February 7, 1929: Judy Beker is born in a small town in Lithuania known as Josvainiai. She was the youngest of three children. Judy’s father, Osser, worked as a lumber merchant. Osser died suddenly while on a business trip when Judy was 8 years old. 1/ 
Judy’s mother, Mina, moved Judy and her siblings (sister, Rachel, and brother, Abe) to the city of Kovno (Kaunus) in 1938. Mina began working as a seamstress to support the family. 2/
In 1940 Soviet Russia occupied Lithuania. Mina warned her children to carefully conceal their Jewish identities in public. Rumors that “they are burning the Jews in Poland” circulated in the community. 3/
In 1941 Germany invaded Lithuania. More than 140 members of Judy’s family were killed by the Einsatzgruppen and their Lithuanian collaborators. 4/
In August 1941, the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in Kovno. About 35,000 Jews were confined to the ghetto located in a suburb of Kovno called Slabodka. Judy and her family were forced to live in the ghetto with three other families in a single apartment. 5/
The ghetto was enclosed by a fence that prevented Jews from leaving. Within the first three months of its existence, 12,000 Jews were killed in the Kovno ghetto. Many others died from starvation. 6/
Because of her blonde hair and blue eyes, Judy was chosen and trained to sneak out of the ghetto to bring back bread and supplies. The missions were dangerous and she was at constant risk of being caught. Punishment would have been death. She was 12 years old. 7/
While in the ghetto Judy was forced to work in a factory making rubber boots for the German army. 8/
The Nazis began transporting Jews from the Kovno ghetto to concentration camps to either be killed in gas chambers or forced into slave labor and tortured. When Kovno was liberated by Soviet forces on August 1, 1944 only a few hundred Jews remained. 9/
In June 1944 Judy, Rachel, Abe and their mother Mina are transported by truck from the Kovno ghetto to a train station. Her brother Abe is put on a train to Dachau concentration camp. Judy, her sister Rachel, and their mother Mina are sent to Stutthof Concentration Camp. 10/
Upon arrival at Stutthof, Judy’s hair was torn out by two SS guards. She was assigned to the womens barracks, and each day was forced to stand long hours for appell (German for "roll call"). Appell could last for as long as half a day and be called at any time, day or night. 11/
Judy was beaten and tortured by SS guards and forced to work in the assembly line of a metal factory operated on the Stutthof premises. This was the second time she was used for slave labor during the war. She was 15 years old. 12/
On November 21, 1944, Judy’s mother Mina was murdered in the gas chamber at Stutthof. Judy was in line to enter the gas chamber with Mina when a guard ordered Judy to run back to the barrack. The last thing Judy remembered hearing was Mina yelling “Run, Judy, Run.” 13/
Here is the page from the Nazi record book at Stutthof showing the date Mina was murdered. 14/
As the Russian army advanced closer to Stutthof, the Nazis began evacuating the area and sent prisoners of Stutthof on a "death march." On January 25, 1945, Judy, her sister, and around 1,000 other female prisoners were forced to march in the freezing cold. 15/
The death march was headed for the umschlagplatz (a place where prisoners are killed or put on transports to other camps) in Nickelswaide, about 8 miles away. If prisoners walked too slow they were executed by the guards. 16/
Allied forces began bombing, and amidst the chaos Judy and Rachel managed to take cover in a ditch. After the bombing stopped, and the march continued, the girls waited until it was safe to run away. 17/
The girls found a coal bin near a house and fell asleep inside. They were awakened by a Russian POW who was working on the farm, which was owned by an SS official. The POW took them inside the house, fed them, and they took a bath for the first time in years. 18/
The POW warned the girls they were not safe and if they were found they would be taken immediately to the umschlagplatz. He gave them clothes and told them to pretend to be Lithuanian Catholics named Uta and Anna. 19/
Following a path in the snow made by the Russian POW on horseback, the girls crossed the frozen Vistula river. On the other side they found refuge in a convent with a cloister of nuns. 20/
Judy’s sister Rachel became sick with typhus. In her delirium she spoke Yiddish to the nuns, and revealed their Jewish identities. The nuns took great care of Rachel and she regained her health. The nuns insisted they pray every day with them in the chapel. 21/
Believing they were the only two Jews left alive, Judy and Rachel decided to leave the convent. By then Judy was very ill, so Rachel took her to a hospital in Gdansk to get treatment. Judy pretended to be mute to avoid being identified as a Jew. 22/
A few days later, Rachel returned to Judy at the hospital accompanied by a German woman. The woman’s husband was an SS officer but the family had agreed to give the girls housing and food if they worked as their servants. They pretend to be Anna and Uta, Lithuanian Catholics. 23/
Judy and Rachel worked for this German family at a Wehrmacht station supporting German troops, keeping their fake identities. They were forced to live in the barn and eat like animals from the floor. 24/
As Allied forces began liberating areas of Poland, Germans began to evacuate to other German occupied territories. The German family arranged for Judy and Rachel to travel with them by boat to Denmark. 25/
The boat to Denmark was struck by a torpedo and the sisters survived by clinging to debris until rescued by another fishing boat. They were brought to Denmark and given shelter in a refugee center. 26/
Judy and her sister Rachel maintained false identities while living in the German displaced persons camp in Denmark until the country was liberated from Nazi rule on May 5, 1945. 27/
When Denmark was liberated, the sisters came forward as Jewish survivors. Stunned that two Jews were hiding in the refugee center, a nurse from the Red Cross asked the girls to sign their name in Hebrew to prove their Jewish identities. 28/
The girls initially remained in Denmark where they regained their health. They were taken in and cared for by a Danish couple, Paula and Svend Jensen. 29/
Judy and Rachel met another survivor from Stutthof and the woman told them she had learned her own husband survived Dachau and was now living in a displaced persons camp in Italy. They decided to try to locate their brother, not knowing his fate. 30/
Judy and Rachel sent a poster with their photos and contact information to the camp in Italy. Their brother Abe saw the poster and sent them a postcard telling them he was trying to get to Israel but could not because of the British blockade. He ended up in Toronto, Canada. 31/
Judy and Rachel. Survivors.
Judy decided to leave Denmark and travel to Canada to be reunited with her brother. In 1949 Judy met her first husband, Gabe Cohen, on the boat to Canada. He was returning home from Israel. They later married and had three children, Mina, Michael and Debby. 32/
Rachel married a Dane, Yosfa Levitin, had a son Oscar, and then also moved with them to Toronto. 33/
Judy and Gabe settled in Philadelphia. When Judy witnessed racism and segregation in her own neighborhood she became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She began telling her story as a warning of what hatred can do. She marched with and met MLK. She became an activist. 34/
Today Judy is 90 years old and lives in Minneapolis, MN. She has six grandchildren and seven great grandchilden... (more are on the way). 35/
In 2016 the FBI knocked on Judy’s door to ask if she would provide testimony to German investigators seeking indictments of former Stutthof guards for accessory to mass murder. She said yes. One of those guards will stand trial this Thursday. He is 93 years old. 36/
