten later on.

- [Renee] Klara started to ask questions when she was 14 years old.

She said, "You know, Mother, all my friends "in the school have grandparents.

"What happened to my grandparents?"

And then she went to the library and educated herself.

- [Renee] The next one.

- [Grandson] This one.

It's this big triangle.

- [Erika] The grandchildren are a great joy.

- [Erika talking to Grandson] Look how many triangles you have.

They wanted to know and they asked me to sit down and tell them.

♪ Oh, me, skip to my lou ♪ ♪ Skip to my lou, my darling ♪ - [Erika] The way they relay to us their love and their affection, which our children could not express that openly, is such joy.

- [Eva] My grandson, every time we were together, he had questions for me about life in Czechoslovakia, certain camp situations, always questioning.

And every time there was something sad, he would come and put his arm around me, without saying anything.

(tender music) It moved me incredibly.

- [Rena] My grandchildren went to Auschwitz.

They know their roots.

They know who they are.

They know who I am.

They tell me, "Baba, we love you."

What this mean to hear this word, "I love you"?

- Lili] Our grandson, because we were quite open about what we went through, wrote a little essay, "What is the Holocaust?"

(somber music) We were not only numbers, but we looked like this.

You will tell that you talked and saw a survivor, which told you the story of Shoah.

(dramatic music) (fire roaring) - [Erika] The "Holocaust" miniseries, that's when it started to be a conversation.

There was an opening of the door.

- [Announcer] It's an extraordinary story of courage and heroism against the odds.

- [Actress] What has he done?

Why are you taking him?

- [Actor] Routine questioning.

- [Actress] No, no, no, what is his crime?

- [Eva] Of course, I saw it, very well done.

- [Actor] The trains aren't going to Russia.

- [Actor 2] Where are they going?

- [Actor 1] Treblinka, it's a death camp.

- [Renee] Holocaust survivors didn't care much for it because it didn't really portray the reality of the concentration camps.

But the fact that somebody even thought to make a film about it, and that the public at least remembered through that film that there was a Holocaust was very important.

(intense music) - [Simon Wiesenthal (Voiceover)] The young generation, for their benefit, should learn from our tragedy because, what happened once to us, can happen again.

The only alternative is tolerance.

- [Renee] The Simon Wiesenthal Center was coming to Los Angeles and the rabbi explained to me that they need somebody to tell their Holocaust stories.

And I said, "I don't think I remember anything."

He said, "Last night, in the Valley, one of the Jewish cemeteries and a Jewish temple was desecrated."

- [Reporter] Hate shows itself in an ugly form with a swastika on the glass door near the playground of a Jewish synagogue.

- That night, I had a nightmare that I was in Auschwitz.

(ominous music) That the ground was blood red.

They were pushing and shoving us, the Kapos.

Suddenly, I woke up screaming, "But they told us, 'Never again'!"

And I called back the rabbi and I said, "Don't count on me because I don't know "how much I remember, but I'm willing to try."

That same night, he took me to a Mormon temple.

The church was packed and they were showing a film called "Night and Fog," and I see these bodies being bulldozered and I went berserk.

I started to cry and I couldn't stop crying.

(bulldozer rumbling) (intense music) The lights go on and I started to talk.

And I'm telling you that I have no idea where those words were coming from.

- [Lili] We are the witnesses and we have the mantra of telling.

I was with my camp sisters and we don't know who will live.

Each one of us said, "When one of us will survive, "we need to tell."

And I tried to keep to the promise, that I will tell.

(audience applauding) - [Rena] I start speaking in schools and churches.

I'm begging you.

The ground of Auschwitz is bloody and I have to remind you not to let anybody build or destroy it.

It's a cemetery for the whole world, for our children.

Everybody have to go and visit.

And the ones who say, "It's not true," we'd be glad to take 'em in a cattle train, bring 'em there, and leave 'em there.

I felt so proud that I, the Polish refugee, came to this country, and I can come to Sacramento and speak for the people.

This was my thrill.

- [Eva] You would have thought this overwhelming tragedy would be the last and look at it.

We're going through the same things.

We have dictators, again.

This is going to forever pursue us.

I don't think teaching this, that, or the other about the Holocaust is going to make the slightest difference.

- [Renee] I am very frustrated about what's going on in the Sudan today and Darfur.

I think it's an outrage.

Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, you name it, nothing.

Didn't people learn anything from World War II and from the Holocaust?

(teenagers faintly chattering) After I retired from designing, I devoted my time to the past.

Good morning.

In the beginning, I didn't care if they wanna hear it.

And, as you know, I'm a Holocaust survivor.

