Peter Holocaust Survivor Testimony
Peter Fuchs was born in 1929 in Düsseldorf, Germany, to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. Raised as a Catholic, he was unaware of his Jewish identity until he first encountered antisemitism as a child—an experience that left a lasting mark.
After his parents divorced, his mother fled to the Netherlands with her new husband, later arranging for Peter to join them. As the war intensified, he was placed in a Catholic boarding school for safety. When the school could no longer care for the children, Peter was left on his own. For nearly three years, he survived by moving between homes, relying on the kindness of strangers and his own resilience.
During this time, he taught himself to play the accordion—a skill that would shape his future.
After the war, Peter reunited with his family and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He later returned to Germany to study music, where he reconnected with his biological father, a judge at the Nuremberg Trials. Back in the U.S., he built a distinguished career as a musician and conductor, including work in Broadway orchestras, and raised a family with his wife, Veronica.
Years later, a visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach led him to reconnect with his Jewish roots. He chose to bear witness through his music, sharing his story and reminding future generations of both the dangers of hatred and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
“The better part of us must survive,” he says. For Peter, music is his faith.
Video Transcript
Bearing Witness Through Music
An Interview with Peter
A Musical Welcome
Leslie: Today I’m in Miami meeting Peter, an only child born in 1929 in Düsseldorf to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father.
Leslie: The maestro gives me a very special welcome.
Leslie: As a child during the war, Peter was prevented from studying music. Years later, he would take his revenge, becoming a conductor of renowned orchestras on Broadway.
Leslie: Do you know what’s so special? I can see the pleasure and the joy that you have when you play.
Peter: Yeah, that’s that’s what
Leslie: you smile when you play.
Peter: Well, at most probably that’s what made me grow so old. Today is my birthday.
Leslie: No way.
Peter: My 96th birthday.
Leslie: Happy birthday. Yeah. Yeah. Happy birthday.
Peter: It just so happens over.
Leslie: You know what? I do not have candles, but I did bring you But I did bring you a cake. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Peter. Happy birthday to you.
Childhood in Germany
Leslie: As a child, Peter was baptized but not circumcised. He remembers the rise of anti-semitism in Germany.
Peter: those brown shirts they the SA was called they were the they were hoodlums and they love to do this kind of thing they paint huge big swastikas and break furniture you know Jews were thought by some of these you know like you know vermin
Leslie: in 1936 his parents divorced his mother and stepfather both Jewish fled Germany for the Netherlands leaving Peter behind
Peter: I did not know I was Jewish. And I didn’t know what that meant. I had no idea. I was a young boy. I was six, six, seven years old. And then one day, well, you know, finally when I got into school and and right there on the some bully came up to me and uh and and told me, “Your your mother is a dirty Jewish pig.” That’s what he told me. I didn’t even know what that meant, tell you the truth, except he insulted my mother. And
Leslie: so, how did you react?
Peter: Oh, I got a fisticuffs. I walked away with a bloody nose and I felt proud of myself. Felt proud of my bloody nose defending my mother.
Joining His Mother in the Netherlands
Leslie: As the danger kept growing, the family decided to send Peter to join them in Rotterdam.
Peter: They had to wear this.
Leslie: Mhm.
Peter: They weren’t allowed to work. They lived in a like so many other Jews in one house with two other couples. Each had a bedroom. You know, they they that was their life. It was a life of waiting to be picked up.
Leslie: For greater safety, Peter was placed in a Catholic school, but the danger followed him there. During a visit to his parents, the Gestapo came.
Peter: I was in the attic. All of a sudden, I hear this loud German noises, you know, this this. So, I knew right away there was something something wrong. And sure enough, then I went downstairs and and u they took my mother, they took my my stepfather, took all these other people and I was crying and then you know, but they wouldn’t take me. You know why? Just because I was a kid.
False Papers and Separation
Leslie: His mother and stepfather were released and using false papers, they went into hiding.
Peter: [false names unclear in captions], they both spoke French very well. They were educated people. They actually went with their false papers on the train to Brussels. There they spent two and a half years in an attic. Like the Anne Frank story, this is what they wrote every day. Four years struggle against fate.
Leslie: This is so precious.
