Holocaust Remembrance Program, Part One
Apr. 9th, 2021 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenOn Wednesday the seventh, I watched and heard the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Remembrance Program: A Chance to Survive. Esther Safran Foer spoke with two Holocaust survivors, Dr. Alfred Munzer and Mr. Max Glauben, and relayed to them questions asked by children and teenagers who were viewing the program.
Alfred Munzer’s parent were Polish Jews in the Netherlands, having come separately from what had been part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire before World War One. With the rise of anti-Semitism in independent Poland, they had each departed, and ended up married to each other in The Hague. They had their first child, Alfred’s older sister, in July of 1936, and another daughter in November of 1938, the time of Krystallnacht. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May of 1940. Later, Mrs. Munzer discovered that she was pregnant with Alfred, and her obstetrician advised her to get an abortion, but she read the Biblical story of Hannah, who longed for a child, and pledged to dedicate him to the Lord, and resolved to keep her baby. (Hannah’s baby became the prophet Samuel, as Dr. Munzer didn’t mention.)
Alfred Munzer was born in November of 1941, and his doctor (not the obstetrician mentioned, who refused to keep Mrs. Munzer as a patient) advised circumcision to correct a medical problem, and so his parents held a bris. Nine months later, Jewish men began getting notices to report for “labor duty” to camps, and the Munzer family decided to split up. Two Catholic women, sisters, took the two little girls, and Mr. Munzer posed as a patient in a psychiatric hospital; his wife went there as a nurse. Anni Madma (I’m spelling these names more or less as I heard them, which may not be correct) was a friend whose ex-husband Tola Madma took little Alfred; he had custody of three children from his marriage to Anni, and had a servant, Mima Sa’ina, who took care of the children, especially Alfred, with whom she shared a bed. These people were Indonesian, Indonesia then being a Dutch colony. They were also Muslim, which Dr. Munzer did not mention, but which I learned from the Internet. In a world where the rival children of Abraham do not always get along, let it be remembered that these Muslims risked their lives and shared their rations to save a Jewish baby.
Mima kept a knife under her pillow to defend against any threats. Years later, when Dr. Munzer visited Holland, a woman told him, “You drank my milk.” Each Dutch schoolchild received a small bottle of milk, and when she was seven or eight, this girl’s mother told her to save half her milk; this was given to baby Alfred. He was not officially present in the Madma household, and did not receive rations, but they, and at least one neighbor, shared what little they had.
As to his two sisters, the priest thought he could find a safer place for them than the two Catholic sisters mentioned, so he gave them to a woman with a rooming house, where they could be concealed among the other people there. The woman’s own husband denounced her and the Munzer girls to the Nazis. The woman survived Ravensbruck; Alfred’s two sisters, ages seven and five, were murdered on arrival at Auschwitz.
In March of 1944, Alfred Munzer’s father was sent to Auschwitz, and then to other camps, ending in Ebensee, where the starving prisoners worked to assemble V2 rockets. The camp was liberated in May of 1945, but he died two months later. Alfred’s mother was sent elsewhere, and managed to conceal two small photographs with her in the camps, believing that while she had and kept them, her baby Alfred would live (if I remember correctly, they were of the family gathering for the bris, the circumcision ceremony).
After the liberation, Count Folk Bernadotte got her to Sweden, from which she returned to the Netherlands. Alfred reminisced that at first he fussed and wouldn’t sit in her lap; Mima Sa’ina was a mother to him. Two months later, Mima Sa’ina died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Later, he (and I think his mother) went to the United States, trying to leave behind memories. The first time they turned on a television, they saw black demonstrators being beaten; the civil rights movement was in progress. So things weren’t perfect in America, either.
Dr. Munzer referred again to Hannah’s pledge. A parting word from him is this: Even in a world surrounded by hate, it is possible to stand up and do what is right.
Alfred Munzer’s parent were Polish Jews in the Netherlands, having come separately from what had been part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire before World War One. With the rise of anti-Semitism in independent Poland, they had each departed, and ended up married to each other in The Hague. They had their first child, Alfred’s older sister, in July of 1936, and another daughter in November of 1938, the time of Krystallnacht. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May of 1940. Later, Mrs. Munzer discovered that she was pregnant with Alfred, and her obstetrician advised her to get an abortion, but she read the Biblical story of Hannah, who longed for a child, and pledged to dedicate him to the Lord, and resolved to keep her baby. (Hannah’s baby became the prophet Samuel, as Dr. Munzer didn’t mention.)
Alfred Munzer was born in November of 1941, and his doctor (not the obstetrician mentioned, who refused to keep Mrs. Munzer as a patient) advised circumcision to correct a medical problem, and so his parents held a bris. Nine months later, Jewish men began getting notices to report for “labor duty” to camps, and the Munzer family decided to split up. Two Catholic women, sisters, took the two little girls, and Mr. Munzer posed as a patient in a psychiatric hospital; his wife went there as a nurse. Anni Madma (I’m spelling these names more or less as I heard them, which may not be correct) was a friend whose ex-husband Tola Madma took little Alfred; he had custody of three children from his marriage to Anni, and had a servant, Mima Sa’ina, who took care of the children, especially Alfred, with whom she shared a bed. These people were Indonesian, Indonesia then being a Dutch colony. They were also Muslim, which Dr. Munzer did not mention, but which I learned from the Internet. In a world where the rival children of Abraham do not always get along, let it be remembered that these Muslims risked their lives and shared their rations to save a Jewish baby.
Mima kept a knife under her pillow to defend against any threats. Years later, when Dr. Munzer visited Holland, a woman told him, “You drank my milk.” Each Dutch schoolchild received a small bottle of milk, and when she was seven or eight, this girl’s mother told her to save half her milk; this was given to baby Alfred. He was not officially present in the Madma household, and did not receive rations, but they, and at least one neighbor, shared what little they had.
As to his two sisters, the priest thought he could find a safer place for them than the two Catholic sisters mentioned, so he gave them to a woman with a rooming house, where they could be concealed among the other people there. The woman’s own husband denounced her and the Munzer girls to the Nazis. The woman survived Ravensbruck; Alfred’s two sisters, ages seven and five, were murdered on arrival at Auschwitz.
In March of 1944, Alfred Munzer’s father was sent to Auschwitz, and then to other camps, ending in Ebensee, where the starving prisoners worked to assemble V2 rockets. The camp was liberated in May of 1945, but he died two months later. Alfred’s mother was sent elsewhere, and managed to conceal two small photographs with her in the camps, believing that while she had and kept them, her baby Alfred would live (if I remember correctly, they were of the family gathering for the bris, the circumcision ceremony).
After the liberation, Count Folk Bernadotte got her to Sweden, from which she returned to the Netherlands. Alfred reminisced that at first he fussed and wouldn’t sit in her lap; Mima Sa’ina was a mother to him. Two months later, Mima Sa’ina died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Later, he (and I think his mother) went to the United States, trying to leave behind memories. The first time they turned on a television, they saw black demonstrators being beaten; the civil rights movement was in progress. So things weren’t perfect in America, either.
Dr. Munzer referred again to Hannah’s pledge. A parting word from him is this: Even in a world surrounded by hate, it is possible to stand up and do what is right.
