Remembering Holocaust through daughter's eyes
Heather Smith
Issue date: 4/30/09 Section: News
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Week, Kirkwood Community College hosted a lecture by Linda Hurwitz on April 23. Hurwitz is the daughter of Irene Furst, a survivor of the Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps.
Hurwitz was the director of the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation from 1988-2005. She has also received the Elie Wiesel Commemorative medal and the Janusz Korchak Award for Holocaust Education. She is also the editor of a book containing 92 stories of survivors called "Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood Holocaust Survivors."
Hurwitz has traveled with her mother sharing the tremendous story of her mother's survival. "It's very important to pass on this history. It's an important era of the 20th century," Hurwitz said. She added that her mother and other survivors didn't speak of what happened to them for a really long time. "They realized they needed to talk because people needed to know," Hurwitz stated.
She told the audience in Ballantyne Auditorium of how happy her mother's life was in Ludz, Poland. "She had a rich family life, full of aunts, uncles and cousins," Hurwitz said. That was until the Nazis invaded in September of 1939. All of the Jews were rounded up and forced in ghettos. "There was no water, no indoor plumbing, ice inside the apartments that people lived in, 10-12 people per room," Hurwitz added. Even among the most dire set of circumstances, Hurwitz said the Jewish people created schools and hospitals, the adults went to work and they established their own police and fire departments. Hurwitz said, "It's amazing how these people tried to create a day in and day out sense of normalcy."
Her mother's horrific tale went on from there. There were so many Jews who starved to death or got sick and died in the ghettos. Eventually those who survived were forced onto trains and sent to concentration camps in the middle of the night. Her mother was sent to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. When she arrived at the camp she was stripped naked, her head was shaved and she was showered in disinfectant.
Hurwitz was the director of the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation from 1988-2005. She has also received the Elie Wiesel Commemorative medal and the Janusz Korchak Award for Holocaust Education. She is also the editor of a book containing 92 stories of survivors called "Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood Holocaust Survivors."
Hurwitz has traveled with her mother sharing the tremendous story of her mother's survival. "It's very important to pass on this history. It's an important era of the 20th century," Hurwitz said. She added that her mother and other survivors didn't speak of what happened to them for a really long time. "They realized they needed to talk because people needed to know," Hurwitz stated.
She told the audience in Ballantyne Auditorium of how happy her mother's life was in Ludz, Poland. "She had a rich family life, full of aunts, uncles and cousins," Hurwitz said. That was until the Nazis invaded in September of 1939. All of the Jews were rounded up and forced in ghettos. "There was no water, no indoor plumbing, ice inside the apartments that people lived in, 10-12 people per room," Hurwitz added. Even among the most dire set of circumstances, Hurwitz said the Jewish people created schools and hospitals, the adults went to work and they established their own police and fire departments. Hurwitz said, "It's amazing how these people tried to create a day in and day out sense of normalcy."
Her mother's horrific tale went on from there. There were so many Jews who starved to death or got sick and died in the ghettos. Eventually those who survived were forced onto trains and sent to concentration camps in the middle of the night. Her mother was sent to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. When she arrived at the camp she was stripped naked, her head was shaved and she was showered in disinfectant.
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