Holocaust survivor remembers history, speaks at memorial event in Lorain

Rose G. Gelbart is a survivor. Through the oppression of Nazi Germany's Third Reich, through the years of World War II, through the Holocaust, Rose G. Gelbart survived. On Thursday, Gelbart, 92, and her husband, Arthur A. Gelbart, 97, who is also a Holocaust survivor, spoke at events in Lorain. They spoke of their history, their stories and of the importance of remembering. While her husband had spoken earlier in the day, Rose G. Gelbart was slated to speak at the Lorain Palace Theatre that evening. A few hours before addressing the audience, she questioned what she would talk about. "What do they want to know?" Gelbart asked. "What it was like for a child to be hidden? A child to be on the run?" In the lobby of the Ariel Broadway Hotel, Gelbart sat with a mug in front of her next to several books strewn about a table. The cover of one of them had a photo of herself when she was a child, a brief moment she said she was happy while still on the run from the Nazis during the war. "For three years, I was on the run," Gelbart said. "I never knew where I'm going to wind up, who's going to pick me up. Why did I have to run?" Gelbart referenced a passage in another nearby open book, which touched on the survivors of the Holocaust who were still only children as atrocities unfolded around them, and acknowledged the similarity of her own experience. She recalled living in a ghetto, neighborhoods created by the Nazis to isolate and control Jews. Through the war, Gelbart and her mother fled throughout Poland, many times hiding, other times being confronted by armed Nazis or others who could have revealed their secret. Gelbart recalled moments when brown-shirted guards looked for Jews. Over time, Gelbart lost many family members, friends and neighbors, but Gelbart and her mother were able to evade capture. By 1945, World War II was over in Europe, with the Nazis destroyed and concentration camps and occupied nations liberated. After the war, survivors began returning to their homes, including Gelbart and her mother. Gelbart was enrolled in school, studied, played the piano — aspects of life like before. But nobody spoke to the children about what they had survived, Gelbart said. "They never talked to us psychologically," Gelbart said of the years after the war. "As if it didn't happen." In those years, Gelbart said the older survivors of the Holocaust did not speak to them about their experiences. "I know some people that were hidden in a suitcase, under the bed. But they never talked about it," Gelbart said. "They thought … if you don't talk about it, they'll forget it. But it was there." Gelbart did not forget. At the Ariel Broadway Hotel on Thursday evening, Gelbart remembered the experiences, the fear, the memories made. She remembered the family members who did not survive the Holocaust. Gelbart remembered her father. Thursday was not the first time Gelbart has spoken of her past, urging those in the present not to forget it. In the 1990s, Gelbart joined a group called Hidden Children — an organization that works to educate people about the experiences of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. "We changed it to all child survivors. Now it's second and third generation," Gelbart said. "That helped us. … We talked and talked and talked." When asked why she felt it was important to tell others to remember the Holocaust and the stories of all survivors, Gelbart paused. "Because the world forgets what could happen if you let hate grow," Gelbart said. "If you forget what it's like, then it can happen to not just Jews, it could happen to anyone." Contact Garrett Looker at glooker@chroniclet.com.