Holocaust Remembrance Program, Part Two
Apr. 24th, 2023 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenTo continue with the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Remembrance Program on Tuesday, we heard from Peter Gorog, who said, as a child survivor, he doesn’t remember too much. His Hungarian Jewish parents had a relatively normal middle class life before World War Two. His father had wanted to become a lawyer, but the numerus clausus quotas on Jews in higher education kept him from becoming one, so he was an office manager, and his wife, Peter’s mother, was a hat maker.
The father, Arpad, was called up to serve in a labor camp in what is now Ukraine, where he died. The circumstances of his death are unknown; it may have been from cold, or a mercy killing, or it may have been from being sent to clear a minefield or something of the sort. Peter and his mother lived in relative comfort until March of 1944. His grandparents died of “natural causes” shortly after the war; they were in their fifties, not very old, but a minor illness could kill people who were already malnourished and otherwise greatly stressed.
Hungary was a democracy after the war, until the Communists took power in 1949. War criminals were hanged or imprisoned by the democratic government.
Peter Gorog grew up in Hungary and became an engineer, but he could not openly practice his Jewish faith, which would likely have resulted in his losing his job. He defected to the United States in 1980, worked at NASA, and returned to active Judaism.
Then the two survivors addressed questions submitted by students. Someone asked about people maintaining their faith, and Manny Mandel spoke about, among other things, maintaining something like ordinary human interactions in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. His mother had packed food in a tin can to preserve it, as had other people; in the camp, people made jewelry out of these tin cans to trade for a haircut or shoe repair. Peter Gorog said that his mother had kept her faith, and he had been circumcised on the eighth day. After the war, though, she turned away from religion, but when she visited him in the United States, and saw him light Shabbat candles, she resumed doing so at the age of eighty-two or so.
In answer to another question, Peter Gorog gave the advice: you cannot be a bystander. He gave the example of Jews being rounded up, and other Hungarians, who had been their neighbors and colleagues, smiling. Don’t be a bystander. Manny Mandel said: Go and learn.
The father, Arpad, was called up to serve in a labor camp in what is now Ukraine, where he died. The circumstances of his death are unknown; it may have been from cold, or a mercy killing, or it may have been from being sent to clear a minefield or something of the sort. Peter and his mother lived in relative comfort until March of 1944. His grandparents died of “natural causes” shortly after the war; they were in their fifties, not very old, but a minor illness could kill people who were already malnourished and otherwise greatly stressed.
Hungary was a democracy after the war, until the Communists took power in 1949. War criminals were hanged or imprisoned by the democratic government.
Peter Gorog grew up in Hungary and became an engineer, but he could not openly practice his Jewish faith, which would likely have resulted in his losing his job. He defected to the United States in 1980, worked at NASA, and returned to active Judaism.
Then the two survivors addressed questions submitted by students. Someone asked about people maintaining their faith, and Manny Mandel spoke about, among other things, maintaining something like ordinary human interactions in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. His mother had packed food in a tin can to preserve it, as had other people; in the camp, people made jewelry out of these tin cans to trade for a haircut or shoe repair. Peter Gorog said that his mother had kept her faith, and he had been circumcised on the eighth day. After the war, though, she turned away from religion, but when she visited him in the United States, and saw him light Shabbat candles, she resumed doing so at the age of eighty-two or so.
In answer to another question, Peter Gorog gave the advice: you cannot be a bystander. He gave the example of Jews being rounded up, and other Hungarians, who had been their neighbors and colleagues, smiling. Don’t be a bystander. Manny Mandel said: Go and learn.
