If any of our youth felt nervous, preparing to meet this man, they weren't alone. Would the pall of death hang over him? Would he be embittered? Would we see his tattoo? Imagine our surprise when the jolly old grandpa who had earlier ushered us through the front door was introduced to us as our speaker. He immediately set us at ease with his cheer and good humor.
As we listened to his story, we began formulating questions. How could such a thing as the holocaust be waged against someone like this? How could this happen in civil society? How did he survive? How could he let go of the horror and show such happiness today?
The story began, not with Mr. Roth, but with a brief history of the Jews, their assimilation into Europe, and their persecution in nearly every European country in every century. When the Germans lost World War I, racial profiling was already commonplace, vicious anti-Semitic propaganda had been published, and it was an easy matter for Hitler, in his rise to power, to scapegoat the Jews for the nation's economic devastation.
Into this world, in Czechoslovakia, Irving Roth was born in 1929. This is the same year my own father was born, and I was struck, as I listened, by how similar and how innocent both childhoods were. Roth played soccer. He went to school. He had a childhood sweetheart. He picked pears from the tree across the street. There were three generations living in his house: Irving, his parents, and his grandparents. "It was wonderful," he said. "Living in three generations is actually spectacular."
But dark things were happening in the world around him. Jews were banned from the 1936 Olympics and the world declined to protest. Neville Chamberlain celebrated "peace in our time" even as he allowed Hitler to take the Sudatenland. And one day, suddenly, a sign was hung at the soccer park that said, "Jews are forbidden to enter."
"It wasn't the end of the world," Roth said. "So I went to the beach instead." But another sign had been posted at the beach. "Jews are forbidden to enter."
Next, it was decreed that all Jews must be identified on the street. "It was a community of 7,000," he said. "Everybody knows everybody." The point was not to identify him as Irving Roth, but to identify him as a Jew.
Next, it was decreed that Jews were not allowed to own luxuries, so he was sent to deliver his sheepskin coat, the family radio, and his mother's gold earrings to the police department. Still, he said, it was not the end of the world.
Then he was banned from school and voted off the soccer team. "The law had nothing to do with it," he said. "The kids made their own vote because law permeates society and becomes a way of thought."
The innocence of Roth's childhood came swiftly to an end. The threats to his parents were even worse. Jews were not permitted to work for the government; they were barred from the practice of law; they were banned from owning their own businesses. Roth's father was forced to sell the business to his partner, who broke his promise to share profits. "It was betrayal by friends," Roth said. "It was a transformation of humanity."
In 1941, over a period of six months, a half million Jews were killed in Nazi-occupied countries. "This was totally unacceptable," Roth said, speaking from the Nazi point of view. "It was too slow." This is when the "final solution" was decided at the Wannsee Conference in early 1942. "Who are these people who sit in 90-minute meetings and decide how to murder humans?" Roth asked us. Psychopaths, surely? No: They were chemists, scientists, doctors, transportation experts, military advisers. PhDs. "The cream of the crop of German society," Roth said, highlighting the absurdity of the decision. "They meet, decide how to murder, and then, after ninety minutes, they are done. They go to lunch."
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| Ehibits on display at the Jewish Cultural Center (here and above) |
As the story progressed through starvation, forced labor, and gas chambers, I expected the mood to darken, but Roth kept his tone light and understated, still adding touches of humor. "You know what happens if you don't eat?" he asked. "You don't have to diet."
In April of 1945, Roth's brother was taken away to Bergen-Belsen. He later learned the day of his brother's arrival at Bergen-Belsen, because he was made to register, but this is where the trail ends.
Just a few days later, on April 11, Roth, sitting in camp in Auschwitz, realized that every German soldier had disappeared. And then: liberation. Two American soldiers walked into the room, one black, one white. "From my point of view," he said, "they are the Messiah.You want to know what the Messiah looks like? There are two. One black, one white."
The Americans began feeding the prisoners, but this made them sick. Fortunately, there were doctors who intervened to supervise a slow and careful recovery. Soldiers brought chocolate. To this day, Roth says, he remains a chocoholic.
In May, Roth was miraculously reunited with his parents, who survived because of a good Christian woman who hid them in her apartment. "My parents survived because someone was willing to help," he said, stopping to drive this point home. "My friends, that's the issue! Someone was willing to help."
"We are all born the same way," he said. "We will all die. We will be judged as a person, as a people, as humanity, as a nation, by how we treat each other."
"Regardless of race, gender, orientation, religion, or national origin, we must treat all people with kindness and humanity," he said. "Make sure you don't just watch. Make sure you fight prejudice, hatred, and lies."
When he was finished, someone asked him the question. How was he able to survive Auschwitz when so many others were lost?
This was difficult to answer, he said. There was no good answer. But he mentioned three things:
- He loves life. (This was obvious.) "I also love chocolate!" he added.
- He was interned only for the last year of the war. Others came earlier and faced longer terms: three or four years.
- "I don't believe in miracles. I just depend on them."
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| Hearts posted on a bulletin board by school children at the Jewish Cultural Center |
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| Menorah by Manfred Anson on display at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Each small Statue of Liberty is engraved with the name of a person or event of liberation central to Jewish history. |
