Young UJIA Holocaust Survivor Speaker Event with Rudi Oppenheimer

Young UJIA Holocaust Survivor Speaker Event with Rudi Oppenheimer

Date: Tuesday 25 October
Entry: Free
Drinks & Nibbles: 6.45pm
Rudi's story begins: 7.30pm prompt

Please note there will be an appeal

For more information please contact Laura Nagli or call 020 7424 6448

Book early as all our previous Holocaust Survivor events have sold out

Rudi's story:
Rudi was born in Belsen as one of three children and came from a typical middle-class family of assimilated Jews, who rarely ventured to synagogue. His father Hans worked at the Mendelssohn Bank in Berlin and managed to obtain a transfer to the Amsterdam branch in 1936 and the family went to live in Holland. However, when the Germans invaded Holland in May 1940, deportations started for 're-settlement in the East' and Rudi was taken to the Westerbork camp, from where there were weekly transports to the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Sobibor. Out of 100,000 deportees, less than 1,000 survived - 1 in a 100 survived, but 99 out of 100 never came back...
Rudi's family was initially saved from deportation due to his sister Eve holding a British passport. His family was classified as 'Exchange Jews', people the Nazis wanted to exchange against Germans held by the Allies. Yet, after seven months in Westerbork, his entire family was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, sleeping in wooden barracks, lining up for hours to be counted and receiving barely any food.
Young UJIA are honoured to hear Rudi share his inspirational story with us.