Holocaust survivor: 'If I don't forgive — if I hold a grudge, then I only hurt myself'
Esther Basch told students at Babylon High School on Friday she was taken to the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as a teenager, where she was separated from her parents before later learning they had been killed.
She said she was starved, witnessed fellow Jewish prisoners attacked by vicious dogs, contemplated electrocuting herself on the concentration camp fence, and saw prisoners taken away and murdered by the German Nazi regime.
But Basch, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor, told students she is full of forgiveness, not bitterness — even after coming face to face with the camp’s notorious murderer, Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, who pushed her in the stomach with his silver cane.
"I feel very strongly that these youngsters should know about the world and about how cruel the world can be, and also I would like to talk about forgiveness," said Basch, adding she could not forget "the horrors they put me through, but if I don't forgive — if I hold a grudge, then I only hurt myself."
Basch, of Prescott, Arizona, was a guest speaker at the school, where her great-grandson, Jake Turet, 16, is a 10th-grade student. Basch sat on the auditorium stage with her daughter, Rachel Basch Turet, 72. They both live in Prescott, where they speak to groups and students. For Hanukkah and the new year, they were visiting family in Babylon, and family members called Jake's school to see if leaders there wanted Basch to speak.
"We jumped at the opportunity," said Chris Ryan, director of social studies for the school, which covers grades 7 through 12. "It's one thing to teach about the history. It is another thing to have a firsthand account and tell the stories of what happened."
The event was scheduled for students in eighth, 10th and 11th grades, but educators opened it to anyone who wanted to come.
Students look on as Holocaust survivor Esther Basch of Prescott, Arizona, speaks to them at Babylon High School on Friday. Credit: Barry Sloan
"We don’t know how much longer we are going to be able to get these firsthand accounts," Ryan said.
Basch, who was born in what was then part of Czechoslovakia, and her husband Joseph, also a Holocaust survivor who died nearly 16 years ago at age 80, have been interviewed on tape about their experience through the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. The institute was founded by filmmaker Steven Spielberg in an effort to preserve interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. Her testimony is on file with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Basch said she has spoken to many students and has received thank-you notes from many, telling her, "Mrs. Basch, we will make sure that this will never happen again."
On Friday, Basch spoke about her family being taken from their homes in the early 1940s and relocated to a ghetto. She said they endured a five-day cattle car train ride to the camp in southern Poland without food or water, standing the entire time with people dying around her. She clasped hands with her mother, but they were separated by the guards and she never saw her again.
After months in Auschwitz, she was sent to work in an ammunitions factory, where she said she was badly beaten by a female guard. As the U.S. troops started to make their way through Germany, the Nazis forced Basch and others to march for days to another ammunitions factory, where she was locked in with other prisoners. The U.S. troops shot the gate open on April 14, 1945, she said, and told her and the others they were free. Basch was 17 at the time.
Eventually, she relocated to Israel, married and had four children, including Rachel Turet, who lived in Deer Park for 31 years. She immigrated to the United States in 1958. She is also scheduled to speak at the elementary school, the local library and Beth Shalom Synagogue in Babylon before returning to Arizona.
"There are a lot of deniers out there these days, which makes no sense whatsoever," Turet said. "You can't deny mom's horrific experiences."
The students found her story incredibly moving and inspirational. "When you hear her story and what she went through — it really hits home," said Kieran O'Halloran, 17.
Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.
