Student Tribune
Local Holocaust Survivors Speak on Campus Today
Today marks MCC's 28th annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration hosted by the
Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Project. Starting at 9:30 a.m., the
commemoration provides you with opportunities to remember the lessons of the
Holocaust, light candles of remembrance, listen to names of survivors in the
quieted Flynn Campus Center Atrium, and learn from three local Holocaust
Survivors who will give their personal testimonies beginning at 10 a.m. in the
Warshof Conference Center, Flynn Campus Center (Monroe A).
The presence of the following Holocaust Survivors is made possible through
HGHRP's partnership with the Center for Holocaust Awareness and Information at
the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester:
10 to 11 a.m. Werner Schenk
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Jeannine
Korman
1 to 2 p.m. Sam Rind
Werner Schenk is from Luebeck, Germany. He and his family were arrested by
the Gestapo many times but his dad, a specialist tool & die maker working
on advanced military systems, was needed. After being alerted by a friend in
the police department, he and his mother went into hiding with the help of nuns
in the town's hospital. Werner attended school with a false identity, protected
by the principal. His immediate family survived, but over 40 of his relatives
were murdered in the camps.
Jeannine Korman, the child of refugees from Poland was born in Luneville,
France in 1930. Her mother had tuberculosis so Jeannine lived in a series of
orphanages near Strasbourg. When her father came to retrieve her, she learned
her mother had died and she had a new stepmother. They went into hiding and
moved frequently from place to place to hide. Nazi soldiers also stayed in one
of their hiding places, Villegailhenc near the Pyrenees. Jeannine witnessed the
soldiers' resentment of their own government. Her father committed suicide and
after her stepsister's birth, Jeannine moved in with a family near Bordeaux
where she remained until the end of the war
Sam Rind is a child survivor of the Holocaust. Born near Lublin, Poland in
1937, Sam's family was in various ghettos and forced labor camps where Sam's
father was killed for the leather jacket on his back. Sam also witnessed his
younger brother being killed in his mother's arms by a Nazi guard. He and his
mother eventually escaped to the Ukranian ghetto of Szmerinka to be with other
relatives. Sam had to dress as a girl to do this. At the end of the war, they
returned to Poland to find relatives. Finding none, they formed a little
kibbutz with other Jewish survivors but eventually wanted to leave because of
continued anti-Semitism. They were not permitted entry to the United States
where Sam's uncle lived so they went to Bolivia to be with another one of Sam's
uncles. In 1960, Sam was able to come to the U.S. to attend college in Buffalo.
He became an optician and is still in this profession today.
Join us in remembering and learning important lessons from the
Holocaust.
Yule, Rosanna
Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Project
04/12/2018