The 2010 National Days of Remembrance are this week, April 11-18. The Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Ethnocide Education invited holocaust survivor Noemi Ban to speak at Western yesterday. The event was free, but it was not easy to get into. Luckily I knew about this event a few weeks in advance so I pre-ordered a ticket and was able to get in before all the people who didn't. Noemi is an amazing woman, the amount of misfortune she went through and how lucky she is to be alive is amazing. Some of the stories I remember:
In Buchenwald:
- On arrival at the age of 25 she was separated from her family (mother, grandmother, younger sister, baby brother) to go into a group of other young women to be stripped, shaved and thrown in a cold shower after which dresses were thrown at them and if you were lucky the dress was your size or too big because there was no trading and those that had too small dresses had to fit in. After a few days it was learned that "or else" from an SS guard meant death, don't second guess them. Noemi came to learn later during her stay at Buchenwald that all those sent in the other line were not lucky enough to have showers with water.
-Noemi's father had already been sent off to some labor camp a few weeks before.
-For breakfast and dinner they were given a piece of bread along with a cup of coffee. Lunch was a thin soup that everyone drank from a single bowl that was passed down the line. After initially refusing to drink the soup because no one wanted to use that bowl the guards gave the typical answer: "drink, or else" Noemi discovered shortly thereafter that you HAD to drink this because it stops menstruation. An aside: Here Noemi told us that she knows at least three women (and she's sure there are many more) that weren't able to have children after the war was over due to this brew. She then told us about her two sons, five grandchildren and six great grand children.
- After breakfast and before dinner all the residents had to line up and stand for three hours where they were counted. Those that passed out while in line were thrown onto the backs of cars never to be seen again. Noemi actually fell unconscious once while in line but the three women around her reacted quickly and held her up for nearly two hours until she woke up again. The SS never noticed. Those women saved her life.
- Once while getting water, which was brought in one big bucket and fought over by everyone, she and the few others who spoke and understood German overheard the guards say they were worse than animals for reacting so. She and the few others that heard stopped drinking water for the next four months. They only had their two coffees a day. Aside: Here Noemi tells us that whenever she thinks about this she gets thirsty; luckily the people that invite her know this so there's always plenty of water for her.
-After about four months at Buchenwald, she and eleven other Hungarian women are sent to Berlin(?) to work in a factory. They build bombs by following color-coded instructions: blue wire to blue marker, brown wire to brown marker, etc. Part of the components were actually explodable and should any of the women drop it the factory would explode (including the Germans guarding them in the other room). They actually considered dropping it on purpose knowing it would take the guards with them, but decided they'd rather live. After fully completely one bomb to be sent off it hit them that they were building bombs that would be used against those trying to help them so they planned a little sabotage...Discussing everything in Hungarian so that the guards wouldn't understand them they decided to mix up all the colors so they didn't match anymore. Any time the guards would come check on them they would work fine, but as soon as they left chaos would consume. An aside: here she tells us that she actually never knew if what they did worked until a few years ago when at this point in her talk an old man listening to her said that he knew. He was part of the American forces moving toward Berlin towards the end of the war and Germans were dropping bombs right and left but none of them ever seemed to explode. So even if not all the bombs were those built by these women, they weren't the only group to plan some sabotage.
- During transport away from camp where all the factory workers were kept the guards changed out of their uniforms and into civilian clothes. These 12 women knowing that something was happening one by one escaped from the marching line of all the factory workers and into the nearby woods where they met up with an American soldier who informed them in his horrible German that this part of Germany had surrendered and they were free!
-At the medical facility Noemi found that she weighed about 60 pounds!
However horrible her story was I really enjoyed hearing about it directly from a survivor. She made sure to tell us too about one of the reasons she talks about this is that were part of the last generation who will be able to hear about the Holocaust from those that were in it. Before too much longer they won't be around anymore.
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