Surviving Without a Home
Leslie: Peter left behind in the Catholic school was confronted with yet another tragedy.
Peter: The worst had not happened to me yet. What happened to me is is is that the Catholic boy school could not feed the kids anymore. And so they sent everybody home. Except I didn’t have a home anymore. My parents, I didn’t know where they were. And the best I could do is go back to the village where I had last seen them and where I had made some Dutch friends. From there on for the next two and a half to three years, I I became a vagrant. And
Leslie: like literally, you would say?
Peter: Yes. Yes. I was dependent upon the kindness of the Dutch people of that village. But I must have slept in God knows about 20 30 different homes and places. We scavenged for food. We had to go in the woods and um um pick mushrooms, pick nuts, berries, steal steal whatever we could from the farmers just like a a pack of wolves. You know,
Peter: you want to wash yourself once a week. You know, you somebody had to fire up the stove and and make make a pot of water and and and and put it in a thing and you go this way that you know it’s a it’s a so totally primitive type of life. What I felt sorry for myself was
Peter: when when came the holidays and the kids all had their parents and I didn’t know where my parents were. So that is the my damage and from there on of course you know I had to be careful I I had no papers I was
Leslie: no one ever questioned in this town whether you were Jewish or not.
Music, Liberation, and Reunion
Peter: No they knew that’s why they helped me. The Dutch were you know I mean you know wonderful.
Leslie: During this period, Peter taught himself to play music. And at liberation, he was reunited with his mother and stepfather.
Peter: Of course, it was very happy that I could greet my mother with an accordion and and played the accordion and had a little band and oh, was it, you know,
Leslie: two years later, they obtained visas to the United States.
Peter: sailing into New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty on one looking there and it was a
Peter: beautiful day and everybody 400 people were on the standing everybody was crying. It’s a new world you know it’s all behind us all that rott
The Dream of Becoming a Musician
Leslie: Peter later became a GI for the US Army but he never abandoned his deep desire to become a musician.
Peter: I want to go back to Germany. I want to go to the conservatory of Munich which was one of the very best schools in the world even under the Nazis and after the Nazi music is music you know my stepfather said how could you will not allow it you you cannot after all they did to us and can’t go back in I I said I want to go
Leslie: he was reunited with his father who had become a judge and the international milit military tribunal in Nuremberg.
Peter: In many ways, it was wonderful. You know, was I was an artist. I I lived the artist life, which I could never afford to. I studied. I got to whatever, you know, information I they could give me.
Family and a Return to His Past
Leslie: Back in the United States, Peter met Veronica, an opera singer. They married, had four children, and eventually settled in Florida. Standing at the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial, Peter felt the need to reconnect with his Jewish roots and his past.
Peter: Always went past that that that hand. And I never took a close look. And then one day I took a close look. Then I said to myself, you know, you got to get in touch with your past. You have to do something. You know, you have a talent. I so I decided to write write this particular piece that is orchestrated for a huge big 50-piece orchestra.
Bearing Witness Through Music
Leslie: It is through music that Peter chose to bear witness so that what happened to him is never forgotten.
Peter: What was done there was so ugly, so inhuman. It’s so unbelievably unworthy of of human beings that that that I don’t think you know we we should always remember that that that there are some people that are capable of doing these things. This is a lesson humanity has to learn whether whether they want to learn it or don’t want to learn it but but it it it we need to you know the better part of us has to survive.
Music and the Human Spirit
Leslie: What do you think about the religion in general?
Peter: I’ve struggled with religion my whole life. I’ve you know I started off as a Catholic. The the Catholicism, that part of Catholicism doesn’t have any meaning to me anymore. I never learned Judaism religion has basically good intentions, but it never somehow worked out. It it it it somehow made made more blood flow in this world than ever.
Leslie: Is this your religion? Music?
Peter: Yes. part of my where where my heart is is is there. You know that’s that’s where you can find Peter [surname unclear in captions] if you know how to find him.
Leslie: Thank you, Peter. I hope it wasn’t too hard for you today.
Peter: No, no, it wasn’t.
Leslie: Okay.
Peter: You made it very pleasant.
Leslie: Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Keep playing. You play amazing.
Speaker unconfirmed: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
