Auschwitz

Bearing Witness at the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

March 22, 2020 by Stacey Saiontz

Train tracks leading into Auschwitz – prisoners were transported in cattle cars

Elie Wiesel stated “To hear a witness is to be a witness.” I am a witness. On January 27th 2020, I traveled to Auschwitz for the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with 105 Auschwitz Survivors from around the world and 50 world leaders to commemorate the victims and honor the Survivors.

The memorial service took place on the grounds of the death camp where

1.1 million, mostly Jews, were murdered. We sat under a large heated tent that straddled the train tracks that had dragged prisoners into Birkenau, often to their death in the gas chambers. As Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, stated “I am here, simply, as a Jew. And, like all Jews everywhere, this place, this terrible place called Auschwitz has sadly become an inseparable part of us. Auschwitz is like a scar from a terrible trauma. It never goes away and the pain never stops.”

Walking into the camp I quietly reflected on my grandparents stories of survival. I took in the remains of the barracks, including the barrack where my grandfather spent his youth being tortured against his will. The weather was cold but I was well bundled and couldn’t help but think about my grandfather who was forced to spend his time in Auschwitz without a warm jacket or hat or gloves.

I listened to each Survivor as they shared intimate details about their own personal stories, details that humanized the unfathomable atrocities of Auschwitz. Details that I will shout out to the world and share with future generations so they know the Holocaust happened to men and women and children with personalities and stories, like all of us, not to abstract numbers.

The Survivors all related stories about how upon their arrival at Auschwitz over 75 years ago, they were stripped of their dignity, forced to strip down to nothing in front of all, have their heads shaved, their possessions stolen and arms permanently tattooed with a number. 94- year-old Auschwitz Survivor Batsheva Dagan spoke about her arrival and subsequent assignment of being forced to sort belongings of those sent to the gas chambers. She cried to the crowd, “Where was everybody? Where was the world who could see that, hear that and yet did nothing to save all those thousands?”

Turning A Blind Eye on the Jewish Refugee Crisis

In his speech Lauder explained “And when European Jews begged the world for a safe harbor, someplace to go, the entire world turned its back on them. Even my own country–the beacon of freedom–turned out its light on the Jewish people when they needed it most. The US organized a conference in Evian, France in July of 1938 to discuss the Jewish refugee crisis. There were a lot of lovely speeches but the US did not let any additional Jewish refugees in and every other country in attendance followed their lead. There were 32 countries and none of them, except for the tiny Dominican Republic wanted any more Jews. Hitler saw this. Four months later came Kristallnacht. And again, there was no world reaction. Hitler tested the world. And at every step he saw the truth–the world did not care. That’s when he knew he could build this factory of death. Evian led to Auschwitz. Kristallnacht led to Auschwitz. World anti-Semitism led to Auschwitz.”

Survivor Josef Kreitenberg commented “I don’t know how I survived but I just kept on believing because that’s all you could do.”

Survivors are Dwindling

As the years pass and the eye witnesses who can say “I was in Auschwitz” dwindle in numbers, these Survivors made it their duty to return to ensure the world does not forget! Polish President Andrzej Duda vocalized “We have with us the last living Survivors, the last among those who saw the Holocaust with their own eyes. The magnitude of the crime perpetrated in this place is terrifying, but we must not look away from it and we must never forget it.”

For some of the Survivors it was their first trip back since that day 75 years ago when they were finally free from their terror. However, for most it will be their last. But to all the Survivors who returned the memories of what occurred inside the infamous gate bearing the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (translation: work sets you free) are no less haunting today. Survivors continue to have nightmares as their memories are still fresh. However, Survivors feel the need to share these painful memories with future generations so the world will never forget, especially today when we witness the ominous growth of anti-Semitic attacks and hatred around the world.

The author with Survivor Angela (Angi) Orosz Richt. Angi was born in Auschwitz on December 21 one month prior to the camp’s liberation.

No Graves to Visit

Some of the Survivors returned to Auschwitz to memorialize their family members murdered there. These Survivors whose family members went up in flames in the gas chambers and crematorium do not have a grave to visit. To them, Auschwitz is a cemetery. Survivor Tova Friedman said “My going back is my telling them, I remember you.”

Survivor Ben Lesser explained: “People would love to forget the hard truths and that’s why we need to keep coming back here to refresh our memories and keep the world from acquiring amnesia. Unfortunately, we can’t live forever. What happens after we are gone, I don’t know.”

