Fritzie Fritzshall, the president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, survived years of hardship and escaped near-certain death in Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in what was then German-occupied Poland.
More than a million people died at Auschwitz, mostly Jews, including Fritzshall's mother and two young brothers. Her grandfather died on the way to the camp.
She's returned to see the camp before but now, more than seven decades after she was liberated on a death march from Auschwitz, Fritzshall returned for what may be the final time with Chicago's Roman Catholic Cardinal Blase Cupich.
At a time when the FBI data shows that hate crimes are up 17% year to year and anti-Semitic hate crimes are up 37% returning to the place of history's darkest crime carries new relevance today. The Anti-Defamation League also is tracking an uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in the Midwest and nationwide.
Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall returns to Auschwitz with Cardinal Blase Cupich
Holocaust Survivor Fritzie Fritzshall: 'I wouldn't be here today' without women who saved her life at Auschwitz
Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall remembers aunt who saved her from Auschwitz gas chamber
Which countries did the Jews who were deported to Auschwitz come from?
Locations highlighted in ABC 7 Eyewitness News Presents Return to Auschwitz: A Survivor's Story:
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
ABC7 Eyewitness News Presents Return to Auschwitz: A Survivor's Story
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