FORT BENNING, Ga., (May 11, 2016) -- The Holocaust is known as one of the most tragic times in world history.
Between 1941 and 1945, more than 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, were killed throughout Europe, at the hands of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Additionally, 5 million non-Jewish, European residents were also killed, as Hitler's quest for the perfect Aryan race called for a genocide of every human that he considered imperfect.
To honor victims and survivors of the Holocaust, Martin Army Community Hospital held a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony Tuesday in the hospital's atrium.
More 100 guests dined and listened as guest speaker, Peter (Moshe) Loth, a Holocaust survivor, described his experiences in the Nazi-run Stutthof Concentration Camp in Poland. The camp was well-known for beatings, starvation and torture of its prisoners, many of whom eventually died in the notorious gas chambers or were burned to death in ovens.
Loth spoke of how he was born in the concentration camp to a woman who was part Jewish, and of how they were eventually separated shortly after being liberated by Russian soldiers. He said instead of freeing the Jewish and German children, who were considered outcasts under Hitler's laws, the Russian troops continued to torture them.
According to his website, peterloth.com, Loth was raised by a woman, whom he thought was his mother, as she had reached an agreement with his birth mother to raise him as her own, following their liberation. It wasn't until 1957, when was 14 years old that he met his birth mother, who was now married to an African-American U.S. Soldier and living in Germany.
Loth came to America in 1959, with his family which now included two stepsisters. Despite coming to a land that signified freedom and a better life, he said he only found more racism, discrimination and violence. Loth's two stepsisters were black, which caused him to face bigotry and racism from both, blacks and whites in the U.S.
Loth admitted that through all the years of pain, abuse and suffering, he had become a bitter man who found it hard to forgive those who had wronged him. However, in the late 1980s his faith was strengthened, as he discovered Christianity and Judaism.
Today, Loth said it's important for all people to have the spirit of forgiveness in their hearts, which is a lesson that he said must be taught. It is the reason for his appearance at MACH for the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony.
"The most important thing is to teach the Soldiers how to forgive, because every one of us have endured pain," he said, during an intermission at the ceremony. "Therefore, when I give my testimony and explain what I went through, hopefully it will touch their hearts and teach them how to forgive others."
He said he wants to let the MACH community know that, although it's hard to forgive themselves and others for things that have happened throughout their lives, life is better once they embrace the spirit of forgiveness.
"I want to thank the Soldiers because they're the ones who liberated us. Think about it, they laid their lives on the line for me. So I thank them because they came and liberated us and set us free. Thank God for the Soldiers," Loth said.
Along with Loth, the ceremony also featured Dr. Morton Waitzman, a former World War II Soldier, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and who was responsible for liberating Jews imprisoned in the German concentration camps; and Henry Friedman, a Holocaust survivor, who shared his experiences during World War II, as well. Friedman was 21, when Nazi Soldiers took over his Hungarian hometown of Nagy Varad.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed nationally on May 5.
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