93-year-old Survivor Marian Turski declared “Auschwitz did not fall from the skies.” He urged the next generation to be vigilant. “Do not be indifferent when you hear lies, historical lies. Do not be indifferent when you see the past is stretched to fit the current political needs. Do not be indifferent when any minority is discriminated against.”

The 11th Commandment

He explained that the 11th commandment should be “Thou shall not be indifferent.” He warned that if you “don’t heed the 11th commandment you cannot be surprised when you see (another) Auschwitz fall from the sky.” He explained that if people are indifferent when incremental steps of discrimination are implemented, then another Holocaust could happen. Turksi reminded the room that what allowed the Holocaust to happen was not just the evil of the Nazi’s but also the indifference of the world.

Lauder emphasized “We will never eradicate Anti-Semitism. It’s a deadly virus that has been with us for over 2,000 years. But we cannot look the other way and pretend it isn’t happening. That’s what people did throughout the 1930’s and that is what led to Auschwitz.”

The Nazis tried to dehumanize and obliterate all Jews of Europe. But the 75th Commemoration attended by over 200 survivors proved that Nazi’s did not win. These Survivors signify that the Jewish people won. They survived and were resilient. “There is one more part of the Auschwitz story that no one ever talks about. When the Survivors were liberated from this Nazi nightmare, they never sought revenge. They lost their mothers and fathers. Sisters and brothers… After everything that happened to them, these Jewish Survivors just walked out of these gates and went on to build new lives, raise new families, work hard and create,” said Lauder.

After the long day of memorializing in Auschwitz, we arrived back at the hotel for a late dinner. By 11 p.m., Auschwitz Survivor David Wisnia asked for a microphone and explained that he wrote a song while in Auschwitz–a parody about life in the death camp. On January 27, 2020, 75 years after the liberation, David Wisnia, a man full of life, sang this song proudly from his wheelchair to a room full of witnesses who will NEVER FORGET.

All the Survivors agree that they do not want their past to be their grandchildren’s future. The Survivors on this journey did not talk about anger or revenge, but rather their love for their new life and family. I felt embraced by love on the trip by Survivors who ironically were treated with the worst type of hate, and whose lives were torn apart by hate. Through conversations with the Survivors on my journey and with my grandparents throughout my life, I have learned that the Holocaust is not just a story of hate. It is also a story of resilience, humanity, love and kindness. People who are taught to put others before themselves; people who are taught to love, those people do not hate–rather, they choose life.

Concert Introduces Westchester Residents to the Music of Viennese Composer Viktor Ullmann Who Perished During the Holocaust

October 26, 2019 by Stacey Pfeffer

Dominique Hellsten
Photo BY Ben Livengood

More than twenty years ago, dramatic soprano and Chappaqua resident Dominique Hellsten first heard the music of composer Viktor Ullmann who ultimately perished in Auschwitz. “It had a profound impact and it never left me,” said Hellsten, whose eyes teared up during our interview as she shares why she is so enamored with his music and passionate about bringing it to a wider audience. At the time, the Swedish-born Hellsten was living in London and performing at such venues as the Royal Albert Hall, the Purcell Room, Southwark Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

She was first introduced to Vienna-born composer Viktor Ullmann’s music through her UK-based publicist at the time, Diana Hirst. Hellsten has always had a special affinity for art song (also known as lieder in German) specifically music of this genre composed in the 20th and 21st century. Ullmann was a prolific composer of this particular genre who wrote more than 20 pieces while imprisoned in Theresienstadt, a concentration camp located in Czechoslovakia that served as a transport point specifically designed by Hitler to deceive International Red Cross workers and other inspectors.

Much has been written of the incredibly diverse group of artists who were interned at the camp from opera composers, to choral directors to chamber musicians. The camp was a hotbed of musical activity notes author Joza Terezin in the book “Music of Terezin”. In fact, the prisoners gave several concerts and performances for the Nazis as well as fellow prisoners. Ullmann known for his talent was assigned to the Administration of Free Time Activities (Freizeitgestaltung in German) in the camp as a music critic and organizer of musical rehearsals.

