Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee Archives

Philip N. Backstrom Survivor Lecture Series

Michelson, Max
Leff, Laurel
Northeastern University (Boston, Mass.)
Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Committee

Holocaust survivor Max Michelson discusses his experiences during the Holocaust as part of the Philip N. Backstrom Survivor Lecture Series held during Northeastern University's annual Holocaust Awareness Week. Michelson, orginally from Riga, Latvia, gives an overview of the Holocaust in Riga and particularly highlights the role of local population in the violence there. A teenager at the start of the war, Michelson did forced labor in the ghetto in Riga and avoided the Rumbula and Bikernieki forest massacres. He later spent time in the Kaiserwald and Stutthof concentration camps and in a camp in Magdeburg, Germany.