“Never again, never forget!”
This has been repeated many times in warning that no one should ever forget the horrors of the Holocaust so that nothing like this tragedy should ever commence in this lifetime.
Last week was Holocaust remembrance week. In honor of this important week, I went to inSIGHT’s Holocaust Awareness Day seminar representing the West Boca Bullseye. The West Boca’s Holocaust History class came along with several other Holocaust history classes from different schools. We were first seated in an auditorium and given a schedule of our plans for the day. I remember hearing other students whisper that they had only come to miss class and that they were taking the class for an easy A.
The whispers had stopped as Kimberly Coombs, the head planner of the K-12 Holocaust Studies Program, came to speak. She explained our schedule for the event and brought a couple of other big names in the Palm Beach School District up to the stage.
We watched a movie called Shoah Ambassadors and then went to meet our assigned Holocaust survivors. Before that, I had the pleasure to talk to Kimberly Coombs who said that in her opinion “we should be teaching Holocaust studies in every class that relates to it. It really shows how cruel humans can be.”
After the movie, we were then shuffled into a large room with many tables. I had bounced around the room talking to a handful of Holocaust survivors and their children. The story that stuck out to me the most was the story of 90 year old Miky Pear. Through several stories in both Survivor group sessions, she discussed her life as a Jewish girl in Poland and Belarus. While she did not actually step foot into a concentration camp, her story showed true resilience and survival.
She was brought up in an educated Jewish family in Poland only to be separated from her family and ended up in a small peasant village in Belarus. From the ages of four to ten, she would work for hours in the fields where she was under the protection of the village Priest.
Life was not easy for her especially since the other villagers did not like her since they were suspicious she was a Jew. One girl had “spit in her mouth and called her Jewish scum”. Still, she persevered and was eventually found by her uncle to help bring her to America when she was eleven. Life was hard to adjust to, especially for someone so young. Now, she tells her story throughout several states including Florida. She hopes to finish the book she is writing called Hidden discussing her life journey.
We had also met a man named Chris Edmonds who spread the story of his father, Roodie Edmonds who saved his 200 Jewish comrades along with the thousands of other American soldiers that were captured by the Nazi’s. Even though Edmonds was not Jewish, he stood with his Jewish brothers; standing in the face of evil.
This brave act touched me along with many of the other listeners throughout his presentation. We watched the video of the Jewish comrades that were saved during that time, being interviewed on the matter. I bawled like a baby. I realized that while humanity can be terrible, there will always be righteousness to balance that evil out. There were moments where students would goof off during the presentations. Still, the seminar gave me hope that overall, humans are kind. It is important to understand that even one nasty comment or thought can trigger hateful movements.
I left the event in awe. As a Jewish woman, I have been educated on the Holocaust for as long as I could remember. Through classes and synagogue services, the stories and atrocities would be repeated over and over again. I thought I truly grasped the topic but my understanding opened up after hearing their individual stories. Regular human beings were able to make a difference through their stories; true survivors speaking to me. Unfortunately, some students did not get the message but I hope this event had taught them a lesson. The seminar was not just a field trip but a portal into both our history and our futures.