Concert Explores Ullmann’s Music

Hellsten, who today offers private voice and piano coaching to students throughout Westchester, was delighted to share Ullmann’s music in a recent musical concert featuring much of Ullmann’s work as well as other deceased composers of the art song genre to audience members. The lunchtime concert was held at Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester in Chappaqua held on October 17th, a day prior to Ullmann’s death in Auschwitz 75 years ago. The concert, funded by the Ullmann Project, is part of a Lunch N’ Learn series in which seven Northern Westchester synagogues offer cultural and educational programming to their congregants. She appeared alongside pianist Craig Ketter, a sought after pianist and accompanist in the Greater New York area including a favorite of the Metropolitan Opera during auditions for their opera company.

Hellsten not only performed a repertoire of Ullmann’s works and his Viennese contemporaries such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Alexander Zemlinsky who both survive the war, but also interspersed between the pieces, she tells the fate of Ullmann, his contemporaries and how Ullmann’s music which the Nazis deemed “degenerate” was ultimately discovered. To the uninitiated ear, Ullmann’s work can be somewhat challenging. She finds it very rewarding when audience members appreciate his bold music.

Why Hellsten Performs Ullmann’s Music

Hellsten feels a special obligation to bring Ullmann’s music and story to light. “I’m not Jewish but my parents were in Helsinki and experienced war as children because Stalin invaded Finland during the Winter War,” explains Hellsten. Her parents were put on a train wearing white outfits with thousands of Finnish children bound for Sweden which was a safe zone. They had identification tags around their necks stating their name and where they came from. The Soviets were bombing cities along the coast of Finland her parents were forced to disembark the train and hide in the snow.

“The Winter War only lasted three months but I recall talking about it a lot with my parents. I also remember seeing a documentary on TV when I was about 10 or 11 about prisoners in Auschwitz being gassed and I never forgot it. We talked about these things a lot as a family,” recalls Hellsten. Just as the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling, Hellsten’s parents were the last generation from Finland that remembers the horrors of the Winter War. Hellsten is deeply concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism. “It is so upsetting and the fact that 65% of American high schoolers don’t know anything about Auschwitz is very disturbing,” she says.

The Rediscovery of Ullmann’s Works

Ullmann often said that “music can diminish evil”. While imprisoned at Theresienstadt, Ullmann was able to concentrate on writing music and he even composed an opera titled “The Emperor of Atlantis.” The protagonist is believed to be a pastiche of Hitler and the Nazis refuse to let this piece be performed. Still Ullmann continues to write music and in October 1944 he gets word that he is going to be transported to Auschwitz. He packs up his music and is preparing to take it with him but at the last second decides to give it to his fellow prisoner, Dr. Emil Utitz. Utitz is instructed by Ullmann to give the music to his friend Dr. H.G. Adler if Utitz survives. Both men miraculously survive while Ullmann is sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Dr. H.G. Adler was a poet and philosopher and Ullmann had set many of Adler’s poems to music. After the war Dr. Utitz and Dr. Adler meet and he is given Ullmann’s music for safekeeping. Dr. Adler eventually emigrates to London.

One day a family friend, the British conductor Kerry Woodward visits Adler and he asks him to view the music stored in his attic. The conductor looks at the music and is particularly impressed with the “Emperor of Atlantis” score. So much so that he ultimately helps secures its worldwide debut in 1975 with the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam with Woodward conducting. Additional works by Ullmann are also rediscovered due to this chance encounter.

“The story is touching and I want him to finally get his voice heard,” sums up Hellsten. She hopes to bring Ullmann’s bold and dramatic music to a larger audience and would love to stage his opera, “Emperor of the Atlantis”. But for now, she is glad that residents in her hometown had the opportunity to hear his music and his story.

HBO’s “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm” Airing January 27 Moves Bet Torah Audience

January 24, 2018 by Inside Press

Family Documentary Presented by HBO with the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the short film “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm” debuts this Saturday, January 27, from 6 p.m. to 6:20 p.m (ET/PT).

“A17606. That was his number and he told us back then that your number was your name. That is all he was to them.” Elliott Saiontz

Article and Photos by Grace Bennett

Elliott Saiontz with his great grandfather Jack Feldman

Mount Kisco, January 22–Hundreds of parents and their children packed the Bet Torah Synagogue sanctuary for an early screening of “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm,” a powerful 19-minute HBO family documentary directed and produced by Amy Schatz. Filmed two years ago, it depicts 10-year-old Elliott’s adoring relationship with his great grandfather, the soft spoken and big hearted 90-year-old Jack Feldman. Through the film, Elliott first asks Jack questions about his experiences, and then we hear Jack’s heartbreaking answers.

