Holocaust survivors Erwin Ganz and Marsha Kreuzman spoke to about 120 students during the morning session, while Hedy Brasch and Norbert Bikales delivered their talks to roughly an equal number of students in the afternoon. Following each session, students gathered into smaller groups to discuss the first-hand accounts of the Holocaust they had just heard.
Millburn High School has been holding a Holocaust Remembrance Day program annually for more than 10 years. “For longer than I've been here,” said Sharon Van Blijdesteijn, a social studies teacher at the school who heads the program.
Among the students in attendance to hear the survivors speak are those enrolled in a Genocide and Human Rights class, an elective course that has mostly seniors. “We also have some freshmen, because the Holocaust is covered in their World History class,” Van Blijdesteijn said.
Students taking Advance Placement French language classes attended the afternoon session, during which Norbert Bikales spoke. “He was a survivor in France,” Van Blijdesteijn said. “He will speak to those students in French later in the day ...The Holocaust is part of the AP French class, as is French history,” she said. Speaking about the the annual program, Van Blijdesteijn said,
“I think that learning about the Holocaust, learning about what can happen from prejudice and discrimination is really important so that we can learn to be more tolerant of people in our own society, and learn the lessons of the past and not to let them repeat in the future.”
Van Blijdesteijn offered the following short biographies of the four speakers that include brief descriptions of what planned to talked about.
Erwin Ganz grew up in Germany at the beginning of the Nazi regime. He spoke about what it was like to live in Nazi Germany through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy. Ganz talked about Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass," in 1938. This is especially pertinent as the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht just passed. Ganz explained what his childhood was like before Hitler, and how it drastically changed after he took over. Ganz also discussed his trip to Germany many years after coming to the United States.
Marsha Kreuzman was born on May 18, 1925 on the outskirts of Krakow, Poland to Rose and Ignacy Gruenwald. She also had an older brother named Stefan, but he suffered from diabetes, a far less controllable disease at the time. Even from a young age she was subjected to intense anti-Semitism. Marsha first was sent to the Krakow Ghetto and eventually to five concentration camps: Platzsow, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Flossenberg, and Mauthausen, where she was finally liberated on May 6, 1945. She weighed a mere 67 pounds. Marsha endured concentration camps, death marches, the death of her parents and brother, and unimaginable suffering. Her story is difficult to hear, but for that reason even more important.
Hedy Brasch was born in Miskolc, Hungary in 1930. She studied music, dance and sports as a child and starred in commercials and advertisements. In 1942 her father was taken to a labor camp, and in 1944 Brasch, her mother and sister were moved to a ghetto and later deported to Auschwitz. Brasch, and her sister were separated from their mother and forced to march to Bergen-Belsen where they were liberated by the British in April 1945. They came to the Untied States in 1946 to live with their grandmother, and were later reunited with their mother.
Born in Germany, Norbert Bikales survived the Holocaust in Germany and France, but his parents and most of his family were murdered. He came to the United States after World War II at the age of 17. He is a polymer scientist who has edited the major work in his field. Other career highlights include research, a professorship at Rutgers, administration of a major science program for the U.S. Government and a diplomatic posting in Paris. Since retirement, he has been active in Holocaust remembrance, especially as president of OSE-USA (survivors from France).
The original article for the article written by Independent Press on April 10, 2014 copied above can be found online at TrueJersey.com. http://www.nj.com/independentpress/index.ssf/2014/04/four_holocaust_survivors_tell.html