On Wednesday, November 7th, I attended the annual Kristallnacht Commemoration speech given by Holocaust survivor Judith Altmann. The story that Altmann depicted for the audience was extremely bone-chilling and disturbing at times. Kristallnacht translates to "Night of Broken Glass", representing the battered windows of Jewish-operated businesses, homes and synagogues being showered across the streets in millions of pieces. It was on the night of November 9th, 1938, that violence ran loose amongst the Jewish citizens across the Reich, a former German state. The pogrom came as a result of the murder of a German official in Paris, who was shot to death by a 17-year old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan. The reasoning for his actions has to do with the misery he faced at the fate of his parents, who were transported to no-mans-land in between Germany and Poland, due to the Germans expelling the Jews from their country and the Polish refusing to accept them in. Upon hearing the news, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a heated anti-Semitic speech to the faithful Nazi party in Munich, which sparked the uproar that eventually led to this pogrom. In just two days of full-blown destruction by the Nazi's, over 250 synagogues were burned to the ground, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed and looted completely, Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools and homes were looted, while dozens of Jewish citizens were also killed. Judith Altmann was a victim of the attacks, revealing her story to young individuals across the country in hopes of teaching them the dangers of discrimination and hate.
Judith Altmann was born in Jasina, Czechoslovakia just outside of Germany, and was one of six children. She lived there for 14 years until it was invaded by the Nazi's in 1939. Her story about the process of going about being a Jew during this time was heart-wrenching and very inhumane. After the invasion, she and her family members were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and they were not allowed to attend school any longer. Living in the life of a Jew during this time was awful, Altmann described having to deal with the constant fear of being taken away from her family, or even the possibility of being killed, as her sister was. It was in April of 1944 that Altmann and her family were forced to pack their things and leave their homes with only a half-hours notice. Her father brought along a prayer book and a small blanket, while Judith brought her manicure kit which she got for her last birthday. Her mother was very indecisive about letting the Nazi's take her with them, saying that she would have rather killed herself. It was Judith that influenced her mother to remain strong and stay with the family, saying "Mommy you always have time to die. Don't do anything". Eventually, the family packed up and were taken by the Germans to Auschwitz concentration camp.
Her family, along with many other Jewish people were brought to a cemetery, where they sat upon the resting places of their ancestor's, waiting to be packed into cattle cars like sardines. Altmann describes how little room there was in those cars to move or do anything for that matter. At one time, there was a dead body that could not be disposed of because of the fact that there was simply no room to do so. I can only imagine how terrible of a situation that was to be in, being forced to stand on two feet in a packed cattle car with roughly 120 other people for four whole days. When they finally arrived at Auschwitz lines started to form, and people were being ripped away from their loved ones.
Altmann described the scene upon arriving as bewildering, Nazi soldiers were running around and yelling at the Jewish people while shoving them into their designated lines. Altmann, her younger niece and nephew were separated from their 24 other family members, being sent off to the left while their family was sent off to the right. Her last encounter with her father was truly heart aching to hear, but she is thankful that it helped her persevere through the toughest of times that she went through while at the camp. Altmann spoke out and said, "My father put his hand on my head, as he did every Friday night when he blessed us for the Shabbos dinner, and said, 'Judy, you will live.' That was the last thing he said to me before going to the gas." Afterwards, her and the others in the camp were forced to strip down naked and have their heads shaved, she explained the smell in the air that day as horrible. When she asked about the smell in the air, another prisoner told her that it was her family giving off the strong odor, being gassed in the crematoriums that the Nazis had constructed. Having to cope with this harsh reality as a young girl is something that nobody should ever have to do, and I give Judith an extreme amount of respect for dealing with the situation in the way that she did. She explained to the audience that it took hope, perseverance and a will to survive in order for her to keep her head straight throughout the process. Additionally, what surprised me the most was how she dealt with all of this without hate and with tremendous amount of spirit. The last words her father ever spoke to her was what kept her drive going when she thought she could no longer endure the pain.
Luckily for Judith, she was a very smart individual who could speak several different languages including Polish, Czech, German, Yiddish and Hungarian. This acquired skill was what helped her at times throughout her stay at the camp, proving herself as very valuable to even the German soldiers. She recalls being injured on the job one day after a piece of metal fell on her wrist and broke it, then one woman SS officer actually took her to get a cast put on it, explaining to the other soldiers that she needed her because she spoke several different languages, and if she did not have her then work would not get done. This eventually saved her from being put with the other disabled individuals who would be put to death in the gas chambers. She explained to the audience how her knowledge and education actually saved her from death, and how lucky students here in America are to have the educational systems we have today in order to make a better world for everyone.
On an April morning in 1945, the British liberated the prisoners of Bergen-Belsen, the camp Judith had later been transferred to. The sun was shining, and the prisoners felt a great amount of joy after finally tasting their first bit of freedom in almost six years. At the time Altmann was very ill with typhus and needed a full year of recovery before eventually moving to Sweden. In 1948, she moved to the United States and started her life over again, marrying and having two children. Now, Judith travels around the country presenting her story to people in hopes of raising awareness towards what hate, and discrimination can lead to. She urged the audience to hold our family members close, and to also spread awareness of the fact that this actually did happen. There are people out there that will deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and that is very offensive to Judith along with the few survivors that are still living today. This presentation opened my eyes to a number of different factors and events that took place during this horrific event and it is special to hear from somebody first-hand who had to withstand all of the trauma, pain and suffering. The lesson learned was very valuable, in that we cannot ignore hate and discrimination while it plays its role on our community for the worse. We are the future of today and control how we want this world to turn out, therefore possessing a good amount of knowledge as well as being able to effectively use it morally is a very important part of our lives.