At the film’s start–and with a backdrop of historical footage and the striking animation of acclaimed artist Jeff Scher throughout–Jack describes happy childhood memories of Poland (in his hometown of Sosnoweicz) predating the war. He tells his great grandson of an eclectic hat collection or of watching soccer games. Jack speaks of a close knit family, a successful family business and summertime vacations.

The documentary quickly segues into Jack describing harrowing experiences surviving Nazi brutality… from the forced wearing of yellow stars, confinement in a ghetto (“We had maybe 15-20 people sleeping in a room.”) to his separation from his family (“They grabbed me and took me away.”), of Auschwitz and of the notorious death march. (“A lot of people couldn’t make it. Thousands and thousands just died.”)

Bet Torah’s Rabbi Aaron Brusso and Edna Friedberg, a historian with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, spoke before the film with remarks sensitive to and frequently directed to the children in the room. “History is what happens to real people. It’s not just a flat idea; it’s something that happens to me and to you,” said Friedberg. She challenged the kids to explore their personal connections to the Holocaust as well. “If you have a connection to it, you as kids can be detectives on it too.”

Following the screening, Feldman and Elliott participated in a panel discussion. Jack was asked how old he is today. Not missing a beat, he quipped: 72. Laughter filled the sanctuary–the light moment a reprieve from the darkness of what was being discussed. Elliott’s grandfather, Sammy Feldman (92-year-old Jack Feldman’s first son) told attendees: “Between the ages of 12 and 17, hopefully you were enjoying your life… the Holocaust changed all that for the children of Europe. They were bullied and lost all their privileges. They lost all their rights.”

Rabbi Brusso noted fondly, “I wish I had a grandpoppy Jack.” Turning to Elliott, he offered his appreciation for “how you hold his hand and rub his arm.” He compared that kind of tenderness to Nazis “who treated people like objects.” Elliott’s example of caring and kindness, in contrast, are “how we preserve every human being.”

On the panel, too: Elliott’s brother Jared and his mom Stacey Saiontz (“without whom it is safe to say we would not be having this program today,” noted Freidberg). Saiontz, a member of the group GenerationsForward of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center in White Plains, described a serendipitous meeting between herself and Sheila Nevins, a producer at HBO–ultimately leading to the film’s production. Elliott’s younger brother Jared, 10, answered a child’s question about when he learned of the Holocaust. He said his whole life he listened to his Mom interviewing his grandpa and started slowly learning.

Questions to the panel were mostly from children attending. More than one questioner seemed to want to find the good in human souls. Children are after all instructed to seek out ‘the helpers.’ “Was there ever a Nazi soldier undercover who tried to help the Jews?” one young girl asked. Elliott related that his grandfather was helped by a Nazi who knew his father and protected him from selection to the gas chamber. “Individual choices made a huge difference and could save a life,” said Friedberg. But they were also sadly the exception.

“Why were Jewish people blamed for Germany’s problems?” another asked. Friedberg explained how the Nazi regime employed the dynamics of bullying to encourage the persecution of Jews. “People feel powerful by leaving one person on the outside,” she said. The Nazis were “building on an existing hatred and stereotypes about Jews.” The Nazis also targeted and murdered hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, political prisoners and persons with mental and physical disabilities.

But by far, it was the Jewish population that was decimated. Before the war, Friedberg continued, there were nine million Jewish people living in Europe; six million were murdered. “Two out of three.” She invited attendees to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to learn more.

Grace Bennett is publisher and editor in chief of the Inside Press, and the 2017 recipient of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center’s Bernard Rosenshein ‘Courage to Care’ award.

Resources:

www.mjhnyc.org/‎ The Museum of Jewish Heritage

https://www.ushmm.org/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

www.hhrecny.org Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center

Release info from HBO:

THE NUMBER ON GREAT-GRANDPA’S ARM was directed and produced by Amy Schatz; executive producer, Sheila Nevins; producer, Lynn Sadofsky; edited by Tom Patterson; animation by Jeff Scher; director of photography, Alex Rappoport; music composed by Keith Kenniff; production executive, Susan Benaroya; supervising producer, Lisa Heller.

It debuts this Saturday, January 27, from 6 p.m. to 6:20 p.m (ET/PT).

