Shep zitler birthdate

My hero isn't a fast runner, a scientist, nor is he a doctor, but he is still a huge source of inspiration to me and the world. Shep Zitler had many hard times when he was a kid, but he persevered through all of it. Being a Jew in Hitler's time was a rough life. So was living as a prisoner of war. Eventually, he moved to America. He has a wife and a son. Today he speaks to kids about his life. Point is that Shep never gave up, and that is why he is my hero.

My hero, Shep Zitler, was born on May 27, in Vilnius, Lithuania. In February , Shep was drafted into the Polish army. He had never mixed with the Poles; they lived on one side of the street, and he lived on the other. He must have felt pretty bad fighting against one enemy alongside another. The Polish even said, "First we are going to take care of the Germans, then we are going to take care of you." On September 1, , the Germans invaded Poland and started the war. Poland lost in just sixteen days. Shep and his unit were captured by Radom and taken to a prisoner of war camp. For five years and seven months Shep was sent to various camps and forced to labor around the clock just to stay alive. Finally, near the end of the war, after marching for two or three days, the Germans told them to lay down in a field and sleep. They were woken up by the Russian cavalry. After giving up their watches and many travels later, they ended up in London.

In his leave from the army, Shep got a job in London selling suits. He worked hard all week, and half a day on Sundays. He only received three pounds a week. After three years of hard work and great effort he got a break. Shep's uncle in New Orleans would sponsor Shep to go to America. On December 23, , Shep's ship arrived in the United States of America. He stayed with one of his unit members who also survived the labor camp. "Shep," his friend said, "here in America we ta

Shep Zitler was born in Vilna, Poland. He was seventeen in when he was drafted into the Polish army. In the beginning of World War II, he was captured by the Germans and sent to a POW camp. He survived five years and eight months in Nazi captivity.

PR     I'd like to start by asking your name and when and where you were born, please.

SZ     My name is Shep Zitler. I was born in Vilna, Poland, on May 27, Right during the First World War. Twenty-one years I was living in Poland, till and the Second World War. I had one brother, four sisters, my mother, and my father and of course brother-in-law. I'm the only survivor since the time of the war, since , but I had a brother who left Vilna in for Palestine. I had an older sister, brother, older sister. My older sister left in In her honor they made a photograph in with the whole family. The photograph shows you my whole family: three other sisters, with their husbands, my parents. None of them died a normal death. All were killed by the Nazis in different ways. Some of members I know how they were killed. For example my niece, oldest sister's daughter, Sterna Morgenstein, a beautiful girl eighteen years old, and she was murdered by the Nazi Weiss in Ponar. It was a forest six miles from Vilna. They took them out and they killed them. Weiss was just talking to her. While her mother and younger brother were already dead in the ditch. They told her to undress and if she wouldn't do it they will stab her eyes out. That's what Weiss told her. She was beautiful. He says to her, You're too beautiful to be dead. And he talked to her. And then from his side pocket he pulls a gun and shot her in the head. He laughed, and he pulled her to the family ditch. How do I know? It was written up. Somebody saw it. My oldest brother-in-law was a famous professor of Polish literature and language in Vilna. That's why they wrote about him. I guess that's how we know. I don't know. But they were all killed.

PR     You joined the Polish Ar

Shep Zitler was born in Vilna (Vilnius). The city and region was annexed by Poland after World War I. Shep lived with his parents, his brother, and his four sisters. His brother and a sister immigrated to Palestine before the Second World War. In , Shep was drafted into the Polish Army. He was captured by the Germans in September

The Germans ceded Vilna to Lithuania, and Lithuania was promptly annexed by the Soviet Union, which was then a German ally. As a result, Shep fell into a unique category: he was "a Jewish soldier of Lithuanian origin." As a result, his life was spared. He was sent to several POW camps, where he was subjected to brutal treatment. During the first year of captivity, Shep received letters from his mother. The letters stopped coming in Shep's family was murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators in Ponary Forest, a killing ground near Vilna.

In , Shep moved to New Orleans. He married and had a son.

This series was funded by the Rita and Harold Divine Foundation, the Siggy Boraks Family, and made possible by the generous contribution of video production services of WDSU-TV in New Orleans.