I wanted to tell because I felt that the world is beginning to forget.

Humanity is responsible for what happened.

- [Woman] Good morning.

- Now, it is really an obsession.

I speak almost every day because of that.

- [Erika] I read Franz Werfel's "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," and I learned about the Armenian Genocide, and I couldn't get over it.

That it happens to some other people, such things.

That's why I keep talking about it.

It is a psychological need.

I don't wanna stay isolated.

I wanna be connected to the world.

And if you understand, I am connected.

If you can't understand it, I am alone.

- (girl in film yelling) Good bye, Jews!

(soft dramatic music) - [Itzhak] "The list is an absolute good.

The list is life."

- [Lili] "Schindler's List" had done a lot.

Testimony of the people will do much more.

(audience applauding) - [Tom Hanks] Among the many who were liberated from the concentration camps was a 20 year old girl from Czechoslovakia.

She is here with us tonight.

Ladies and gentlemen, Renee Firestone.

(audience applauding) - [Renee] I was asked would I come to Washington to present to Steven Spielberg.

Well, I couldn't believe that.

I thought that somebody's playing a joke on me.

(audience applauding) (Renee on stage) "Those of us who survived the Holocaust were worried that soon our stories will be forgotten.

But after "Schindler's List," a miracle happened.

You, Steven, created the Shoah Foundation and recorded tens of thousands of survivor's testimonies.

Thank you for what you have done for all of us and, of course, what you have done for history.

You are our hero.

Thank you, Steven."

(audience applauding) - [Renee] We also were invited to the White House.

And I kept thinking, "Would my parents believe "that this is happening to me?"

(slow music) - [Wedding Party] Mazel tov!

(Lili speaking Yiddish) "in yidder simacha is der ar umet" This means, "In all our frivolity, we have a certain sadness."

(steam hissing) - [Erika] Things can get faded.

Things can be forgotten.

And that's a danger, when our memories fade.

- [Renee] People were asking me, "Why don't you take your number out?"

How can I remove this number?

This number IS really the Holocaust.

This number is part of me, which will never leave me.

(tourists faintly chattering) - [Erika] I never did put the war behind.

To this day, I'm not pathologically connected to it, but obsessed by it.

(cantor's voice singing El Melech Rachmim) I needed to go back and physically touch the place.

When you see it physically, when you touch the bunks, then you know that this is how it was.

And I saw the barrack where the latrines were, where you have 200 holes next to each other.

That expresses the humiliation and the infection.

But it also expressed the community.

The 200 holes brought us together in that we were able to talk to each other.

That place, the only place where we felt we would not be overheard or punished.

(tourists faintly chattering) - [Eva] No one can understand what we went through.

(tourists faintly chattering) Americans cannot imagine it.

If they didn't live through it, they can't understand it.

(weeping music) - [Renee] The chimneys were burning 24 hours a day and the smell ate itself into our flesh.

For years, I could smell it on myself.

I don't think a normal person could ever understand that a thousand people are pushed into a room where they know that they are gonna die.

(fire crackling) I don't even wanna think about what it was like for my mother to be in a gas chamber fighting for a breath.

Was she thinking that her children may die the same way?

That haunts me, even today.

- [Rena] I went to every block, all over, and I said, "Did that really happen to me "or I'm just dreaming?"

(train chugging) But it wasn't a dream.

I went back three times.

The last time I said, "Good bye, Auschwitz.

"I will never come again."

(train chugging) - [Eva] Every time I see one of those trains, I think, "My God, that was pretty terrible," but I never think of it.

I don't know, maybe I'm superficial.

I don't think so, but what's gone is gone.

I put it behind me.

I'm not going to dwell on things that make me miserable.

(solemn music) - [Linda] I always have nightmares, you know?

I dream I'm back and I'm digging the ditches.

(train chugging) (ominous music) Last year, I went to Cedars-Sinai.

I was in the ER room and, to me, it looked like Auschwitz.

I saw a door and it was the door from Auschwitz where you had to go through.

I saw a guy sitting there on a chair.

I thought it was the guy that put you to the right or the left.

(intense music) And I had a German nurse, a little blonde, and her name was Gretchen.

(woman shouting) So I grabbed her and I said, "Now, I gotta chance, I'm gonna kill you.

"This is Auschwitz.

"If I go, you go."

They got me off of her, of course.

They tied me up, they said.

I don't know anything about it.

I was two weeks in the hospital.

I don't remember anything.

(soft music) - [Lili] The last survivor of the Armenian Holocaust passed away and I was thinking about us.

And then what, and then what?

(wind howling) - [Erika] There is this emptiness, like a big hole.

