Survival Story for All Ages

Wednesday’s editorial describes the value of hearing about the tragedies in the Holocaust (followed by a note of appreciation for this year’s record-setting blood drive).

During the release of several motion pictures about the Holocaust in 2009, film critic A.O. Scott wrote that while some moviegoers might turn away from such stories, there really cannot be too many films on the subject. Holocaust survivor Joe Engel of Charleston adamantly agrees. Here is what he told seventh graders at Waccamaw Middle School the other day: ``A lot of books have been written about it. A lot of movies have been made about it but nothing came close enough. What’s been going on in Auschwitz-Birkenau, it’s impossible to believe it. Whoever was not there cannot imagine. Today we must still witness for them.’’

By them, he means the six million Jews killed in Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz where Engel was sent in 1942. He was 14 years old and the last of his family to be sent to Auschwitz. He never saw his parents again, which is the case for hundreds of thousands of young European Jews of Engel’s generation. After World War II, Engel found three of his eight siblings in a displaced persons camp in Zeilsheim, Germany. He came to live with an aunt in Charleston and eventually settled there, operating a cleaning and alterations business.

For 20 years, Engel has been telling school children about his survival -- jumping from a train in 1945 and becoming part of the resistance. As he told the students in Pawleys Island, the Nazis moved prisoners from some locations as U.S. and Soviet troops closed in. Jennifer Rosenberg writes in ``Holocaust Facts’’ for About.com that the ``concentration camps’’ opened in 1933 (one of the first was Dachau, near Munich, Germany) for people who spoke or acted against the Nazi government. These political prisoners were not necessarily Jews. Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and disabled persons -- were targeted by Hitler’s ``National Socialist German Worker’s Party’’ (for which Nazi is an acronym.) In all, an estimated 11 million people were killed in the Holocaust.

After 1938, ``the persecution of Jews became more organized’’ and the number of Jews sent to the camps greatly increased. At the Dachau memorial, a map shows the camps were all across Germany. Millions of people died in the camps, including an estimated 1.1 million at Auschwitz in Poland, which was both a concentration and extermination camp. The Nazis built six of the latter, called death camps, where prisoners, undressed for taking a shower, were herded into gas chambers.

For Americans who have seen the Holocaust Museum in Washington or perhaps visited one of the memorial sites of the infamous camps in Poland or Germany, it is incomprehensible that some make the outrageous claim that the Holocaust did not happen. Joe Engel surely knows that it happened and he asked the students at Waccamaw Middle School to always remember it. Indeed, Joe Engel’s story is one we dare not ever forget.

Thanks, Donors

A tip of The Sun News hat to all the folks who participated in the two-day blood drive last week at Broadway at the Beach. On Wednesday and Thursday, a total of 370 units of blood were collected – well over the goal of 322 and the collections in September’s two-day drive. It was the third blood drive sponsored by The Sun News, WMBF News and the American Red Cross. On the second day, “We saw 220 [potential] donors and collected 200 units,” reported Amy K. King, donor recruitment supervisor for the S.C. Blood Services Region of the Red Cross, which serves 54 hospitals.

By them, he means the six million Jews killed in Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz where Engel was sent in 1942. He was 14 years old and the last of his family to be sent to Auschwitz. He never saw his parents again, which is the case for hundreds of thousands of young European Jews of Engel’s generation. After World War II, Engel found three of his eight siblings in a displaced persons camp in Zeilsheim, Germany. He came to live with an aunt in Charleston and eventually settled there, operating a cleaning and alterations business.

For 20 years, Engel has been telling school children about his survival -- jumping from a train in 1945 and becoming part of the resistance. As he told the students in Pawleys Island, the Nazis moved prisoners from some locations as U.S. and Soviet troops closed in. Jennifer Rosenberg writes in ``Holocaust Facts’’ for About.com that the ``concentration camps’’ opened in 1933 (one of the first was Dachau, near Munich, Germany) for people who spoke or acted against the Nazi government. These political prisoners were not necessarily Jews. Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and disabled persons -- were targeted by Hitler’s ``National Socialist German Worker’s Party’’ (for which Nazi is an acronym.) In all, an estimated 11 million people were killed in the Holocaust.

After 1938, ``the persecution of Jews became more organized’’ and the number of Jews sent to the camps greatly increased. At the Dachau memorial, a map shows the camps were all across Germany. Millions of people died in the camps, including an estimated 1.1 million at Auschwitz in Poland, which was both a concentration and extermination camp. The Nazis built six of the latter, called death camps, where prisoners, undressed for taking a shower, were herded into gas chambers.

For Americans who have seen the Holocaust Museum in Washington or perhaps visited one of the memorial sites of the infamous camps in Poland or Germany, it is incomprehensible that some make the outrageous claim that the Holocaust did not happen. Joe Engel surely knows that it happened and he asked the students at Waccamaw Middle School to always remember it. Indeed, Joe Engel’s story is one we dare not ever forget.

Thanks, Donors

A tip of The Sun News hat to all the folks who participated in the two-day blood drive last week at Broadway at the Beach. On Wednesday and Thursday, a total of 370 units of blood were collected – well over the goal of 322 and the collections in September’s two-day drive. It was the third blood drive sponsored by The Sun News, WMBF News and the American Red Cross. On the second day, “We saw 220 [potential] donors and collected 200 units,” reported Amy K. King, donor recruitment supervisor for the S.C. Blood Services Region of the Red Cross, which serves 54 hospitals.