By Mike Byrne
A 92-year-old Holocaust survivor attracted large crowds of students and faculty to the first floor auditorium of Keating Hall last week.
The Bias Incident Resource Group, Jewish Student Organization, United Student Government, Campus Activities Board, Commuting Student Association and Residence Hall Association organized the talk, which centered around Esther Bauer’s experience living through the Holocaust in Germany.
“I can only tell you what happened to me personally,” she said. “There are thousands of other stories, but I can only say for myself.”
Bauer was born in Hamburg, Germany. Her father was the principal of the Jewish School in Hamburg and her mother was a medical doctor and biology teacher at the same school.
She came from a highly Orthodox, middle-class family and had a relatively ordinary childhood. However, she soon became witness to growing anti-Semitic sentiment and Hitler’s rise to power. As restrictions for Jews became commonplace, her family suffered.
“One day, we couldn’t go swimming anymore,” she said. “We couldn’t go to the opera anymore, not to concerts.”
One day, her mother and her father were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Each of them were only allowed to bring one suitcase.
According to Bauer, the camps were in terrible condition. Her father died of meningitis soon after they arrived. After her father’s death, Bauer fell ill with double pneumonia.
At the camp, her friend was given a notice that he would be sent to Dresden to build a new ghetto. Bauer married him to follow him to Dresden at the cost of leaving her mother behind.
Instead of being sent to Dresden, Bauer was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. “It was the worst of all camps,” Bauer said.
Bauer described watching people killed in front of her and being forced to endure freezing weather. She never saw her husband again and was forced to build planes for the war. She spoke of how Nazis would beat her and others, and how little there was to eat.
One morning, however, she and others prisoners woke up and found that the Nazis were gone. The prisoners were then liberated by the Americans.
“That was, of course, the happiest day of my life,” she said.
Bauer, who has since renounced her Jewish faith, began a new life and married an American soldier. She now has several children and grandchildren.
President of Fordham’s Jewish Student Organization, Marcella Leonard, FCRH ‘18, believes there is good to be found in remembering atrocities in the world’s history. “Remembering gives meaning to the millions of lives that ended entirely too soon,” she said. “Remembering reminds us that we must make a concerned effort to fight injustice, that we do have the choice and obligation to do so.”
For Leonard, Bauer’s story holds particular relevance in light of recent bias incidents at Fordham. “For one, it reminds us that the swastika is a symbol of hatred, one that harms the entire community. It, along with Hitler jokes, anti-Semitism and any form of intolerance have no place on our campus,” Leonard said. “I hope that we can work to continue to mitigate the effect that a few outsiders are able to have when they seek to harm the entire community with their actions.”
