Holocaust survivor shares story during annual remembrance program

LORAIN — To forget history would be like killing those lost in the Holocaust for a second time, the organizer for a remembrance program said Thursday evening. Arnie Milner, president of Agudath B'nai Israel Synagogue and organizer of an annual Holocaust Remembrance program in Lorain, reminded attendees of what can happen if evil is allowed to overtake the world as it did in the 1930s and 1940s. "Coming together like this creates a community — we may have different religions, we may be different in our ethnic or racial backgrounds or politics, but we need to understand that we must have mutual respect, empathy and support for each other," Milner said in opening the evening's program. "Our diversity is our strength and each of us can make a difference." For the past 11 years, Milner and others from the synagogue have organized a remembrance program in Lorain County, with a session open to the public and others held just for local students. This year, Arthur Gelbart, 96, of Cleveland, shared his story of survival and liberation of Buchenwald by the U.S. 3rd Army on April 11, 1945. Gelbart was 10 years old in a small Polish town when World War II started. He came from a large family — his father one of eight, his mother one of five, he told those gathered at the Lorain Palace Theatre on Thursday. Seated on stage, Gelbart said his father was taken to Auschwitz early. He was not seen again. Gelbart's three sisters were taken to a women's camp while Gelbert himself worked in his occupied hometown taking apart local monuments to build highways with the stone. One of the dismantled monuments was Gelbart's grandfather's, he remembered. That work went on for about a half-year until Gelbart and his three sisters were packed into train cars headed for Dachau in 1942. There, they were separated, Gelbart said. Some passengers were sent to work, others sent to different camps and it was only by others testifying to Gelbart's work ethic that he was allowed to stay there and work for two and a half years, he said. There was little food, and harsh punishments — public hangings, food shortages and beatings. Gelbart remembered one day a foreman gave him a slice of bread that he hid in his belt buckle, but other guards noticed it and beat him severely — busting his teeth and giving him 20 lashes until someone spoke up and again defended that he was a "good working man." Soon, the camp was taken over by Auschwitz, he said, and the Jews, Roma and others there were given numbers and worked there until December of 1945 when, as Russian forces moves closer, the Nazis marched 4,000 on a two-week death march to Gross-Rosen, another camp. Only about 1,800 survived the march, Gelbart said. He remembered one Nazi who "plain and simple" enjoyed shooting those who lay down or could not walk anymore. A train then took them to Buchenwald. Gelbart was about 15 by then, he said, and was taken to a children's barracks in Block 66. He said others pointed out Eli Wiesel, who was in the same barrack as him. Wiesel, who also survived the Holocaust, was born in Romania. After Buchenwald was liberated, Wiesel moved first to France, then the United States and later became a writer, political activist and Nobel laureate. Gelbart said every morning for about two weeks another death march took people away from the camp. He could hear American troops — and the war — moving closer. He said Germans began shooting into the barracks to try to kill them for about eight or nine days before American soldiers broke through and came into the camp. "I remember the first soldier was a chaplin, a rabbi," Gelbart said. "He came through the door and said 'You are free, the camp is now occupied by American troops.'" As U.S., Russian and British forces continued to move into German-occupied territories, survivors from other camps began to come looking for their families. Gelbart found a man who came from his same town in Poland and traveled with him to camps in other cities to try and learn if any of his family had survived. It took nearly a month, going from town to town in the then-divided Germany. "We stopped at a lot of places, left our name — 'My name is so-and-so, I survived. You can reach me at this number,'" he said. When he was 16, he was walking down a street when he saw a woman waving at him, he said. His sister had found out he had been a prisoner at Buchenwald when it was liberated and had been searching for him as well. "This is when I discovered my three sisters survived the camp," he said. His two older sisters were married. He and his younger sister, Francis, 14, first planned to go to Israel until they found out their grandmother's aunt lived in the United States and signed for them to come to Cleveland. They arrived in Ohio in April 1947, he said. "We arrived to this wonderful, free country and I lived here the rest of my life," Gelbart said. "My sister went to high school. I went to the Army and served for two years in the American Army. I figured there was something I could do for this place that saved our lives." Gelbart met his wife, Rose, who also survived the Holocaust in a ghetto then in hiding with her mother. Rose's family was liberated by the Russians in 1945 and she later came to Northeast Ohio. The pair married in 1955 and have two sons, Jerry and Michael. "I do a lot of speaking to school children," Gelbart said. "I enjoy doing that." He reminded the audience, just like he often reminds the children he speaks to: "This is a wonderful country. Don't ever hesitate to live free and enjoy it — and I love you all." Gelbart received a standing ovation and a proclamation from Mayor Jack Bradley. Joined by his wife on stage for the proclamation, Arthur Gelbart said they built their family from the ashes left by the war. Bradley said those in attendance must carry a lesson of tolerance and action, lest they fail the couple standing on stage. "We must speak when we see hatred," Bradley said. "Act when we see injustice and teach the next generation to do the same." Milner left attendees with words from Weisel, who said to forget the Holocaust would not only be dangerous, but offensive. "Every act of goodness is an act of remembrance," Milner quoted. "... Let us work harder to make the world a better place and this is how we avoid another Holocaust." Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.