SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. -- Let’s take a step back into the years before Adolf Hitler became the German chancellor. Europe was still recovering from the first World War and more than nine million Jews lived in Europe trying to make a life for themselves with their family.
Fast forward to Jan. 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler was made chancellor. At that moment in time, life for the Jewish people would change and they would have to fight for their lives and their faith.
The Third Reich began to take away rights of those who the Germans believed were insignificant and weren’t worth living and put them into concentration camps. These individuals included homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jews.
Adolf Hitler wanted to make the “perfect society,” or what people know as the “blue-eyed, blond hair” society, and certain groups were not part of that plan according to the Germans. Over the next few years in World War II, officials began their raid of Jewish houses; they confiscated property, made the Jewish people wear the Star of David armbands, and forced them into labor/concentration camps. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the end of World War II that the Allies fully understood the crimes committed.
The Holocaust was a state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million men, women and children. They lost their lives because the Germans believed they were superior and anyone who was below them did not have a right to live.
Holocaust Remembrance is meant to remember those who suffered, those who lost their lives or their loved ones during this reign of horror. Now, let’s take a look at the stories of two survivors.
Abe Asner escaped when he choose to flee into the forest instead of staying amongst the others when his ghetto was attacked. Ghettos were established by the Nazi’s as a separation process to persecute and destroy the Jewish people. With him, many others escaped and formed a resistance. This resistance at the time did not know they would have to fight for many years to come, but they continued to fight even when all seemed lost. In remembering the events, Abe recalls “We don’t go like sheep. We did as much as we could. We did a lot. People should know that somebody did (fight back). People should know.” Despite everything Abe and others had to go through, he continued to fight and help countless others. When World War II was over, Abe and his wife moved to Canada, where he died at the age of 98.
Eta Wrobel, the only child from her family to survive, was taught the importance of helping people and this would help her later on. Eta helped by making false identity papers for the Jewish resistance. Like Abe, Eta and her father escaped into the woods during a raid of their ghetto. Their life in the woods was hard with no access to medical care and only having supplies they stole. Eta was even shot and had to dig out the bullet with a knife. She helped the resistance with her military skills and she was more active than most women in missions and decisions. When the war was over, Eta became the mayor of Lokov and met her husband shortly after. They then moved to the United States, where they had three children and many grandchildren. Eta states “the biggest resistance that we could have done to the Germans was to survive.”
Abe Asner and Eta Wrobel are only two out of the many heroic individuals who survived during the Holocaust. We must not forget the others or those who lost their lives. The persecution of the Jewish people during the Holocaust was a dark time in history. Those affected had to learn to live after the horrors they witnessed and experienced.
April 8-15, we remember those who lost their lives and those who survived. We remember that even during the darkest of times, those affected did not give up their faith or their hope and continued to fight for what they believed in.