Luke remembers Holocaust, honors survivors, liberators

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Melanie Holochwost
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  As the realities of the Holocaust stunned the world, "Never Again," was the world's sentimental outcry. However, history has taught us that when the world stops being vigilant, genocide recurs.

In 1994, in just 100 days, Rwanda's Hutu people murdered 800,000 Tutsi people. Since the mid-1990s, four million people in The Democratic Republic of the Congo have being murdered. From 2003 to 2006, nearly 400,000 people were slaughtered in Darfur.

As a way to remember the Holocaust and fight against future genocide, the Luke Community Chapel hosted the 2010 Days of Remembrance with a Holocaust exhibit at the Chapel Annex; a rescuer and rescued panel at the base theater and a cumulating luncheon at Club Five Six.

"The exhibit was very professional and moving," said Col. Thomas Steinbrunner, 56th Medical Group deputy commander. "It certainly encouraged some deep reflection on the atrocities suffered by the Jewish population during WWII, as well as the repeat of genocide all too often since then,".

Holocaust survivors, Marion Weinzweig, Leo Abrami and Alexander White; and liberators, Jack Nemeror and Harry Adler, shared their stories with Luke members.

"I survived, because I was the youngest in my family," Ms. Weinzweig said. "They protected me and taught me Polish instead of Yiddish which aided in my survival. All of my family, except for my father and me, was killed at Treblinka, which was solely a death camp. I survived mainly because everyone thought I was a Christian."

Ms. Weinzweig, one of only two children who survived the holocaust from her hometown, said she was taught the Christian religion when she was living in a convent with nuns who protected her. When her father initially found her, the nuns wouldn't give her up because he was Jewish.

"At first I hated my father because he was Jewish," she said. "I was taught that the Jews killed Jesus and I hated him for it. But, my father eventually got me. We were homeless for three years before we got visas to Canada. By that time, I was into my fourth language, fourth name and I hadn't even begun school."

Mr. Abrami said he survived the Holocaust because of his very inventive and courageous mother.

"My mother knew some German and used it to her advantage," he said. "She spoke to German soldiers and even got one to help her carry grocery bags, because I was too weak to lift them. When we finally got to the train the Germans were checking everyone's papers. My mother made a point to thank the German soldier loud enough for the checkers to hear. We were very nervous, but it actually worked. When it came time to check our papers they didn't even bother checking ours. They just figured we were legit, because a German soldier was helping us."

Mr. Nemeror, an American Soldier, said he arrived at a concentration camp after the Americans cleared them.

"We had no idea what to expect," he said. "We were so shocked. Most of the people were so far gone I didn't know how they were surviving. Grown men were completely skin and bone and weighed no more than 70 pounds. There were piles of naked male bodies stacked on top of each other decomposing."

At the luncheon, Andrei Cherny, grandson of Holocaust survivors, shared how the Berlin Airlift helped prevent another world war and heal post WWII wounds and relationships with Germany.

Chaplain (Capt.) Carlos Brito, 56th Fighter Wing protestant chaplain, said many people helped to make Luke's 2010 Days of Remembrance event possible.

"If it were not for the entire Luke Family; from Gen. Kurt Neubauer, 56th Fighter Wing commander, leading the push-up-a-thon, Col. Jeff Weed's, 56th FW vice commander, comments at the day's events, support from our group, squadron commanders, the enlisted leadership, protocol, public affairs, equal opportunity, Club Five Six, force support squadron and the Days of Remembrance Committee to our civilian neighbors at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, Cactus Shadows High School educator Barbara Hatch, Elaine Hirsch from the Bureau of Jewish Education, our panelists and guest speaker, Andrei Cherny, and the many others involved," Chaplain Brito said. "This day of remembrance would have not been possible."