Holocaust survivors tell tales of life, death at Cape gathering

Many of the students in the audience Wednesday are the same age Mendel Rosenberg was when he lived in a German concentration camp. He was 16 and had lived in "hell" for three years when liberated at the end of World War II. His youth was one of two things that helped him survive.

"I felt I hadn't seen the world yet," he said. "I thought there was something else in life.

"I constantly wanted to survive, to see what would be after we were liberated."

His faith was his other bulwark. "I believed somebody was watching over me," he said.

Rosenberg was one of the speakers Wednesday at a Holocaust Remembrance Day observation at Southeast Missouri State University. He gave the Common Hour program earlier in the day and later joined fellow Holocaust survivor Rudy Oppenheim in a panel discussion at Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium. The event was organized by Dr. Mitchell Gerber, who teaches a class on the Holocaust at the university.

In the Dempster Hall audience of 30 were Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle along with 15 students from Susan Hekmat's advanced English class at Central High School.

Swingle, who accompanied his daughter, Olivia, said he wanted to hear these men speak while there is still the chance. "There aren't going to be any Holocaust survivors around someday," he said.

Being different

Oppenheim was born in Germany in 1928. He knew by the time he was 5 years old that he was considered "different." He told of signs that read, "Dogs and Jews not allowed."

He also recalled the 2 a.m. pounding on the door that signaled the beginning of "kristallnacht," a German word that means night of broken glass. During a 48-hour period in November 1938, Nazi Party members killed many Jews and rounded up 20,000 to 30,000 men to be sent to concentration camps. More than 200 synagogues and 7,500 Jewish businesses were burned or demolished.

Jews were allowed to leave Germany within three months. Oppenheim's family fled to Shanghai, China, where they spent World War II before coming to the United States. But other family members didn't leave because they didn't think the pogrom could continue.

"I lost 26 members of my family who didn't believe," Oppenheim said.

A Washington University graduate who was a chemist before retiring, Oppenheim described the efficiency of the Nazi's "final solution," the highly organized plan for eradicating Jews and others -- 5 million of the 11 million killed in the Holocaust were not Jewish -- who were not Aryan. Just six concentration camps were designed to "process" 15,000 prisoners per day.

Rosenberg couldn't speak English when he arrived in America after the war, but language wasn't his only difficulty.

"For 25 years, I couldn't talk about what happened to me," he said.

Jenni Emani, one of the Central High School students, asked whether he remains angry about his experiences.

"I have to think of forgiving all that," he said. "I have to sometimes think about the good things that happened to me."

Rosenberg was on a train that was taking prisoners from Dachau to the mountains to be killed when American and Russian troops liberated them. He was reunited with his mother in 1946.

Both men who spoke Wednesday are associated with the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center.

Hekmat gave her students extra credit for attending the discussion at Holocaust Remembrance Day. They have been studying Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel's testimonial "Night," one of the most powerful works of Holocaust literature, along with readings about Auschwitz and about the Vietnam War.

"It seemed very pertinent just heading into the war with Iraq," she said.

The Holocaust is a subject that intrigues high school students, Hekmat said. "They're interested because they don't want it to happen, but they're too desensitized by killing in the media," she said. "Now they have a different point of view."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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