Holocaust Museum Virtual Tour And Survivor Talk

On his Holocaust experience, Joe Alexander reflects: "I feel that the man upstairs wanted me to survive so I can tell people what happened."  

 

Joe Alexander was born in 1922 in Kowal, Poland. He and his family enjoyed a comfortable and stable life until Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939. At the beginning of the war, Joe’s family fled and joined other relatives in the town of Blonie. In late 1940, Blonie’s Jews were transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. Joe’s father bribed some guards to let Joseph and two of his siblings escape back to Kowal. This was the last time he saw the rest of his family. From Kowal, Joe was sent to different concentration camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, he was sent from Auschwitz back to the Warsaw Ghetto to clean up the destruction’s aftermath. As the Polish Home Army advanced towards Warsaw, Joe was sent to camps in Germany, and then on a death march. He was liberated by American troops in 1945. He immigrated to the United States in 1949 where he married and had two children.