Alicia Quotes

“I was beginning to die myself. I realized that a person could actually become one of the living dead; could go on living but feel nothing, not pain, not fear, not sorrow. I was very near to this state.”
― Alicia Appleman, Alicia: My Story

“As a matter of fact, I believed that all the Jews who survived should leave Poland. We were no longer part of Polish life. The Poles not only didn’t want us; many hated us. I had been convinced of this by the way the Polish official had reacted to my plea for help.”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“Then I remembered that the Ukrainians and the Germans were allies, and she had no reason to fear the Germans”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“The war had given the Ukrainians the upper hand. The Germans promised them a free Ukraine, free from Poland and from the Soviet Union, in return for their collaboration, and they gladly gave it. Ukrainians cooperated zealously in the elimination of the Jewish population. As the war progressed, and the Jewish people were all but eliminated from the area, the Ukrainians turned their attention to the Poles. The Banderas, a national Ukrainian group, would sweep into Polish villages pretending to look for Jews, and more often than not would leave the villages in flames.”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“The Ukrainians wanted an independent Ukraine, without Poles.”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“I had not met one Pole yet who would stand up for a Jew,”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“Yes, I know why you are doing this. Hitler promised you a free Ukraine. Well, it will be a Ukraine soaked with Jewish blood, but it will never be free. When Hitler finishes with us, he will kill you too.”
― Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Alicia: My Story

“remember passing our once-beautiful large synagogue, which had not been used for many years now, and seeing a woman leaning against the wall wailing, just crying out in agony. She looked to me like a branch dismembered from a tree, an arm without a body, a mind filled with grief, a bleeding heart, a walking tragedy. I hurried away, afraid of being swept up into her grief.”
― Alicia Appleman, Alicia: My Story