'I wondered why I lived': Holocaust survivor shares horrific memories with Oberlin sixth graders

OBERLIN — Helen Marks' memories are faded after 77 years, but she still remembers the sounds of bombs exploding and terror of the pitch-black cellar where she once hid from Nazi soldiers. As a 3-year-old Jewish girl uprooted from her home in Belgium and sent to live with a Catholic family while her parents fled, Marks didn't understand the horrors of concentration camps. "For many, many years, I wondered why I lived and 1.5 million children died," she said Monday in a video call with sixth graders at Langston Middle School in Oberlin. "I am in and of myself nothing special … I'm just me." Now a Northeast Ohio resident, the 80-year-old retired social studies teacher said she feels a responsibility to share her story, especially with so few Holocaust survivors remaining. She said she delivers talks about her experience "because I give you a face to all the numbers" of people threatened by Hitler's regime. Marks said the trauma of World War II remains etched in her mind. She knows she is lucky — she is the only Jewish child from her village who was hidden and saved, while in the next town three were turned over to the Nazis and killed. Marks' parents also both survived the war. Emaciated on his release from a camp, her father lived long enough to walk her down the aisle in 1962, dying months later. Her mother died in 2005. Both suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, Marks said. An unsettling discovery under her late mother's bed proved just how deeply rooted the terror remained 60 years later. "She was still afraid of the Nazis and she had an ax to defend herself," Marks told students. She carries her own scars. Marks told Langston sixth graders she couldn't recall how she felt while in hiding, but their questions revealed disturbing memories. The tiny girl was terrified of anyone in uniform — the Nazis, naturally, but also of Allied soldiers. When they offered her chocolate, she thought it must be poisoned, and when one officer blew a bubble with gum, she assumed it was an explosive. "Little children don't understand politics. And if all you have ever seen is war, that's what you think life is like," Marks said. Oberlin students had questions: Why did Hitler hate Jews so much? When did the war start and end? How did she feel when it was finally over? Marks said she didn't have all the answers. She did have some advice. "If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem," she told students. She also said they must each do their part to repair the world. Teacher Amanda Kochmit said the talk was invaluable for young Langston students. "There's not that many Holocaust survivors left. To be able to hear her story right from her is pretty amazing," she said. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.