Remembering the Holocaust

I know I'm a tad behind on this blog post, considering that it's been over a week since I had the honor of picking up one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust to speak at . However, it's a story I feel compelled to share.  The eighth grade class at OMS recently completed a study of WWII and the Holocaust.  As an extension of that unit of study, they invited Bill Bragg, a WWII veteran, and Sarah Moses, the Holocaust survivor, to speak to the students.

As much as I enjoyed meeting and listening to Bill Bragg, I'm going to focus this blog on Sarah Moses.  For those of you who read my blog regularly, you might remember that I'm in a book club.  Our last selection was a fiction novel called Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  It was about a reporter investigating the French involvement in the Vel'd'Hiv Roundup in Paris in 1942.  This reporter followed the life of a young girl named Sarah, her experiences at a concentration camp, her subsequent escape, and her life after the war ended.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from one of my daughter's teachers to see if I would pick up their speaker who was one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust.  It was an odd coincidence since I'd just finished my book over spring break.  It was even more surprising to find out that her name was Sarah, like the protagonist in my story.  I jumped at the opportunity.

What followed was one of the most meaningful encounters of my life.  I've always been intrigued by stories of the Holocaust, never quite understanding how something that atrocious could actually happen in our world.  But reading about it and watching movies about it, don't even come close to hearing about it firsthand.  I have to admit that I was a little nervous about what I should or shouldn't say, but I decided to just be open and friendly and let her take the lead.

We had about a half hour drive each way together, in addition to the time she spoke to the students (and even a few other girls from my book club!).  During this time, I learned that she was born into a Jewish ghetto in Poland that was occupied by the Nazis when she was just a year old.  She was never really able to play outside and make friends.  

In fact, after a student asked if any of her friends survived the Holocaust as well, she confessed that she really couldn't say she had any friends until after her liberation when she was 7 years old.  Can you imagine any of our children going all the way to third grade without ever having a friend?

Her only "friends" in the concentration camp were her fingers.  She gave each one a distinct personality and imagined a "look" for each one.  She basically interacted with them as if they were paper dolls or something, as she also had no toys to play with during these years.  Her mother was killed when she was just 5 years old, her father was separated into the men's camp, and she was left with an aunt and her imagination to survive.

She did talk of the kindness of one guard.  She said she reminded this guard of her own daughter whom she left behind when she was "forced" to be a part of Hitler's regime.  This guard gave her a portion of her food each day, which Sarah came to realize helped her survive those early years in the camp.  

By the time she was moved to Bergen Belsen concentration camp, she was already weak.  There, conditions worsened and there were people dying all around her. There, she had no guard to share her food, and she lost more and more weight. By the time the British soldiers came to free the prisoners, she was barely alive.  

The first English words she ever heard were "A Baby, A Baby" when they came upon her. Though she was 7 years old, the soldier thought he'd found a baby.

Can you even imagine?

In the hospital when she was recovering, this soldier visited her every day.  He asked her what he could bring her to help her through this.  She asked for a doll and something to draw with.  She told the students that he brought these things for her.  She told me that since the area had been bombed and nearly destroyed, there were no places to buy new toys.  The soldier found a doll that was missing a nose, had a hole in its head, and was tattered and worn.  He told her that he brought her that doll because it reminded him of her.  It survived the war too. It was her most prized possession.

She was later reunited with her father, which was a happy ending for the students.  

In the car, she talked about how he was an angry atheist and how her life after the war was full of dysfunction.  I can't begin to imagine how you would move forward after something like that.  

She married young, had four children in four years and much like Sarah in Sarah's Key, she kept a lot of her past from her children.  It wasn't until she was in her sixties that she really began speaking about what she had lived through.  

She tells it in a beautiful way.  She weaves her words together seamlessly.  One of the students said she should write a book.  How happy we all were to find out that she is!  She is two-thirds finished, and I told her that publishers would be crazy not to jump at the chance to help her share her story.

She is a beautiful lady inside and out.  She realized through all of this, how important faith is, and worked hard to learn and maintain her Jewish heritage. She speaks often at the Jewish Community Center and area colleges.  

My friends and I felt as if we'd been in the presence of a national treasure.  Sarah not only shares her story of survival, but she also makes it relevant to today.  She taught our kids to stand up for others who are being ridiculed or mocked because of who they are.  

She urged our kids to learn from the past so we're not doomed to repeat it, and she showed them how to use their imaginations to help them endure and survive difficult situations.  Most of all, she reminded us just how lucky we are to live in this country and to enjoy all of the freedoms that we so often take for granted.  I can't wait for her book to be published.  It will be read by my book club for sure!