When I was a child, a dear Israeli family friend of ours, Joyce Kleinman (now Wilner), and her sister Reisi Kleinman (now Greenbaum) entered the Auschwitz concentration camp at the ages of 15 and 12. Years later, Joyce's son, Mike Wilner, composed an interview that included his mother Joyce and aunt Reisi outlining the significant events that led to the survival of both sisters and illustrating the events that occurred during the Holocaust in which approximately 6 were killed millions of Jews. Joyce began the interview by explaining the pre-war period. Joyce Kleinman was born in a beautiful home in Czechoslovakia on September 12, 1925. Although some discrimination was present, no significantly harmful acts were committed against the Jewish community. All races could eat wherever they wanted and all children went to school together, Joyce explained. Discrimination arose in 1939, when World War II began in Poland. At the time, Joyce was 11 and Reisi was 14. Joyce explained how the two girls often heard sirens outside their windows along with gunfire as the war raged. They could hear planes flying above the roof of their house and could not open the windows to get fresh air because of the terrifying noise. Jews were no longer allowed in school and one day all Jews had to go to the police station. Because Joyce and Reisi's father was a well-respected man within the community, the police let them go. Since their days in Czechoslovakia were limited, Joyce and her family left all their belongings and fled to Budapest, where their brother lived and was planning to get married. Joyce explained that the family returned to their hometown in Czechoslovakia as a training center in the city of Bergen. Joyce still had photos of her family in the soles of her shoes, providing her only motivation to live. Bergen served as a camp that the Red Cross had opened for prisoners, and most of the people taken there would die, as they were too sick to eat. Joyce was on the verge of giving up until she saw a woman who looked very familiar. Joyce was shy and wondered if she should ask who the lady was. She said, “Ma'am, excuse me, do I know you? Where do I know you? You look very familiar." Coincidentally, this lady was her sister Reisi, who fainted instantly when she looked at Joyce. Joyce, who weighed only 50 pounds, soon regained her strength thanks to Reisi's care. The interview then ended with Joyce pointing to her sister and saying, “If not her, forget it. Without her I would be dead.”