The film will also be available on HBO On Demand, HBO NOW, HBO GO and affiliate . THE NUMBER ON GREAT-GRANDPA’S ARM will be included in a signature initiative that is part of a robust education program offered by the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. This effort is designed to use the film with a companion special installation and curriculum to connect stories of the Holocaust across generations.Additionally, companion segments featuring young people in conversation with survivors will be made available on HBO digital platforms.

Director-producer Amy Schatz’s notable HBO projects include the recent “Saving My Tomorrow” series, plus “An Apology to Elephants,” the “Classical Baby” series, “A Child’s Garden of Poetry,” “‘Twas the Night,” “Goodnight Moon and Other Sleepytime Tales” and “Through a Child’s Eyes: September 11, 2001.” Her work has won five DGA Awards, seven Emmy^® Awards and three Peabody Awards.

Animator Jeff Scher’s work is found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Academy Film Archive, Hirshhorn Museum and the Pompidou Centre.

“Why Did They Have to Die?”

January 15, 2018 by Inside Press

Peter Somogyi, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and victim of Nazi experiments on twins, still grieves as he bears witness to the unimaginable.

Story and Photos by Grace Bennett

Mount Kisco–Peter Somogyi , a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, was 11-years-old when he and his twin brother Tamas were ‘selected’ and imprisoned as concentration camp victims and subject to the horrific ‘human experiments’ performed by the notorious Josef Mengele (“the Angel of Death”) and others. Somogyi, now 85 years old, said he would not talk about his imprisonment or experiences for decades.

But at the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester BGCNW on January 7, Somogyi, a member of the Speaker’s Bureau for the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center for the last four years, relayed his memories to attendees.

Jason Fine, Peter Somogyi, Alyzza Ozer and Aaron Notis

Opening the program, Alyzza Ozer, BGCNW’s executive director, said that Somogyi’s talk was the Club’s first in a Civic Advocacy speaker series within ‘Youth for Unity,’ a program launched at BGCNW, which serves 500-800 kids a day, ages 3-18 (nationwide, some 4.2 to 4.3 million). The Club’s mission, she said, is to inspire and enable all youth to be best they can be and advocate on behalf of the community.

Introducing Somogyi were Aaron Notis and Jason Fine, Horace Greeley High School juniors who are volunteering with the HHREC to bring lectures about the Holocaust and genocide to wider audiences. They said they got involved due to a scourge of modern day anti-Semitism and bigotry. They noted that 900 hate incidents were reported across the U.S. in the 10 days following the 2016 election. Those attacks included vandals drawing swastikas on a synagogue, schools, cars and driveways. They pointed out the now infamous march of white supremacists in Charlottesville last October and their anti-Semitic chant. They also expressed concern over a growing, so called BDS movement that veers into anti-Semitism.

Finally, they cited reasons why people of every race and religion need to be aware of exactly what happened during the Holocaust. “In Germany in the 1930’s, the Nuremberg laws institutionalized the racial theories commonly held by Nazis. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or getting involved with persons of “German or related blood.” Jews were stripped of their German citizenship. They could not own businesses or do business with non-Jews. Jewish children could no longer attend their schools. Jewish doctors could no longer treat non-Jews, and Jews could no longer go to non-Jewish doctors. And this was just the beginning of the prejudices and horrors that Jews encountered.”

Somogyi’s Journey

“Somogyi’s Journey” began on March 14, 1944, when the Nazis invaded Hungary. Within two weeks, he recalled the required wearing of yellow stars and people being beaten up on the streets. The Jews were pushed into a ghetto with families living in single rooms confused and beset with fear. Shortly after, roundups began for deportation. “We were told to take only what we can from the ghetto. They gave us some bread but no water whatsoever. It was chaos. Children were crying. All of us…we didn’t know what was happening. On arrival at Auschwitz, exhausted and terrified, anyone ‘able bodied’ was ordered to one side, he explained, and older people and children to the other. “Then along came Mengele asking for twins… they grabbed us. We never had a chance to say goodbye.”

He remembered that his sister Alice was “forced to undress naked” and led with others into a room that was “supposed to be a shower,” he said of the infamous gas chamber, the largest room of the crematorium at Auschwitz, in which hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women, children and political prisoners perished. “No one knew that in ten minutes they would all be dead.,” said Somogyi. Some were lucky and died instantly.” He explained how “those who had climbed to the top of bodies in a kind of pyramid, took longer. Within ten minutes, they all died.”

