I Grew Up Detached from My Jewish History. Then I Went to Buchenwald
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dana Mitch grew up knowing pieces of her family’s Holocaust story, but they never quite felt like her own. That changed when she visited Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps on German soil.
Walking through its grounds brought the past into sharper focus and helped her connect with a history she had long known only from a distance.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:14.1 | And we return to our American stories. |
| 0:17.7 | Up next, a story from writer Dana Mitch. Today she shares a piece of her family's story, |
| 0:24.8 | a piece that occurred in Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps and the largest |
| 0:31.3 | on German soil. Take it away, Dana. |
| 0:37.6 | A few months ago, I stood at Buchanwald in a large open field |
| 0:41.7 | that was covered in an endless expanse of rocky gray gravel. |
| 0:46.5 | The ground that I gazed at before me was where the barracks once had been. |
| 1:03.5 | On that unnaturally humid and sunny afternoon, thunder ominously clapped from heavy storm clouds that loomed off in the distance. |
| 1:06.7 | The skies certainly echoed my state of mind. |
| 1:16.2 | As for anyone that visits a concentration camp, it was a particularly sobering and gut-wrenching experience. |
| 1:19.5 | But for me, it was more than just emotional. |
| 1:21.8 | It was personal. |
| 1:23.9 | Why was I there? |
| 1:29.9 | To learn about my grandfather, who had stood on that very ground some 78 years prior, and reconnect with his life, his journey, his story. |
| 1:39.7 | The morning after Kristallnacht, at the age of 25, my grandfather was arrested by the SS and taken to Buchanwald as a part of the special program, |
| 1:56.4 | the first ever mass deportation and interment of Jews at that camp. |
| 2:02.1 | He arrived on November 13, 1938, before the barracks were even built. |
| 2:07.8 | And for three or four days and nights, he waited among 10,000 other Jews in the freezing |
| 2:13.1 | winter rain to receive a roof over his head and a 20 centimeter wide wooden sleeping plank. |
| 2:21.1 | Many who were there with him during that time didn't survive, and I will always remember |
... |
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