Flights of Spirit by Elly Gotz - Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Collection

Elly reflects on his laters years with his wife and their travels back to Lithuania, their involvement with the Holocaust Memorial Centre, and their work with students seeking jobs.

Following his graduation from university, Elly is occupied by multiple jobs and the wish to find a partner. He meets Esme Cohen, the child of Lithuanian parents who left the country following WWI, and they wed.

Elly and his mother arrive in South Africa. Elly enrolls in technical school.

Elly’s parents are desperate to get out of Germany, with no surety of where to go and eventually settle on Norway.

The author recounts his time in the Kovno ghetto where the small hospital catches fire.

He is reunited with his mother and aunt. He shares letters written from his family members to others all around the world in an effort to show the reality that Jewish people faced at the time. Elly decides to go back to school and get an education.

The author gets work at a monastery with no pay to get his mind off of the war. His thoughts are consumed by his hatred for Germans.

By April 24, 1945, the war is coming to an end. Elly, his father and the other prisoners board a train already occupied by dead bodies. In the next days they are liberated by the Americans.

Elly remembers the three Commandants: the Musician, the Medical Student, and the last Commandant – Otto Förschner.