Faigie Schmidt Libman's Story
/While I was recently recording a voiceover for the upcoming documentary “The Last Nazi Trials,” the film’s director Matthew Shoychet told me about Faigie Schmidt Libman. Faigie is a Holocaust survivor, now living in Toronto. Born in Lithuania, Faigie cannot forget the day SS Master Sergeant Helmut Rauca murdered 10,500 people in her village. Faygie survived and was sent to a concentration camp. After spending a few years in a displaced person’s camp following the war, Faigie moved to Toronto and built a life for herself.
But she was reluctant to talk about her horrific experience, until the day she opened the Toronto Star and discovered that Rauca, had been arrested for killing 11,500 Lithuanian Jews. What’s more, she discovered that Rauca had for years been living only a few blocks from her Toronto home.
Hearing Faigie’s story moved me greatly because as a reporter in the early 1980’s, I found and exposed Helmut Rauca, brought him to the attention of the authorities and had him extradited for trial in Germany.
Here’s Faigie’s story