A Holocaust survivor speaks in Lake City

Editor's note: This essay is from Uncle Joe's book "Lake Pepin Pot-pour-i." We think it offers a good opportunity to post the old slides we found of Alverna and Marion's 1952 trip to Dachau, still a raw and terrible place.

By ELMER (JOE) SPRICK

Not everyone watches the History Channel. Not everyone reads nonfiction. Not everyone will travel to see the sites where it occurred. Most of those who survived the event are now deceased. And there will always be those who say, The Holocaust never happened.

On Sept. 13, 1995, an elderly man named Henry Oertelt from St. Paul came to Lake City. He was on the speaking circuit, not for money, but to tell his story to the world, lest we forget. Henry, a survivor of Auschwitz, showed us the numbers tattooed on his arm. This is his story.

He was born in 1921 in Berlin. By 1933, Hitler had risen to power and implemented his plan of activating factories to make weapons of war. A hate campaign was started against Jews. Every two weeks, the newspaper carried stories of crime supposedly committed by Jews. Their rights and property were systematically taken away.

Euthanasia was carried out against the handicapped and mentally ill. The Catholic Church was able to stop it in 1938, but by then, 80 percent of Germany's handicapped and mentally ill people had been killed. Hitler's goal was to produce a "master race" by eliminating them, Jews, Gypsies and Poles.

Hitler's army invaded Poland in 1939. The first concentration camps were built in Poland and Czechoslovakia. By 1943, only 10 percent of the original Jewish population still existed. That May, Henry and his family were taken by the SS to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia [Theresienstadt]. Of the 15,000 children sent to that camp, only 100 survived!

Henry's worst memories were when all children under 13 and anyone who needed medical treatment were trucked to the crematoriums, gassed and burned. Those who remained were tattooed and forced to work. They were not permitted to use their names, only their numbers.

As the Russian army advanced into Poland, concentration camp inmates were loaded into cattle cars with standing room only, and no food or sanitary facilities for two and a half days. One-third of them died en route to Auschwitz.

As the Russian army approached Auschwitz, a forced death march began. Those who stumbled and fell were shot.

Eventually, the survivors met up with the American Army, which gave them boxes of concentrated food. The prisoners couldn't handle concentrated or solid food, and many died after eating it. Henry was put on a menu of broth and remained in bed for a week before he could eat solid food.

Christians who risked death by hiding them saved the lives of some Jews. Denmark shipped 10,000 Jews to Sweden, a neutral country, in fishing boats. Some Jews also survived in France.

Henry's message emphasized that we should all respect each other's religious beliefs. But unfortunately, there are some who still preach hate. It is our responsibility as members of a free society to speak out against those who would abuse the rights of others. If we don't, "ethnic cleansing" will continue throughout the world.