And, two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Tolerance. I had to work in Los Angeles over the weekend for a system conversion/ implementation. The project ran fairly smoothly and we ended up having a free day on Sunday. Nick was also in LA and we visited the museum with our friend, Mike. Little did we know, we would get the opportunity to listen to a Holocaust survivor, Dr. Henry Oster, speak of his experience.
I could talk/write for hours about what I learned from him in those two hours. I felt grateful that my job took me to Germany a few years ago where I met up with some college friends in Dusseldorf. They took me to Cologne (he is the last survivor from that town). The next year, my job took me to Poland. I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau (both camps he was in). He spoke of the gas, the crematorium, the barracks. He talked about what they ate and what happened to their bodies. He managed to survive by working in the agriculture fields, finding hiding places, and he spoke German.
A few pics from my trip to Auschwitz...
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| Top of the gate at Auschwitz |
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| Lots of flowers placed in various places like this at Auschwitz |
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| Sunday Funday -- He made friends with the guy that did the executions here. And, sometimes got bread from him. |
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| The crematorium |
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| Birkenau -- barely any buildings here, since it was a death camp. |
When the liberation happened, he was placed in an orphanage in France. Newspapers all over the world listed the names of children in all the orphanages, in case any family members that escaped may know the children. An uncle, who lived in Los Angeles, saw his nephew's name and brought him to LA. He was illiterate, having been working in the ghetto, and then the concentration camp, and then the death camp since he was 7 years old. He learned to read and write English, graduated from high school, and went on to UCLA. He wanted to be a dentist (because his teeth were not in good shape due to malnutrition and starvation and his dentist managed to save them) and during his interview, he saw the interviewer write "Germ Jew" at the top of his application. He didn't get in. He said he wouldn't give us the name of university, but the initials were USC (sorry...just had to make that jab). So he became an optometrist. Having worked under the Nazi regime for 17 hours a day, it was all he knew how to do -- work. He's 83 years old. He tried to retire awhile ago and went back to work.
Lastly, he told us about how either his son or son-in-law came across the "stumbling blocks" that Cologne placed all over the city. As a monument to what happened, a local artist placed a gold block in the sidewalk in front of every home where a family was taken. His son noticed there wasn't a stumbling block in front of Dr. Oster's original home and contacted the city. Much to the city of Cologne's surprise, it had no idea there was even a survivor from Cologne. Parliament invited him to Germany to come speak. After much encouragement from his family, he went. And, he said he finally got something off his chest. He told them that Germany is the richest country in the EU. And yet the German border today is the same size it was before the war. Yet over 60 million people died in the process.
So, today, instead of writing about headwind or sore muscles or how I really think I'm allergic to water or any other triathlon-related first-world problem, I'm thinking about how grateful I am. I had a choice to toot around a city for 17 hours for ONE day with food in my pockets. This man was forced to work every day for 17 hours a day for 6 or 7 years with one bowl of cabbage, and if he was lucky, a stolen raw potato hidden in his pocket.
He's truly an amazing man, I've had the honor to work with him. To know his story and for the type of person he turned out to be, is beyond words.
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