Holocaust Survivor Recalls Experiences during NMCP Observance

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (NNS) -- Naval Medical Center Portsmouth observed the Holocaust Day of Remembrance April 17 in the Chapel, featuring a portion of the Holocaust Commission's film "What We Carry" and guest speaker Kitty Saks, a survivor featured in the film.

Capt. James Hancock, NMCP acting commander, prepared the audience of several hundred for a somber journey back to the dark days of World War II in Europe. It was a time when Jews were routinely rounded up and sent by train and cattle car to prison camps, and for many, to their death. Six million deaths. The Holocaust.

"We have to take the time to remember," Hancock said. "Take time out of your day and think back about what was given by so many people. We have to make sure we have accountability in the future, so atrocities like these can never happen again."

The program included the Holocaust Commission's documentary "What We Carry" that includes interviews with Hampton Roads residents who survived the Holocaust. Survivors who were children in the 1940s are now elderly. Many have died.

"For over 25 years, the Holocaust Commission Speaker's Bureau has provided survivors to speak in schools, military organizations and community groups," said Elena Baum, director of the commission. "Not long ago, we realized we had to do something to preserve these stories because the world is rapidly losing its survivors. We felt a commitment to develop the best program possible to allow us to preserve their stories."

The film has four parts, but only a portion was shown that included the stories of four local survivors, two of whom have died since the making of the film. Throughout the showing, Baum expounded on details of Saks' experience that were mentioned in the film.

Saks was born in Vienna where she lived with her parents and grandparents. When Germany invaded Austria, an officer in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) took their home. Saks' family fled, crossing the border into Belgium. Her father crossed the border first and after a number of failed attempts, Saks, then 6, and her mother were able to rejoin her father in Brussels.

When Saks was nine, her physical education teacher convinced her parents that in order to survive she must be moved to a Catholic orphanage. A Jew, she had to take on the appearance of a Catholic child, adopt a French name, wear a crucifix, and move from convent to convent and orphanage to orphanage. It was a wrenching decision that many Jewish families had to make to try to save their children from starvation, disease and death in prison camps.

The audience riveted, Saks explained that after hiding in seven convents and being protected by brave nuns, she was finally free. In September 1944, British troops entered Brussels and liberated Belgium from the Nazis. Saks was lucky. Unlike many, she was reunited with her parents. They had survived in hiding, not far from the orphanage where Saks was located.

Still, Saks lost 27 members of her family in the Holocaust. With Europe in ruins and relatives in Norfolk, Va., Saks and her parents sailed to the United States and began new lives in Virginia.

"I started talking about it right away," Saks said. "I have been talking about the Holocaust since 1951 at summer school at Granby High School. But it doesn't get any less painful."

"First-person accounts are the heart and soul of the unimaginable tragedy that is the Holocaust," said Lisa Rosenthal, the NMCP Diversity Committee member who organized the event. "To look into someone's eyes as they are recounting inconceivable degradation and horror is unforgettable. What happens when survivors are no longer alive to share their stories? Who will teach the lessons of the Holocaust to future generations - so that truth can continue, questions can be asked and history cannot be rewritten? So our program today is a multimedia presentation that lets Holocaust survivors stories live on after they are no longer able to present them in person."

The film poses larger questions, Rosenthal said, including what can we learn from the Holocaust in relation to today's world; where do we see injustice, intolerance, religious, ethnic and gender persecution in the world at large and in our local community; what are the dangers of doing nothing or turning a blind eye; and where have other genocides been perpetrated, or worse, are occurring today throughout the world?

"Understanding the dangers of discrimination, peer pressure, unthinking obedience to authority and indifference and the moral decisions we make in our own lives can make a difference," Rosenthal added.

Saks invited questions from the audience, who could also examine suitcases filled with replicas of items survivors might have carried with them as they were rounded up or fled the Nazis. They had little time to pack and could take only so much to remind themselves of happier times. Saks' suitcase included a doll, a cloth Star of David (like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear), a rosary, some photos, letters and a few clothes.

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