On Thursday, May 11, Ruth Weiner, a Holocaust survivor, came to Hubbard Performance Hall and graciously shared her story.
The event was made possible by the Rubenstein Family Holocaust Education Fund, a gift to Loomis dedicated to spreading community awareness about the tragic events of the Holocaust. Ms. Weiner’s speech was followed by a screening of Nicky’s Family, a film focused on a man who was instrumental for transporting Jewish children to safety in the 1930s.
Ms. Weiner emphasized the importance of sharing her narrative, noting that by hearing her and other Holocaust survivors’ stories, students can become new witnesses of the atrocities that took place during World War II.
Growing up in Vienna, Austria, Ms. Weiner reminisced about when she was a young girl learning to read and dance, describing how the day Hitler marched in, the childhood freedom she had once experienced was gone within 48 hours. She recalled walking to her favorite park one day and finding a sign that read: “No Jews. No dogs. No spitting.”
In the following months, like many other women, Ms. Weiner’s mother woke up at 4:00 a.m. each day in search of a way to get her daughter to a safer country. Her father, who had been arrested for being a political opponent, eventually agreed that Ms. Weiner should go to an English family while Nazism in Germany only intensified. Ruth’s mother went to England as a domestic worker.
Many audience members were moved, some even to tears, when Nicky’s Family, a film about a young British man who saved 669 children from Nazi terror and concentration camps, was displayed. This film was a further reminder of both the merciless persecution of men, women, and children, and the compassion and resilience that stayed alive despite such injustice.
The event was organized by Alli Benthien ’23, Zoe Santilli ’23, and Nate Judson ’23 for their Global Environmental Studies Certificate capstone project, along with the Norton Family Center for the Common Good. Because the number of Holocaust survivors dwindle each day, the event highlighted the LC community’s obligation to remember responsibly.
“The outreach of the event was great, and I think that it’s incredible that so many Loomis students went, because in the next few years, there will not be many Holocaust survivors left, and we will be the ones to keep their stories alive,” Samantha Tishler ’23, Co-President of the Jewish Student Union, said.
In the ending notes, Ms. Weiner offered inspirational guidance, asking the audience to be accepting, resilient, and optimistic in their everyday lives. She asked them to imagine that all of the lights went out in the auditorium. They would be lost, left in complete darkness. However, if one person were to turn on their smartphone’s flashlight, others would likely follow. Soon, the audience wouldn’t be in the dark anymore. Ms. Weiner offered her final message: be the flashlight in the darkness, and this too shall pass.
