Children of the Holocaust Sidney Finkel

CHILDREN of the HOLOCAUST

Sidney Finkel

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Sidney Finkel
Born 1939 in Lodz, Poland At age eight, German bombs destroyed his home. He spent the war years in the Piotrkow ghetto, slave labor camps in Bugaj and Czestochowa, and Buchenwald concentration camp. He survived the Death March, and was ultimately liberated at Theresienstadt.
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From left, Sidney’s mother, Faiga, his aunt Rachel, and his sister Ronia on the street in Poland before the war. All three perished in the Holocaust. This is the only photograph Sidney has of his mother and aunt.
Sidney’s sister Ronia Finkelstein Blausztejn, before the war. She was shot by SS soldiers after giving birth to her first child. The Nazis threw the newborn boy out a window to his death.
Isaac Finkelstein, Sidney’s brother, served in the Polish army before World War II. He survived the Holocaust and lived in England after the war.
Sidney (right) after the war, waiting with other child survivors to be taken to England.
Sidney (center top, smiling), on the transport plane that brought him to England. His brother, Isaac (left), is helping a two-year-old orphan.
Sidney (center) in 1945. He was 13 years old when he was taken to England.
Sidney and 300 other child survivors of the Holocaust were taken to the Calgarth Estate in England’s Lake District. They spent four months acclimating to their new lives. A 90-minute film about this experience, “Windermere Children,” aired on PBS in 2020, along with a documentary, “The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words.”
Sidney in England as a teenager. He attended boarding school at Bunce Court in Kent.
Sidney's sister Lola also survived the Holocaust. This photo was taken in 1948. She eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona.
Sidney emigrated to the United States in 1951, at the age of 19. He moved to Chicago.
Sidney’s memoir was endorsed by fellow Buchenwald survivor Elie Wiesel, who wrote, “You know how deeply I feel about memory. Many readers will thank you for yours.”
Sidney’s daughter Ruth Finkel Wade (left) co-edited an anthology of essays by children of Holocaust survivors called “The Ones Who Remember.”
CHILDREN of the HOLOCAUST
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