Posted on 04/29/2004 5:23:35 PM PDT by SandRat
| Holocaust survivor Sol Rosner leads those who attended the Holocaust remembrance service Wednesday on Fort Huachuca in the Mourner's Kaddish. The traditional Jewish prayer was recited to honor the more than 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during World War II. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) |
FORT HUACHUCA - For Sol Rosner, leading a group of people in the Mourner's Kaddish was difficult.
Standing on the stage of the post's Cochise Theater Wednesday, he spoke the traditional Jewish prayer in honor of the more than 6 million Jews who were murdered by Nazis during World War II.
"It is hard to say the Kaddish for 6 million who died," he said.
Of those who were killed by Hitler and his henchmen, 100 were members of his family.
"Of the 105 (family members) put into the camps, only five came out alive," Rosner said after the Yom Hashoah - the Holocaust Remembrance - service on the post. The service concluded a two-day event on the military installation.
Born and raised in what was then Czechoslovakia, Rosner said he was 16 years old and weighed less than 60 pounds when he was liberated from a concentration camp in Austria.
"The skin over my bones was dry," he said. "Another two or three days and I would have been dead."
It was some time after his liberation that he learned his brother died a day after the camp in Dachau was liberated in Germany.
It has taken him years to talk about the experience he went through in the 1940s.
"I had to deal with nightmares every night," Rosner said, adding he didn't start talking about his experiences in public until 17 years ago.
"It is both painful and at the same time cathartic," Rosner said about speaking about the Holocaust at schools and other events.
He and five other Holocaust survivors visited the fort on a trip sponsored by the post's Military Equal Opportunity Office.
Gail Wallen, director of Holocaust Services of the Jewish Family and Children's Services of Southern Arizona, led the group. She is not a survivor.
She challenged the audience to stand up to injustices in the world so another Holocaust like that of World War II does not happen.
Wallen said there unfortunately have been too many other incidents of people killed since that war because of who they are, such as in Cambodia and Rwanda.
"I hope you will raise your voices (in protest)," Wallen said.
People must defend and protect those who are being attacked, she said.
Garrison Commander Col. Jonathan Hunter said those who were killed during World War II "died horrific deaths at the hands of evil."
Quoting 18th century Irish politician Edmund Burke, the colonel said evil will flourish if people will not do anything to stop it.
Maj. Gen. James Marks, commander of the Intelligence Center and the fort, said remembering the Holocaust is important for society. When he walks to his office, there is a seven-word sign that states: "A soldier's first duty is to remember." Marks said, remembering what happened during the Holocaust is part of that duty.
If people keep silent there will be problems, Marks said.
"We need to speak up when we see injustice. We must never forget," he said. "We as American citizens and soldiers must remember."
Remembering included lighting eight candles, with each of the attending survivors - Rosner, Fred Bremer, Rosa Freund, Selma Neuhasuer, Irving Senor and Gerd Strauss, along with an Israeli officer and an Italian officer - doing the honors.
"Remember, we must always remember until we die," Rosner said.
If anyone gets a chance to hear his opinion, I'd like to know it.
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