ABC7 Eyewitness News Presents Return to Auschwitz: A Survivor's Story

Monday, July 22, 2019
Fritzie Fritzshall, the president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, survived years of hardship and escaped near-certain death in Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in what was then German-occupied Poland.

More than a million people died at Auschwitz, mostly Jews, including Fritzshall's mother and two young brothers. Her grandfather died on the way to the camp.
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She's returned to see the camp before but now, more than seven decades after she was liberated on a death march from Auschwitz, Fritzshall returned for what may be the final time with Chicago's Roman Catholic Cardinal Blase Cupich.
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At a time when the FBI data shows that hate crimes are up 17% year to year and anti-Semitic hate crimes are up 37% returning to the place of history's darkest crime carries new relevance today. The Anti-Defamation League also is tracking an uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in the Midwest and nationwide.

Previous Coverage:

Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall returns to Auschwitz with Cardinal Blase Cupich
Holocaust Survivor Fritzie Fritzshall: 'I wouldn't be here today' without women who saved her life at Auschwitz
Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall remembers aunt who saved her from Auschwitz gas chamber


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Which countries did the Jews who were deported to Auschwitz come from?


Locations highlighted in ABC 7 Eyewitness News Presents Return to Auschwitz: A Survivor's Story:


Further resources:

Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
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