It is an impression that's physically imprinted in my body.

- [Renee] It's a pain that's in your mind really.

It almost takes your breath away.

(water sloshing) - [Eva] I guess I still carry it in me.

It probably is imprinted in me that I have judgments which other people don't have.

(solemn music) - [Lili] I am dealing with the mark that I am a survivor.

I went through a period in my life, which was destroyed.

(lively music) I witnessed the destruction of a culture which was in bloom for a thousand years, and especially the last hundred years.

We thought that we can build this up and we failed in it.

And I cannot come to grips with it.

(gentle music) - [Erika] Where is home?

It's an interesting question to ask when I'm 86 years old.

Home is a sacred place.

What it looks like or what it has is not as important as the stability of it.

- [Renee] Now, as I think about my death, I also think about my past.

I think about my childhood almost like a dream.

Each time I went back, I lost a little bit of that unity that was my family.

I couldn't see it as the home that I used to live in, so it doesn't exist.

My husband?

I already had a lifetime with him.

Fighting and loving, we took the whole gamut.

- [Bernard, Renee's Husband] Mainly fighting.

(couple laughing) - [Renee] He died in a home with a family.

My mother and my father were murdered.

It's a totally different feeling.

I keep thinking about my parents, that they never have a chance to know me.

They really never had a chance to know who I was.

- Surprise!

- Yay!

(guests applauding) (camera shutter clicks) ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to Renee ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Bom, bom, bom ♪ - (laughs) When you're 90 years old, the uncertainty's right there.

- [Lili] I am not afraid of death.

I know it must come.

With all the tragedies in my life, I had a full life.

(solemn music) I love life.

I love the curiosity of life.

I like every day of life.

I like the sunshine, I like the rain.

I love the falling of the leaves.

I love every minute.

I would not change my life, not one bit.

- [Linda] I wish, of course, always that my mother could've seen me married and have children, and that she could see the grandchildren.

(slow music) My granddaughter, Kelly, she's already 33, but I live with her.

All my kids, after they got married, they lived with me.

Nobody left me until they finally, I never said, "You gotta get out."

As far as I'm concerned, the whole shebang can move back in.

(Linda laughs) - [Rena] I'm very excited that I lived to 80 years of age and my husband, 86.

That we were able to have two children and grandchildren, and that this is the best thrill of my life, that I live to see a 4th generation.

And I hope that this baby, one day, will see the film and will learn about his grandmother, what she accomplished in her life.

(solemn music) - [Eva] I made a appointment for a physical and I found I had cancer of the lung.

Within a week, I was operated, and I'm one of the 5% who survived more than 5 years.

It's 13, so am I lucky?

(guests faintly chattering) (ethereal music) - [Paulette [Eva's Daughter]]Dear Mom.

You've reached a remarkable milestone on so many levels.

Happy birthday and many, many more.

(guests applauding) (lips smacking) - [Eva] I am a fatalist, I accept my fate.

Not only because I survived and I'm still functioning at 92.

I mean, somehow I was lucky.

(solemn music) - [Erika] There is a joke about the German Jews.

When they went to Israel, they always said (speaking German) "Bei Uns" "At our place, this is how it was."

But the same is with us.

It's like, how it was at home now.

At home, how long did I live there?

14 years, 15 years?

Why is it still my home?

Why was that life more important than my life now?

That shouldn't color everything in my life now, but it does.

So when I'm homesick, I can't find a place where I'm homesick for.

I'm home where I am.

Okay?

(water gently sloshing) (lively music) - [Renee] I was born in the most democratic, the most wonderful country in Europe, in Czechoslovakia.

I love my country.

It was the most humane and the most understanding country in Europe.

And look what happened, look what happened.

So we don't know, from one day to the next, what can happen.

I hope that maybe somebody will come along who will change it for the better.

That's all we can hope for.

- [Jon] So, Renee, let me ask you this specifically because I think that's an interesting topic because I know, during your time in camp, the idea of having no hope, the idea of not surviving.

But you did survive, you did get out, and you did come to America.

And, in America, life wasn't easy.

- [Renee] No.

- [Jon] There were plenty of times in America where you thought you had the answer or you thought you had the next step forward and it got pulled out from under you.

So at that time, as a survivor of what you went through, in the '50s, in the '60s, what was it that drove you forward then?

How did you get past hard times in America in the early days?

- [Renee] I was alive.

You're alive, what else can you do, but try to make your life a little better, always.

Even if you have the best life, you still wanna make it even better.

You're alive.

What else can you do but hope that everything is gonna go your way?

And I was very fortunate because it did.

Things happened to me in this country that I never could imagine would happen.

(bright music)