WBAL-TV 11 recently aired a commercial-free special entitled, "Survivors Among Us." The program was an hour-long tribute to Holocaust survivors who call the Baltimore area home. On Tuesday, October 25, the Goucher community had the opportunity to view an encore presentation of the feature in Buchner Hall. In addition, a question-and-answer session with reporter Deborah Weiner and survivor Leo Bretholz followed the program.
The Quindecim went to press before the event actually took place on campus. However, through intensive interviews with two of the survivors featured in the program, The Quindecim has details of the program's content, and even some information that may have been left out. Weiner is a member of WBAL-TV's special projects unit. She has done in-depth and investigative reports for the station, bringing her experience from ABC News. She is also the program developer. On WBAL-TV's website Weiner explains, "When you see an Auschwitz survivor smile, or even dance, it just seems bigger than just about anything else." Bretholz is one of the many survivors to be highlighted in the program. He was on the run for seven years from the Nazis, with almost too many miraculous escapes to count. "Every moment, every day that ended was a plus," Bretholz told The Quindecim. "And you hoped that the one you wake up to in the morning was better than the one that just ended."
Bretholz is perhaps the most well known of all the survivors featured in the special. His book, Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe is in its fifth printing, and is a required reading in approximately thirty school districts around the country. "I can say I want to talk; I can say I don't want to talk... I have a choice. My mother and sisters, they don't have a choice," Bretholz recounted. "They were taken forcibly to a death camp. I have a choice; they don't have a choice."
Emmy Mogilensky was also featured in the program. She has a unique story, never having been in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. She was one of the approximately 10,000 children who were sent to Great Britain from countries like Austria, Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia via the Kindertransport. England was one of the few countries to accept Jews during this time. The Kindertransport brought Jews up to age 17 into the country. "My father and I first traveled to Munich, where the train station was. My father handed me a little suitcase and he kissed me and he blessed me, and I went on the train," Mogilensky told The Quindecim. After that day, she never saw her parents again. Mogilensky's brother was able to make the trip, and stayed with a family "very close" to where she was living. Fortunately, he survived and is living "not too far" from her.
Bluma Shapiro, Morris Baker, and Felix Kestenberg are also featured in Weiner's special. They were all prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where an estimated 1.5 million people were tortured and murdered. They also have one more thing in common; they were the only members of their respective families to survive the Holocaust. Another survivor featured, Morris Rosen, went from camp to camp. Rosen was just 23 years old when his parents were killed at Auschwitz. That same year, Rosen was sent to his first concentration camp. Less than a month later, he was forced to march for six weeks, with virtually no rest, to Buchenwald, one of the most notorious Nazi camps. Somehow, Rosen survived and was eventually liberated in 1945.
These survivors all realize that they are the lucky ones -- that six million of their fellow Jews and millions more besides did not live to see life after the Holocaust.Sol Goldstein, a former soldier, helped liberate Buchenwald. Weiner presented him with a stone she got from just outside Buchenwald. "You know, I tell people that there was no grass, trees or bushes," Goldstein says. "Had there been, the inmates would have eaten them."
Bretholz lost dozens of his family members, including his mother and sisters because of this kind of treatment. His father died a few years before the Holocaust began. He recently told The Quindecim that he never spoke much about his loss because he did not know what happened to his family. Then, in 1962, he found out through documentation in Vienna that his family did not survive. When Bretholz talks about how he finds the strength to talk about his experiences, his voice drops and his breathing gets heavier. "I take it in perspective. I know there are a lot of people who cannot speak about it... I have to say one thing - I lost my mother and my sisters; they were murdered. I lost over thirty members of my family and until 1962 I never spoke much about it... [Hitler] wanted us to forget. If we forget the victims, it gives Hitler a posthumous victory."
In his book, Bretholz goes into great detail about his many escapes, including breaking out of an Auschwitz-bound train. Perhaps his most amazing story is what happened to him when he was 23 years old. At age 23, Bretholz found himself lying helplessly in a hospital, where he met a nun who instantly befriended him, and saved his life. "She told me that whatever happened, as long as I was in this ward, on this floor, in this room, I would have nothing to fear," Bretholz said. "To me, that indicated that she realized that I was Jewish." One of the most moving parts in the "Survivors Among Us" program is when Weiner and her videographer Chuck Cochran take Bretholz back to France to reunite with the nun. Bretholz was able to track down the nun because after over fifty years, he remembered her name -- Sister Jeanne D'Arc, or "Joan of Arc." Sister Jeanne D'Arc will be 93 years old in November.
The intent of this program is to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. In Bretholz's words, "You are also survivors." Mogilensky explained, "The thing I keep saying is, we survived and we are growing and we are multiplying. And Hitler left nothing, zero. No wife, no children, no nothing. And that's kind of satisfaction for me, I guess." She is a volunteer for the American Red Cross' Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center. Since 1990, the Center has brought closure for almost 10,000 people about what happened to their families. The Center can be reached at (410) 624-2090, for free assistance.
No one, besides the survivors, will ever fully understand the pain that they vividly feel sixty years later. But, without a doubt, the program will be a memorable experience for all who attend.
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