FORT BELVOIR, Va. - A special breakfast was held April 15 at Fort Belvoir's Officers' Club to remember the Holocaust - a period considered by scholars to be one of the darkest in human history.
Hosted by the installation's Equal Opportunity Office, Sgt. 1st Class Felicia Alston greeted guests by saying it was a time of reflection. As the installation equal opportunity adviser, she also said the morning's gathering was a gesture in celebrating the lives of those who endured the pain and heartache associated with those years.
Jewish Holocaust survivor Erika Eckstut would be one of those individuals. Born in 1928, Eckstut was 3 years old when she moved with her parents and older sister, Beatrice, to a Jewish community in Stanesti, a small town in the Romanian province of Bukovina.
The move was a clear benefit to Eckstut. She attended a public school and a Hebrew school her father, also an attorney, helped found. The move also made it possible for the family to live in the same town as her paternal grandparents who she admired so much.
"I remember playing with my sister and other children at this park in town. Though, I'll never forget the memories of my grandparents, especially my grandfather," Eckstut said. "He was a very kind man. He would grow cherries in his backyard and would give me some as a treat. Those were very nice times. I loved my grandparents dearly."
Those times came crashing to an end in 1941, when Eckstut said Romania joined Nazi Germany in the war against the Soviet Union, who had been occupying Bukovina just a year earlier. She said attacks were carried out on the town's Jews and that her family was forced to settle in a ghetto in the nearby town of Czernowitz.
While it wasn't a concentration camp, Eckstut said living conditions were extremely poor and there was very little food to go around. It was at this time she also witnessed people being beaten and killed almost daily.
"Words can't describe the conditions at Czernowitz. It was the lowest point of my life. My grandparents both died from hunger, as did so many people. It was awful and I was heartbroken," Eckstut said. "I also couldn't understand the beatings by German soldiers. Why harm someone who hasn't done anything to you' By this time I was 12 years old and nothing made any sense."
Eckstut said this was when her father taught her a very important lesson. One she tells young people today and a lesson she says will remain in her heart forever.
"My father told me to never hate in life. He said nothing will ever change if you decide to live your life hating others," Eckstut said. "I loved my father and I learned so much from him. I knew he was right and I decided that's how I wanted live my life."
Speaking on behalf of Belvoir's Headquarters Battalion, Master Sgt. Renee McMillian thanked Eckstut for her words and said what we teach people today will only help them for tomorrow. Installation Commander Col. Jerry Blixt added her words will only encourage others to tell her story.
In addition to Eckstut's speech, the breakfast included a poem by Holocaust survivor and retired Army Col. Frank Cohn, as well as a video tribute and candle-lighting ceremony.
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