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Holocaust survivor speaks of her experiences |
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Tuesday, 04 October 2005 |
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Katie Ford | The Appalachian
Holocaust survivor Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz spoke Friday at the Belk Library & Information Commons on her experiences.
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by ALLISON CASEY
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
“Living was heroism,” Holocaust survivor Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz said.
“From day one, you had to decide whether you were going to live or die.
Dying was no great art. I decided to live. To live by hook or by crook.”
Cernyak-Spatz, an author and retired professor from UNC-Charlotte,
offered a series of lectures about the Holocaust at Appalachian State
University from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1.
It is important for young people to understand what happened in the Holocaust so it will never happen again, she said.
“We cannot forget,” Cernyak-Spatz said. “By forgetting, we allow the six million who died a tragic death to die again.”
Cernyak-Spatz was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925 to a middle-class
family. After Hitler’s troops marched in, Jews were treated with
tremendous cruelty.
Her family constantly moved to escape persecution. They moved to
Berlin, Germany, in 1933, back to Vienna in 1936 and then to Prague,
Czech Republic, in 1938.
Cernyak-Spatz was deported to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia in May
1942. There, her mother left on a different train. She does not know
what happened to her.
Her father had fled to Poland a day before Hitler’s invasion with the
intention of sending for her when it was safe. He was assumed dead.
From Theresienstadt, Cernyak-Spatz was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was only 18.
She rolls up her sleeve to reveal the number tattooed on her left arm.
Prisoner number 34042- a number she will never have removed, like many
Auschwitz survivors.
“I felt that that was part of me,” Cernyak-Spatz said. “As more time
passed and less people have the tattoo, people have forgotten.”
In Auschwitz it was about “who you knew not what you knew,”
Cernyak-Spatz said. “There is not an Auschwitz survivor today who
didn’t have an administrative job,” she said. “It was an upside down
world. There was nothing you couldn’t get if you knew how to get it.”
Because she spoke English, French, Czech and German fluently, and could
understand Slovak and Polish, Cernyak-Spatz made connections with women
in her barrack. She was able to get a position working in one of the
offices. Her position granted access to many resources, including the
warm clothing of dead prisoners.
When Auschwitz was evacuated in 1945, the 2,000 prisoners were forced
to march for over a month in knee high snow. Cernyak-Spatz was one of
only 500 to survive. Eventually, she reached Ravensbrük, a women’s
prison.
“The order of the day was a bullet in the head for anyone who couldn’t walk,” Cernyak-Spatz said.
Later that year, Red Cross trucks drove through prison gates, despite
efforts to stop them, and delivered aid packages and hope.
The prison was liberated by the group in 1946. Cernyak-Spatz could have
left with the German, Austrian or Czech contingents, but she chose to
stay with 15 of her closest Slovak friends.
She survived a second march out of the camp to an American checkpoint.
“I was walking along and I didn’t feel this claustrophobia,”
Cernyak-Spatz said. “No one was telling me to go left or right. That
was my anti-climatic first taste of freedom.”
She later found out her father was alive in Brussels and had been protected because of his status as a World War I officer.
Cernyak-Spatz believes something like the Holocaust could happen again if it is forgotten.
“It doesn’t have to be the Jews next time,” she said. “It can be any minority that lets themselves
be the scapegoat.”
“We have to learn from the past for the future,” Cernyak-Spatz said.
“We have to stop hatred, stop genocide, stop ethnic cleansing. It’s up
to the next generation. We must prevent prejudice and intolerance.”
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