While Alice and his mother Elizabeth and hundreds of others were murdered following that single ‘selection,’ those chosen to ‘work’ were forcibly ‘tattooed’ and told their new identities would be a number. Somoygi showed and recited his own: A74454455. Inside the barracks, the prisoners were assigned six to “a bed” made of tiers of wood planks. There, that night, he learned of his sister’s fate and of the genocide taking place. “We smelled the stench of burning bodies, the flames going up 10-15 feet out of the chimney. The persons who worked at the crematoriums were replaced every two to three months, and gassed themselves, so there would be no eyewitnesses.”

The so called ‘experiments’ began. Mengele was in fact one of dozens of ‘physicians’ participating in this torture. “They were taking blood all the time and measuring everything.” (A slide indicated the victims were injected with unknown substances; a second slide pointed to an experiment which intended to determine how long someone can survive without eating.) “I remember one dwarf (another segment of the population the Nazis targeted for experimentation) “got really, really sick. One morning I had a cold body next to me. Every day, there were six to ten people who died and they lined the bodies up like cinder sticks…”

Somogyi said that the twins considered their horrible situation ironically life saving (“although I hate to call it that,” he said) in that they were of some “use” and despite that the twins and others chosen to be experimented on lived in abject fear “wondering when Mengele would decide he didn’t need us anymore.” They knew that “any moment, any time, we could go to the gas chamber like the others.’ In addition, many of those subject to the experimentation died as a consequence of them; others were murdered in order to facilitate post-mortem examination, according to a document from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

By January, 1945, the Nazis had already lost the war on many fronts. “On January 27, we saw our first Russian soldier,” Somogyi said. “Imagine an 11-year-old thinking, when is my time to die? And then, finally, I am free. You don’t know what kind of feeling that is.” His brother Tamas survived as well. In time, he discovered that his father Izso had survived Dachau.

He described a journey back first to Budapest (he and Tamas were reunited with their father with a neighbor’s aid in Hungrary) and then to Israel (where he became an officer in the army), from where he left to England, and finally, to the United States.

Somogyi expressed his grief over lost family and friends, stating: “Why did they have to die? We were persecuted only because we were Jewish.”

Many of the survivors, he explained, could not talk to anyone about what happened for a very long time. As a young man, “a blind date asked me about my number. I asked her never to ask me again.”

Like many survivors, Somogyi found the inner strength to reinvent his life. He has been married for 56 years to Anna with two children and grandchildren. On one post-war trip in 1990 back to his hometown Pecs in Hungary, he said, “It felt so strange. And I was happy to get away.” “Today,” he offered, “there are people who say this never happened. In 10-15 years, there will be no survivors. I’m here to tell the world that it DID happen, and it’s very lucky I survived.”

At the end of his talk, Shantae Artis, BGCNW’s Community Volunteer Coordinator, commended Somogyi for his openness. “We need to bear witness,” she told the crowd who came out in single digit temperatures to hear him. “Empathy and compassion are tools we need to have to prevent future tragedies so that we never ever have to bear witness again like this.”

Bearing witness continues when the BGCNW on March 4^th at 7 p.m. welcomes guest speaker Rita Kabali Wagener, a survivor under the regime of Idi Amin in Uganda. Do mark your calendar.

Grace Bennett is publisher and editor in chief of the Inside Press, and the 2017 recipient of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center’s Bernard Rosenshein ‘Courage to Care’ award. For more information and membership info about the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester, please visit bgcnw.com, and for same at the HHREC, please visit hhrecny.org.

Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center Responds to White House Statement on Int’l Holocaust Remembrance Day

February 1, 2017 by Inside Press

As Elie Wiesel said, “Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.” Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center

Editor’s Note: Westchester’s Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) has issued a strongly worded statement pointing out the shortcomings of the Administration’s statement acknowledging International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here is the HHREC statement in full:

“This statement fails to acknowledge the historical fact that the Holocaust was a deliberate and well-calculated state-sponsored effort to systematically eliminate the Jewish people. In other words, to commit genocide.*

This omission undermines the significance the United Nations Resolution that designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp—an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Obviously, we should remember with reverence all victims of Nazi terror.

As Elie Wiesel said, “Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”

We urge President Trump to reissue the statement, recognizing that the purpose of Hitler’s Final Solution was to exterminate the Jews of Europe.”