Friday, I went to a training on teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide. I was, I must admit, quite excited about this because I am without a doubt a nerd! I have been studying the German Holocaust or Shoa for the last 14 years. It started in college when I took an honors level history class about Nazi Germany and has been on going ever since.
In 2003, I was blessed to be to visit Auschwitz Birkenau with a friend and that day changed a lot of how I saw history. I can’t begin to put to words what it was like to tour the death/slavery camp in Poland, to put it in some sort of perspective the feeling of standing on the ground where millions of Jew stood before they met their brutal and senseless death.
So coming into the conference, I had an idea of what the day would entail. I knew we’d hear from some survivors and some professors, but I had no idea how much I would learn in such a short time. I literally took 9 pages of notes!! Typed thankfully, since we all know my handwriting leaves much to be desired. I could write pages about all I learned, about the depth of my new understanding but that is not really what is pounding in my brain right now.
The highlight of my day, without a doubt was hearing from the survivors: both told very different stories of their experience in the most organized destruction of a people group in world history. Now, I have been blessed to meet a Holocaust survivor before- on a flight landing in Salt Lake City. It was one of the most random experiences ever, and as all good random experiences due, it changed me and my understanding of the lasting impact of the Holocaust. Today was another one of those random experiences.
Midway through the day, a man who portrayed an unmistakable honor and confidence about himself, told the story of he and his wife both survivor the hell at Auschwitz and of how they were able to find each other after the liberation of the camps. Though his thick eastern European accent made him some what difficult to follow, Klaus Stern wove a tail of pain and suffering marked by pure determination. He wanted to clarify to us that the Russian liberation of Auschwitz was not actually a liberation at at, that most of the surviving Jews had been moved to other camps by the time the Russian soldiers found human skeletons walking around Birkenau. It was an amazing story and one he told quite simply and eloquently. Once he was finished he joined us for the next presentation of the conference. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes into the next presentation that I took notice of the situation. As I was busy typing a way, I had failed to noticed that Klaus Stern had sat down right next to me.
I sat there for several minutes, completely transfixed by the moment. I was sitting next to a man who had survived the unsurvivalbe. A man who’s story I try to tell every year to my students. A man who outlived a hell that most of us can’t wrap our minds around. I struggle to grasp it, it was like I was on over load, my brain and my heart seem to just stop. I’d like to say I am being dramatic for effect but I am not. That is how it felt, to say I was humbled would be an understatement. When my brain finally re-engaged I tried to continue my note taking, while noticing that this man who had outlived his nazi tormentors, was attentively listening to the same presentation on Death Camps that I was. I was even more humbled when at the end of the presentation he asked a question of the presenter. Klaus had lived it...and yet he wanted to know and understand more. After the presentation, I couldn’t help but thank him again for what he shared. We had a brief, but perspective changing exchange. I thanked him, and he thanked me for teaching the Holocaust and I said that the day was overwhelming, that I was learning so much more than my brain could handle. And he said “A German philosopher once said “ I know everything but I like to learn a little bit more’” He gave me a shy knowing smile as he said it and patted me on the shoulder as he turned to leave.
There are moments in our lives that can not be replaced, moments that change us, humbles us, frighten us and bring us to a new understanding of not only ourselves but the world we live in. That is what this was for me. What struck me was not only the resiliency of the human spirit to survive Auschwitz, but to have such a humble and teachable heart through out your life. This is the very least I can hope for myself. Thank you Klaus- for telling your story and for speaking truth to me in a simple random moment.
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