Death camp survivor talks to schoolchildren

TREMONT, Ill. -- All one fifth-grader wanted to know was how the guest speaker landed in Tazewell County after her painful experience in a Nazi concentration camp.

That answer is a long story for Irene Garcia, a 66-year-old Tremont woman who provided a vivid piece of living history for students at Tremont Grade School.

The daughter of two prominent Jews in Germany, Garcia was taken to the concentration camp in Dachau during World War II by Nazi soldiers. She was 4 years old.

"They made us watch when they killed my parents," she said. "I tried to close my eyes, but they held them open."

Four days before she herself was scheduled to die, Garcia and more than 1,500 other Jewish children were rescued by German nuns dressed as Nazis. The nuns hustled Garcia and the other children into a waiting train, then took them to northwestern Germany, to a town called Vorhelm.

Garcia would spend the next six years there, living in hiding and being educated by the nuns. She is working on a book called "The Angels of Mercy" detailing her experience.

In 1956, Garcia moved to the United States with one of her three older sisters. She moved with her husband, William Garcia, to Tremont more than 30 years ago.

Early in January, Garcia shared her message of love and her experiences with a public audience for the first time.

"Hate is destructive," she said. "Love is constructive."

She went to Tremont Grade School to speak as the result of a fifth-grade class assignment.

Lori Fuoss, director of the learning center at the school, asked the students to find someone who could remember World War II, and then to write a news article about them.

Fifth-grader Dylan Egli chose Garcia, who baby-sat for him when he was younger. His notes from the interview stunned Fuoss.

"I couldn't believe what I was reading," she said.

The notes about the concentration camp and the nuns really caught her eye, and she later spoke with Garcia by telephone to arrange a visit to the classes.

"You can read history, but when you talk to someone who remembers history, it's a different thing," Fuoss said.

Garcia's memories are full of anecdotes. But some details are so terrible that she won't share them. Despite this, she focuses on forgiveness.

One student asked her if she could forgive Adolf Hitler. It was one of the only questions that made Garcia pause. She stared toward the back of the room in reflection for several seconds as the students watched, awaiting her reply.

"I have to," she said.

Garcia thinks her attitude is the product of several factors.

"I think I must have been born that way," she said. "My parents had a good talk with us. They told us that if we get caught, don't let it affect the rest of your life."