Holocaust Survivor Gave me a Tour of a Concentration Camp

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Today I had the rare experience of receiving a tour of the Flossenberg Concentration Camp here in Germany by one of its survivors. We were a small and informal group of five. Jack Terry (as he now calls himself) was a Polish Jew who went through two other camps before arriving at Flossenberg. He was 15 years old when the Camp was liberated by the 90th Infantry Division on 23 April 1945. One of the Chaplains, a Rabbi, spoke Yiddish as did Jacoub (Jack), and by default Jack became one of the early translators between the American forces and the camp inmates.
Jack was unofficially adopted by one of the Army Officers…he eventually made it to New York City, went to High School, got a scholarship to College and became a Geologist…joined the Army for two years (1954-1956) as an officer. It was during this time that he first returned to Flossenberg. After the Army he worked for Shell Oil for a bit…after two years in a South American Jungle he’d had enough and got a degree in Psychatry where he started treating other Holocaust Survivors.
He comes back to the Camp about twice a year now to help the “historical Society” with efforts to renevate and preserve the camp. Even through the tour he displayed an intelligent and sensitive sense of humor, was quite open and quite moving with how he related the horrors of the life he and others lived there…without being dramatic about it. The sense of hope he displayed is consistent with all the holocaust survivors I’ve met…and he loves the United States…everything about the experience…simply awesome.
 
Yerusalyim said:
Today I had the rare experience of receiving a tour of the Flossenberg Concentration Camp here in Germany by one of its survivors. We were a small and informal group of five. Jack Terry (as he now calls himself) was a Polish Jew who went through two other camps before arriving at Flossenberg. He was 15 years old when the Camp was liberated by the 90th Infantry Division on 23 April 1945. One of the Chaplains, a Rabbi, spoke Yiddish as did Jacoub (Jack), and by default Jack became one of the early translators between the American forces and the camp inmates.
Jack was unofficially adopted by one of the Army Officers…he eventually made it to New York City, went to High School, got a scholarship to College and became a Geologist…joined the Army for two years (1954-1956) as an officer. It was during this time that he first returned to Flossenberg. After the Army he worked for Shell Oil for a bit…after two years in a South American Jungle he’d had enough and got a degree in Psychatry where he started treating other Holocaust Survivors.
He comes back to the Camp about twice a year now to help the “historical Society” with efforts to renevate and preserve the camp. Even through the tour he displayed an intelligent and sensitive sense of humor, was quite open and quite moving with how he related the horrors of the life he and others lived there…without being dramatic about it. The sense of hope he displayed is consistent with all the holocaust survivors I’ve met…and he loves the United States…everything about the experience…simply awesome.
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What a story! I cannot imagine EVER going back to a place like that after such an experience!

If you ask me, this guy is a hero, plain and simple.

Heck. I’m not Jewish, Slavic, mentally retarded, a Catholic priest, or homosexual, and thus not in any target group for internment, but you could not PAY me to visit a concentration camp. I GET it! I do not need to SEE it to understand it. I get nightmares just thinking about those dark times.

NEVER AGAIN!
 
I know, we all say NEVER AGAIN, yet Rhwanda, Bosnia Sudan…need I go on?
 
I’ve often wondered about the different Concentration camps. I mean, I’ve wondered how many are still around and how many have been torn down.

As for the rest, it has been said that those who forget their history are bound to repeat it. And this world keeps forgetting.
 
I visited Dachau 30+ years ago. I still remember it – I can still smell the smell of the place (a subtle burnt smell that wasn’t able to be cleaned).
 
I visited the one in Belsen 16 yrs ago with my two sisters and BIL, it was very upsetting to read what went on there.
 
A friend of mine, a German, who teaches in the Bavarian high school system, takes his English class to Dachau every year . . .
 
Been to Yad Vashem twice…in 1995 and 20000. I read every piece of infomration on the walls and looked at all the picture-posters, the relics, etc. It was a horrendously moving experience. But I would go back to re-esperience it just to make myself aware of what humanity can do to humnaity. Although this was solely concentrated on Jews…there were also 6 other million who were killed.

I also went in the memorial for the children. It was a building right beside the adult one. There, I bawled my eyes out, the music was haunting. etc. I kept praying: I am so sorry Lord.:crying: It consisted of only a wall of 5 children’s pictures. mirrors and 5 candles. The effect was made it to look like hundreds! (and of course there were hundreds of children who died in the Holocaust)

Yad Vashem is surrounded by a little park with different statues that have meaning and trees for the righteous. I need to go back to Israel!
 
I too have been to Yad Vashem. It was extremely moving. I too prayed over and over, “dear God, have mercy on us”. Yet holocaust are still going on today all over the world. The greatest unseen holocaust actually supported by many is the holocaust of abortion. A slaughter of the most innocent in our society and people argue that it is a right, a choice, and ignorantly, blissfully think nothing about it. My God when will we ever learn. Have mercy on us.
May God bless each of you
Deacon Ed B
 
In 1939 my husbands grandparents were brave enough to flee Austria. They sent their ten year old daughter to England and fled with their very young infant-my MIL. They were told that the day after they fled their home, the Germans entered their house loosing for my husband’s grandfather. My husband’s grandfather was a very succesful business man.

The fact that my husband’s grandparents had enough foresight and courage to leave everything and flee has always amazed me. Most of their family that remained behind were eventually killed!

When they finally arrived in the US, the authorities tried to convince my husband’s grandmother to give up custody of her children! She refused.

