Henry Friedman

Jewish Boy in Hiding

All I did was pray and sleep … pray to a God who at that time I was afraid had abandoned the Jewish people and closed His eyes and ears to their suffering. But I had no choice but to pray, because that was the only way to communicate, and it gave me some hope.

Henry Friedman, Holocaust Survivor

Wracked by hunger, 14-year-old Henry Friedman evaded the Nazis in a barn loft as small as a queensize bed. His diet of scraps—soup, bread, an occasional piece of meat—was eventually reduced to a single slice of bread. For 18 months, the Jewish boy found solace in prayer.

Christian farmers gambled with their lives to hide Henry, his mother, his brother and a teacher. By liberation in 1944, only 88 of 10,000 Jews from his hometown of Brody, Poland, had survived.

Henry Friedman
Henry Friedman

Top: Washington Governor Booth Gardner signs 1992 legislation encouraging study of the Holocaust in public schools. Friedman Family Collection

Left: In 1989, Henry Friedman brings Julia Symchuck to America. In February 1942, the Ukrainian woman warned Henry’s father that he was wanted by the Gestapo. That October, Julia’s parents took Henry’s family into hiding. Friedman Family Collection

Henry Friedman

Henry Friedman, age 17, in his hometown of Gliwice, Poland. Friedman Family Collection

Henry Friedman

Top: Henry’s father hid near his family, in the barn of Maria Bazalchik, for nearly two years. Henry stayed with him temporarily in what he described as the worst months of his life. Friedman Family Collection>

Bottom: Friedman Family Collection

Henry Friedman