My Father's Family: Addendum 2026

My Father's Family: Addendum 2026

My father, Walter Klaus Cohen, escaped from Nazi Germany as a young boy with his parents and three older brothers. I am so glad I interviewed my father and his brothers, their wives, and their cousins Lore Cohn and Werner Cohen while they were still with us. Some of them also shared their own writings on the Holocaust to include. There is sadness in these stories of hardship and cruelty, of course, but they are also stories of strength and survival. My grandfather, Wilhelm Cohen, had been a decorated soldier in the German army during World War I. During that war he actually saved the life of an officer who went on to become one of the highest ranking members of the Nazi Party, even participating in the Final Solution Meeting. The irony is that my father's family would probably not have made it out of Europe in time had it not been for that same Nazi. In this revised edition I have included the Holocaust stories of many more family members, more information about the Nazi my grandfather saved, relevant information about the Holocaust, and some uplifting stories of people making a difference in the world today. I also recount my experiences growing up as a second generation Holocaust survivor, and the joy of reconnecting with family members previously lost in the fog of the post Holocaust era.