Whenever I look at my kids I always think that they would not exist if it wasn’t for the bravery of my hubby’s grandparents.
 
deb1 said:
In 1939 my husbands grandparents were brave enough to flee Austria. They sent their ten year old daughter to England and fled with their very young infant-my MIL. They were told that the day after they fled their home, the Germans entered their house loosing for my husband’s grandfather. My husband’s grandfather was a very succesful business man.

The fact that my husband’s grandparents had enough foresight and courage to leave everything and flee has always amazed me. Most of their family that remained behind were eventually killed!

When they finally arrived in the US, the authorities tried to convince my husband’s grandmother to give up custody of her children! She refused.

Whenever I look at my kids I always think that they would not exist if it wasn’t for the bravery of my hubby’s grandparents.
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Off topic, butnot very far:

I have a friend, who is a professional violinist/violist and educator. Her PhD dissertation in music instruction was on music written by victims of the holocaust. A couple of years ago, she needed to upgrade her viola and sent out feelers. She got a response from a man who lives just 50 miles from her and went to audition the instrument.

The man told her that it was smaller than standard size was because it had been made for his sister, who was barely 5 feet tall. She played in a symphony orchestra in Germany before the war. One day, when he had not heard from her for a week or so, he went to her home and found no one there. Things had been moved about; something was wrong. But he saw the viola, and knowing its value to his sister, he took it home. A couple of days later, he, too, was among those who fled the country – with the viola. He never again saw his sister, but now it is being played by a woman who truly appreciates its history.

I’m in a puddle here.
 
mercygate said:
Off topic, butnot very far:

I have a friend, who is a professional violinist/violist and educator. Her PhD dissertation in music instruction was on music written by victims of the holocaust. A couple of years ago, she needed to upgrade her viola and sent out feelers. She got a response from a man who lives just 50 miles from her and went to audition the instrument.

The man told her that it was smaller than standard size was because it had been made for his sister, who was barely 5 feet tall. She played in a symphony orchestra in Germany before the war. One day, when he had not heard from her for a week or so, he went to her home and found no one there. Things had been moved about; something was wrong. But he saw the viola, and knowing its value to his sister, he took it home. A couple of days later, he, too, was among those who fled the country – with the viola. He never again saw his sister, but now it is being played by a woman who truly appreciates its history.

I’m in a puddle here.
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Beautiful story
 
Most holocaust survivors I have met were in Israel. I say most, but that number I met could be counted on both hands. I remember years ago, here in the states when I actually met (really just saw) the first survivor was in the checkout line at a grocery store. An elderly man in front of me was checking out and I noticed numbers tattooed on his arm. I asked, “Sir is that what I think it is?”. He simply looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “Yes, Auschwitz” The only response I could utter with a lump in my throat was, “God bless you sir.” He simply smiled, said “thank you.” and walked off. As insignificant as most would say that meeting was, I have never forgotten it and pray for him and his, every day.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
 
The Japanese ran concentration camps, too, they had a policy of racial hygiene themselves except it revolved around the superiority of Japanese over all Asians and a desire for a Japanese Asia. It bothers me how that is overlooked because they definitely used the same play book as the Nazis in regards to human rights abuses.
 
Not to demean any of the heroic stories, but it is so true that we wash over Japan’s abuses, of which several their government refuses to acknowledge. It’s just painful that even today some nations will not acknowledge all their past actions and move on, even we moved on by apologizing and semi made up for our own Japanese American citizens who were forced into camps.
 
We had a few of our own on the west coast. Strange how that is often forgotton.
 
Wow! What an amazing experience you must have had! I would love to have that same experience some day. Unfortunately, not many Holocaust Survivors will be alive much longer. 😦
 
It has been mentioned that there has been so many other holocausts and they have not been given too much attention. I agree. Although, I would not denigrade the Holocaust to exterminate the Jewish People…but…there were 6 million other peoples that were killed in the very same Holocaust. I should look for the percentage of, say Catholic priest, that died. That will be my job when I come home form work.

The worst of all holocausts is the holocaust of babies in utero. We only need to see the video ‘Silent Scream’ to realize exactly what happens. Can you imagine a building a with graphic pictures of the doctor dismembering a baby, slowly but surely? The baby’s mouth is wide open? how open being burned alive? How about partial birth? Can you imagine these pictures being just as graphic as those in Yad Vashem?

Can you imagine ALL these babies moaning and crying to the heavens about their great misery of dying with alctually seeing the world? This is how they explain the children’s memorial in Yad Vashem. The children are moaning to the heavens moaning for justice. The music there is haunting! It was some experience. Our jewish fuide would not go in…I got quite close to him. but he did not talk about the Holocaust. He probably lost family to that crime. But he was born in Israel.
 
HM8404 said:
The Japanese ran concentration camps, too, they had a policy of racial hygiene themselves except it revolved around the superiority of Japanese over all Asians and a desire for a Japanese Asia. It bothers me how that is overlooked because they definitely used the same play book as the Nazis in regards to human rights abuses.
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While Japan did many disgusting things in WW2 (even to its own citizens) I am not aware of them operating concentration death camps in the same manner of the Nazis. There were POW camps, and horrible camps for human experimentation/ biological research run by Unit 731 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
but I am not aware of camps that operated along the same lines a as say Auschwitz. I googled Japanese concentration camps and the whole first page comes up with sites about the U.S interment of Japanese.

At any rate let us pray we dont have WW3
 
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