RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --
Ramstein personnel, families and high school students
gathered at the Ramstein Officer’s Club to honor the memory of Holocaust
victims during the 86th Airlift Wing’s Holocaust Remembrance, April
24, on Ramstein Air Base, Germany. As
honored guests at the remembrance, Bob and Ann Kirk, Holocaust survivors, told
their stories of persecution and their experience on the Kindertransport.
According to the 86 AW Holocaust Remembrance Day
Committee, The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution led by
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. During the Holocaust, an
estimated 11 million people were killed and many more were persecuted for their
race, religion and ethnicities. As children, the Kirks escaped persecution
through the Kindertransport, a series of rescue efforts which brought thousands
of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany, between 1938 and
1940.
During their visit to Ramstein, the Kirks stepped on stage
to capture Airmen, civilians and children with stories and pictures from their
days of struggle.
“As soon as the Nazis took power, everything changed,” Mr.
Kirk said.
Mr. Kirk spoke of the new regulations that began to make
life for Jewish people more and more difficult and how his life at school began
to change as well.
“There was more bullying and my classmates were ordered not
to associate with Jews,” Mr. Kirk said. “We were usually forced to sit in the
back of the class and not allowed to participate in the lesson. You can imagine
how much we learned this way.”
The Kirks, who met at a club for young Jewish refugees and
have been married 67 years, took turns telling their stories from their
perspectives.
“On the night of November 9th, I was awoken by
my parents but they wouldn’t tell me what was wrong,” Mrs. Kirk said. “We
packed a bag and went out into the street where I saw glass everywhere and
synagogues in flames. That evening, we went to stay in a flat which my mother’s
best friend had left when she had immigrated to England.”
The night Mrs. Kirk describes is known as Kristallnacht, or
night of broken glass, when Nazis executed a major program to destroy hundreds
of synagogues throughout Germany and Austria, attack homes and businesses and
send tens of thousands to concentration camps. Kindertransport was an
organization established to transport children and find places away from danger
for them to stay.
“In April of 1939, my parents took me to the railway
station,” Mrs. Kirk said. “As the train passed, they frantically waved to me. I
was 10 years old and that was the last time I ever saw them.”
The Kirk’s parents were eventually taken to concentration
camps and, though they exchanged letters, neither of the children ever saw
their parents again.
Though times were difficult, the Kirks said they consider
themselves fortunate for the lives they have lived. They spoke of coping with
their pain and learning to live normal lives.
“Basically we just had to get on with it,” Mrs. Kirk said.
“I think the feeling at the time was, don’t look back. Just look to the
future.”
Mrs. Kirk described a smuggled letter which she received
from her father while she was living in Great Britain.
“He said be happy, live your life to the full, always tell
the truth and do not grieve,” Mrs. Kirk said. “That was June, ’42. I knew Dad
wouldn’t have wanted us to be miserable, so we refused to be miserable.”
After the Kirks spoke they took questions from the audience,
several of whom expressed gratitude for the experience.
“I don’t think there’s a person here who is not changed and
will not forever remember what you shared,” said Col. Donnette Boyd, 86 AW
wing chaplain.
After the presentation, the 86 AW held a wreath laying and retreat
ceremony. The wreath was tied with ribbons of different colors representing
various groups who suffered during the Holocaust. The victims included Roma and
Sinti (or Gypsies), the mentally and physically disabled, Polish, gays and
lesbians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and political
dissidents.
The Kirks laid the ceremonial wreath and watched as the
flags were lowered, folded to the sound of the German and U.S. national anthems.
As the participants left, each placed a symbolic stone within a wooden Star of
David, reflecting the Jewish practice of leaving a stone to mark a visit to the
grave site of a loved one. The Jewish people also place the stones as a symbol
of the lasting presence of the person’s life and memory.
Despite the suffering of so many, the Kirks do not carry a
message of resentment. When asked for a lesson from his experiences, Mr. Kirk
replied without hesitation.
“You mustn’t ever use a broad brush to describe people,”
Mr. Kirk said. “Every person is an individual with their own rights,
aspirations and dignity. If you strip the dignity away, you dehumanize. That’s
dangerous. I think that’s the most important message that I can give. ”