Elly Berkovits Gross is a survivor of the Holocaust who was deported with her family to Auschwitz by the Hungarian forces in 1944. By a strange twist of fate, Elly was transferred out to a slave labor detail in the Volkswagen factory in Fallersleben, Germany (part of the Neuengamme concentration camp’s 85 satellite camps). Sadly, her mother and brother perished within hours of arrival at Auschwitz, told to go right to the “showers” where they were gassed. Elly was ordered to go left and was spared immediate death, though the conditions at the Volkswagen plant were unsafe- she breathed paint fumes that later made her cough up globs of paint and gave her chronic respiratory ailments.
This past Valentine’s Day, Elly turned 90 years old and continues to speak to school children, which was her commitment she made after visiting Auschwitz and seeing a photo of her mother and brother upon their arrival in Auschwitz. Our class read her book and scheduled a trip to the Museum of Jewish Heritage/Holocaust Museum in NYC. We were asked if we wanted to speak to a survivor of the Holocaust after our tour. The staff asked if we wanted to meet Elly and of course I jumped at the chance. We had to cancel our trip but rescheduled it to May 2019 but arranged to meet Elly at the Flatlands Brooklyn Public Library on Flatbush Avenue where she spoke to the fifth graders of P.S. 119 Amersfort School about her experiences and atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.
