Sevek Finkelstein / Sidney Finkel (M / Poland, 1931), Holocaust survivor

Sevek is at top center, in the doorway among a group of young Jewish concentration-camps survivors being flown to England in August 1945

Sevek Finkelstein / Sidney Finkel (M / Poland, 1931), Holocaust survivor.

• KEYWORDS : <Piotrkow Ghetto> <KZ Czestochowa> <Buchenwald> <Theresienstadt> <Liberation of Theresienstadt> -- <Windermere Children> <England>

• MEMOIRS : Sevek and the Holocaust (2006)

Biography

Sevek Finkelstein was born December 19, 1931 in Lodz, Poland. He lived with his parents, Lieb and Faiga (Gold) Finkelstein, and his siblings: Ronia, Isaac, Lola and Frania. (Another sister, Adele, died before he was born).

His father owned a small flour mill and, by the time Sidney was 6, his family was becoming prosperous. But soon, anti-Semitism changed young Sidney's life dramatically. The harassment was hurtful and frightening. In 1939, the German army invaded Poland and Sidney's family lost what was left: his father's job, their home, their possessions.

Soon they were living in a ghetto in Piotrkow, Poland. Conditions were filthy and crowded, often with five or more people to a room. There were no toilets and no running water.

His horrific childhood journey took him from the ghetto to a German work camp called Czestochowa to Buchenwald, one of Germany's largest concentration camps.

His mother, father and sister, Frania, died during the Holocaust; his brother Isaac and sister Lola managed to survive.

When Sidney arrived in England in August 1945, months after Buchenwald was liberated by U.S. forces, he was 13 and illiterate. The psychologists and social workers told him he simply needed to forget the past. He changed his name to the more English-sounding Sidney Finkel.

Book : Sevek and the Holocaust (2006)

• Sidney Finkel, Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused to Die (Matteson, Ill. : Sidney Finkel, 2006).

"Sidney “Sevek” Finkel is the author of Sevek and the Holocaust, The Boy Who Refused to Die. This Holocaust memoir is told from the perspective of eight-year-old Sevek, capturing the emotions of a boy who loses his home, his family and ultimately his humanity by the time he reaches the age of fourteen. He lived in a cramped and disease-ridden ghetto, saw his family murdered, endured the horrors of the Treblinka death camp, ate grass for survival in the final days before reaching freedom, and, finally, resumed his education in a foreign country after a six-year lapse. This 2nd Edition includes a new chapter about Sevek's return to Buchenwald 66 years after liberation, as well as new-found information learned during this visit. This book has been used as part of the Holocaust curriculum in hundreds of middle schools across the country, and Finkel has shared his story with thousands of students, relaying a message of tolerance, hope and love. Sevek and the Holocaust, The Boy Who Refused to Die received positive reviews from the Kirkus Review and Writer’s Digest. Sidney Finkel received the Philip K Weiss Award for Storytelling for Peace and Human Rights in 2013."--Publisher description.