Henry Silberstern was the honored guest speaker at the Col. Wm. Prescott Chapter of the NSDAR on Wednesday, May 20 at 1:00 PM in the chapter house, 119\u00a0High Street, Newark, NY. Silberstern\u2019s powerful story about being in Nazi concentration camps evoked strong emotional responses and questions from the\u00a0audience.<\/p>\n
Eight-year old Henry Silberstern\u2019s life began to change in 1938, when France and Britain signed the Munich Agreement. This agreement ceded an area of\u00a0Czechoslovakia called the Sudeten Land to Germany. In 1942 Henry was sent to a camp for the first time.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until April 15th 1945 that an Allied convoy of a Canadian contingent of the British Army liberated prisoners of Bergen-Belsen. It was Henry’s 15th\u00a0birthday.<\/p>\n
The deprevation of food, water, clothing, and privacy evoked a mother\u2019s question: How did you survive? Silverstern reflected that the children\u2019s priorities\u00a0are, quite naturally, different from the adults\u2019 priorities. He mentioned that not being allowed to go to school, he thought it was great; however, his\u00a0parents understood the significance of what was happening. When asked if he\u2019d ever returned to see the camps, Silberstern remarked that he remembered every\u00a0thing as dark and dirty, but when he returned with his wife and several students, the camp had green grass, trees, and was all spruced up. He said that upon\u00a0viewing the barracks and bathrooms, he could still smell them, even though years had passed.<\/p>\n
Silberstern has kept in touch with many of the boys who survived the Holocaust. Some of the survivors never got over what happened to them; others have put\u00a0it in perspective and have gotten on with their lives. One of the boys is more like a brother to Silberstern, who had no family after the war.<\/p>\n
In response to a question about history repeating itself and could the holocaust happen again, Silberstern said: \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve learned much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silberstern Has noticed an increase in the demand for speakers on the Holocaust and that first person accounts by survivors are getting fewer. Speakers can\u00a0be contacted through:<\/p>\n
Center for Holocaust Awareness and Information<\/p>\n
Jewish Community Federation<\/p>\n
441 East Avenue<\/p>\n
Rochester, NY 14607<\/p>\n
Ph. (585) 461-0490 x250<\/p>\n
Fax (585) 461-0912<\/p>\n
Bonnie Abrams, Director: \u00a0babrams@jewishrochester.org.<\/p>\n
Henry Silberstern was the honored guest speaker at the Col. Wm. Prescott Chapter of the NSDAR on Wednesday, May 20 at 1:00 PM in the chapter house, 119\u00a0High Street, Newark, NY. Silberstern\u2019s powerful story about being in Nazi concentration camps evoked strong emotional responses and questions from the\u00a0audience. Eight-year old Henry Silberstern\u2019s life began to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}