FORT HUACHUCA, Arizona -- The 304th Military Intelligence Battalion hosted Fort Huachuca's annual Days of Remembrance observance at Fitch Auditorium and small-group sessions with Holocaust survivors across the installation May 1.
Holocaust survivors tell their story
Sidney Finkel, born Sevek Finkelstein in Piotrkow, Poland, to a well-to-do family, spoke at the Cochise Theater small-group session and shared a documentary film about his life and experience as a Holocaust survivor and about his memoir, "Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused to Die." At age six, Finkel and his family, including his mother, father, older brother and three older sisters, were forced to move into the ghetto in Piotrkow. Finkel described life in the ghetto at his young age and explained that he was not allowed to attend school. His mother and two sisters were killed in concentration camps or by German officers, leaving Finkel, his brother Isaac, sister Lola, and father Lieb living in the ghetto for four years.
At age 10, Finkel, his father and brother were sent to a slave labor camp in Bugaj, Poland, before being transferred to other concentration camps. When Finkel was 11 his father died. The concentration camp where Finkel was imprisoned was later liberated by American Soldiers, and at the age of 12 he reunited with his brother Isaac and his sister Lola.
Finkel spent the next six years in England in boarding schools focused on his education because he had received almost no schooling. At the age of 18, Finkel arrived in the United States to live with his sister Lola and her family. Finkel received his GED at the age of 55 and an honorary doctorate from Chicago's Saint Xavier University in 2011.
After the video presentation, Finkel answered questions from the audience members and spoke about life after the Holocaust, including adjusting to a life of freedom.
"I thought I would be OK, but I have to tell you that I have suffered through this my whole life to the present day," Finkel explained. "I see a psychiatrist every once in a while. It never leaves you. You overcome it, but you know that they are there. There isn't a day that goes by that how I act or how I feel does not reflect my past."
He said something that has helped him with the anxiety and the lifelong effects of being a holocaust survivor is to always be physically active every day, by walking or swimming or exercise in some form..
"I've been very fortunate that so late in my life I have been given this opportunity of speaking to you," Finkel said. "Honestly, you can't imagine how moved I am. American Soldiers. Wow. And I am speaking to them, and they are listening to me."
Finkel paused and then continued, "This is a tremendous honor. I'll remember this. This is better than the honor of being a Ph.D. and all that other stuff that I got, honestly."
Days of Remembrance Holocaust observance
Finkel, along with Annique Dveirin, Wanda Wolosky and Theresa Dolgov, were Fort Huachuca's honored Holocaust survivors at the Days of Remembrance observance at Fitch Auditorium. The theme was Learning from the Holocaust.
Lt. Col. Paul Oh, 304th MI Bn. commander, explained the history of the Holocaust.
"Beginning in 1933, the Nazi's planned and executed a systematic state-sponsored persecution and murder of the Jewish people as well as others that it considered inferior; the Poles, the disabled, the communist, socialist, homosexuals," Oh said. "As a result of the plan, which they termed the Final Solution, an estimated 11 million people were murdered, to include six million Jews. Nazis killed approximate two thirds of all Jews in Europe.
"We see the strength of the human spirit today in those that survived these horrendous times. We see the same spirit in those came who before us, those Soldiers who finally broke down the fences of the concentration camps in 1945."
Oh said the observance was a day to mourn remembering this tragedy of the past. But there is also a positive component of the remembrance.
"We celebrate the strength of the human spirit that refused to be quenched when all seems lost," Oh said. "And we resolve that such strength will be in us when it's our turn to confront such evil."
A video "Why We Remember the Holocaust" was played for the audience with photos and movie footage from the concentration camps, Nazi propaganda and news reels.
Keynote speaker Ezra Cappell, director of the Inter-American Jewish Studies Program at the University of Texas in El Paso, said it is "only through the Jewish concept of Zahor, through the power of memory, and through the actions of compassionate men and women, like all those of you that have come out today to meditate on the horrors of history that we can ensure that the atrocities of the past" are not repeated.
Cappell said he often asks his students, "Why do you think it's important to remember the Holocaust?
"Rather than answer this question, I'll rely on an ancient Jewish tradition which is to answer a question with another question. Why do we study and remember the tragic events of the Holocaust? How can we not recall those horrific events on a daily basis? And do we risk when we do not remember?"
Cappell described the anti-Semitic treatment of Jewish immigrants occurring nearly two decades before the Holocaust. He displayed letters and documents demonstrating the impeding of the immigration of Polish Jews to America from his own family. Affidavits and rejection letters asking for more documentation month after month continued to delay the applications until those seeking immigration were lost in the Holocaust.
Cappell also provided a Star of David badge artifact that one of his family members wore during the Holocaust and provided it to the audience for members to pass around and view close up.
"Let's remember today that since the Holocaust the entire world's nations have failed to stop genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur," he said. "I would ask each of us today, as we contemplate the Holocaust, to think about what happens when we refuse to act decisively when evil stares us in the face."
Candles were lit by the Holocaust survivors and special guests. Lt. Col. Elmar Henschen, Fort Huachuca's German Liaison Officer, read the poem "First They Came for the Jews" by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller. The Mourner's Kaddish was read and awards were presented to the Holocaust survivors in appreciation for their attendance.
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