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TRANSCRIPTS OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR INTERVIEWS (Page 7)
©2000 Jim Terr / Blue Canyon Productions. All Rights Reserved
GUNTHER ARON
During the period that Kristallnacht took place, all Jewish men over a certain age were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. And some curious things happened. For example, my brother, who had not seen his uncle for many years, ran into his uncle. Another thing happened at that same concentration camp was that my brother in law, Herbert, was in that same concentration camp standing next to his brother Sigi, and at one point or another there was a get-together. Some commandant had asked for people to assemble, and he asked them is there anybody who is going to emigrate during the next few weeks. So Herbert grabbed his brother by the hand and dragged him those fateful steps forward. It turns out that Herbert hadn't the foggiest idea where to go but he figured anything to get out of the concentration camp. So subsequently they went to Shanghai, which was the only place that would take refugees. Other countries had their regular immigration quotas, and they didn't deviate. For example, in the United States… Anyhow, that single step forward turned out to be his lifesaver.
My sister Lizzie was on her way to England when war broke out, and she found herself in Holland, she was being hidden by the Dutch underground. At one point or another the Germans ordered all Dutch Jews and other Jews to come to a certain location. Now Jews had been required to wear the Star of David, and my sister Lizzie, when that occurred, took the Star of David she had been wearing and took it off and tacked it on very loosely. At that point, it occurred that there were orders to assemble someplace, and she got herself two tickets: one ticket for the destination where they were supposed to go, and another for an in-between station. So when the train stopped at the in-between station, she tore quickly the Star of David off her sleeve and gave the agent the ticket that was required, and she was never to be seen again by the Germans.
My father and mother and my sister Ruth and Auntie Zelma perished in the Holocaust.
(Mr. Aaron's complete "Recollections" are attached at the end of this transcript)
DR. JOSEPH H. VANDENHEUVEL
(A native of Holland, Dr. VanDenHeuvel gave this address at the dedication of the Holocaust Memorial in Albuquerque, New Mexico November 8, 1998)
When I was a young boy about 10 years old, Monday I was ready to go to school, my friend Irving came out of his house, he looked weird, he had a big yellow thing on his coat. I said Irving what is that? And he said it's a Star of David. I'd never seen a Star of David, I said what do you mean, a Star of David, what is it? He explained to me, he said well you know I'm Jewish and the Nazis are making us wear these things. I didn't know about the Star of David, I didn't know about Irving being Jewish or anything else.
Andrew asked me when he spoke to me on the phone a few days ago, why did your father do this? Because many of your friends were Jewish, or because you feel close to the Jewish people? The answer is, really, neither. Because these were human beings who were about to be killed, and my dad reacted as a human being to the plight of another human being, whether Jew, Catholic, immigrant, schizophrenic, homosexual, Gypsy, on and on. We all know that thousands of groups over the years, through the history of mankind have been persecuted and killed.
You have to understand that to do something like this meant, if you were lucky, you'd be arrested and deported to a slave labor camp. But normally it meant that you and your family would be shot. I saw many people put up against the wall and shot for this very thing, for hiding and transporting in the underground, Jews or other people. So my father took the risk, risked his own life, my life, my mother's life, and the lives of all seven children in our family.
My question to you this afternoon is, how many of us would risk his life, her life, and the lives of all the people in your family, for the sake of another person whom you don't know, have never seen, and will never see again? Because they only stay in your house one night. You don't know who they are, and you're not told who they are. All in order to provide as much protection in this house.
I heard a TV program some years ago where a retired photographer, US Army photographer showed the most horrendous photographs of the Holocaust. At the end of the program the reporter asked him what did you take away from all this? What does it all mean? What are we to learn from this? Because after all if we don't learn from history we're bound to repeat it. The mans' answer was, these Nazis who killed the Jews and the other people in the Holocaust, were not little men from Mars. They were like you and me. The ability to do lives in the heart of the human being.
Thomas Merton, the Catholic scholar, mystic, monk, said "Violence lives in every person. It is to make The Other different, and to declare ourselves the norm and defender of human behavior." The very thing each one of us does, I'm afraid, many times, each day. That's how it starts out: put a star on a guy, make him different. That's how it starts up. That we may never forget the start and the story I told you today.
With your permission, I end with a very brief prayer: "Oh Lord, give eternal rest to the victims of the Holocaust. May Your light shine on them and on the survivors forever."