The crew of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) held a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony on the Floating Accommodation Facility (FAF) in Newport News, April 14.

Lincoln's Judge Advocate, Lt. Cmdr. Rachel Trest served as the guest speaker and explained how the Holocaust was the systematic killing of six million Jews by the Nazis and their supporters during World War II.

Trest, who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors, added that it was important for the command to take time to to commemorate the Holocaust in order to honor the millions of people who were killed, respect the people who survived, and remember the obligations of the living to ensure that these atrocities never happen again.

Trest further provided heartfelt insight on her family's history of survival. Her presentation articulated the atrocities faced by the Jewish people during the Holocaust; in particular her grandparents.

"There were many people targeted by the Nazis for a number of reasons," Trest said. "However, the Nazis focused the majority of their aggression toward people of Jewish descent and anyone who helped them."

Throughout the ceremony, Trest displayed pictures of her grandparents and other Jews affected by the Holocaust.

"Jewish people were forbidden to own and operate businesses. There was a curfew implemented in Nazi-occupied areas. They were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothing when out in public," Trest said. "If Jews did not comply with these rules or they could not prove their citizenship, they were deported to concentration camps."

The majority of Jewish families were displaced to ghettos or concentration camps, and her grandmother's family was no exception.

"The Nazis loaded my grandmother and her family into a small cattle train car," Trest said, who added they didn't know they were being transported to Auschwitz. "My grandmother's brother was shot and killed when he tried to resist and get away."

Auschwitz was an infamous death camp. The brutality suffered at the hands of the Nazis was incomprehensible. Trest explained her grandmother's first moments upon arriving at the camp.

"As soon as they arrived, my grandmother's family was separated in two lines, one to the left and one to the right," Trest said. "They later found out everyone in the line to the left, including my grandmother's mother, were taken to a gas chamber and immediately killed."

Trest displayed pictures of the conditions at Auschwitz. While there, her grandmother and her sisters were robbed of all their possessions and forced into labor while living on little to no food.

"These conditions weren't suitable for animals, let alone human beings," Trest said.

Eventually, Trest's grandmother was moved to an ammunition factory where they manufactured weapons for the Nazi war machine. The factory was bombed by the Allies and she and her sisters survived the bombing and were liberated by the Americans on April 15, 1945. She and her two sisters were the only members of her family to survive. They tried to go home, but all of their possessions were gone. Her grandmother and her sisters went to a displaced persons camp, or refugee camp, after the war.

"It was here my grandmother met my grandfather," Trest said. "His story is slightly different."

Trest's grandfather survived in hiding in Dzialoszyce, Poland, with his two brothers. The rest of his family, his parents and nine brothers and sisters and their young families, perished when the Nazis invaded Poland.

"My grandfather and his brothers hid in a barn owned by Polish Christian farmers they trusted," Trest said. "They were in hiding for almost three years, and once they were almost discovered by the Nazis. If found, both the Jewish brothers and the Christian farmers would have been murdered on the spot."

Despite the daily danger the Polish farmers faced, they courageously hid her grandfather and his brothers until the end of the war in 1945. Like her grandmother, Trest's grandfather returned to his home only to find that everything was gone including all of his family. With no place to go he went to the refugee camp with his brothers where he met her grandmother.

Lincoln's Commanding Officer Capt. Ron Ravelo praised Trest for sharing her family's powerful story and explained to the audience why events such as the Holocaust are important to remember.

"We remember this event not because of the person who caused it, but we remember because of the victims. Make no mistake that we all are in this uniform to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again," Ravelo said. "The next time you look in the mirror, ask yourself if the person looking back at you values freedom, values independence, values democracy, that person would have been a target for the Nazis. That's why we wear the uniform, to prevent this from ever happening again."

Lincoln is currently undergoing refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) at Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.

Lincoln is the fifth ship of the Nimitz class to undergo an RCOH, a major life-cycle milestone. Once RCOH is complete, Lincoln will be one of the most modern and technologically advanced Nimitz-class aircraft carriers in the fleet and will continue to be a vital part of the nation's defense.


For more news from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), visit www.navy.mil/.