What I Did:
For this OOCLO I decided to go listen to the Holocaust survivor because I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I thought it would be interesting to hear a firsthand account of what happened in that time and what it was like to live the horror. Therefore, after my last class I went to the front desk at the bottom of the tower to ask where Sankey Chambers was. Then, after I found out, I told my friends, Dylan and Danny about the speaker to see if they would like to join me. Before going to the presentation, we all met under the tower and went to Tim Hortons for coffee. Then we walked up the stairs to Sankey Chambers, it was a fairly big room but there were only about 15 people in there. One of the members of the Jewish Students Association introduces Leslie Meisels, who had arrived moments before with his wife. He stood at the front of the room and started with the background of his story. He started with where and when he was born and that he was one of 40 Jewish families in his town. Leslie explained to us that it started out subtle and most of the new laws did not affect his family, as they were average people. Then he was targeted because he lost his dream of becoming an engineer, as Jews were not allowed to attend school past middle school. Then although the people in his town knew which families were Jewish, they still had to wear the Star of David on their sleeves, if they choose to not do so there were harsh consequences. As his story went on I realized how horrible it would have been, actually horrible does not even come close, there is no word to describe what he went through. I still cannot believe that this happened and that one man, Adolf Hitler, was the reason for so many deaths. There were many points when he was talking that made me want to cry and hug him because I could not believe that he survived. One of the most horrific things that I will always remember was what happened to him on his 18th birthday. He woke up to horrible cries, so he got off his bed within the concentration camp and walked over to the window where he cleared the frost enough to see through. He looked out and saw that a train had arrived with more Jews and Nazis were herding them like animals into a building. One man was too weak to keep going and fell to the ground and screeched as a Nazi beat him with a stick that had a nail on the end. The Nazi yelled for him to get up but when he did not the Nazi continued to beat the man in the head until he died right there in front of Leslie. I cannot imagine what it would be like to see so many people dying in front of you and having to live in those deadly conditions. I look at him as a hero that he is able to stand in front of us and tell us his story. Then at the end of his story he answered questions and his wife was able to answer a couple herself as she was a survivor as well. What really struck me was that she could not believe that some people say the holocaust did not happen, that if it did not why did she not have her family? She was there and she knew what happened and that some of the things she saw were hard to put in words. They both tried to explain what happened but the horrors of the holocaust could not be explained, it had to be seen and heard and smelt and understood first hand. To be split up from your family and not know if they are alive or dead, to have all your rights taken away from you, to not be fed but be starved and beaten daily for rules that Nazis make up on the spot. They lived in constant fear and all they had to keep them alive was hope, hope that one day it would be over, hope that one day they might see their families again. Although, Leslie Meisels could have given up, he stayed strong and depended on the hope of one day getting out of that hell and becoming a human being again, instead of dying a prisoner.
What I have been asking myself:
I will never have as much respect for someone like I do for Leslie Meisels. He survived this horrific thing and yet he was still joking and had a great outlook on life. This experience was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat, at the end of the presentation I walked up and shook his and his wife’s hand because I was so touched by their story and everything they shared with us. Leslie Meisels explained that when he was taken away that his town came out and stood, not faught but stood there silently watching them get taken away. We need to learn from the holocaust and know that silence is not being neutral but it is siding with the enemy because you are not stopping the hatred.
What I learned:
I have learned, or begun to learn the horrors of the Holocaust and what it would be like to be living in a concentration camp.
I learned this when I went to listen to Leslie Meisels tell his story at Brock University.
This learning matters because we are the last generation to hear firsthand accounts of the holocaust.
In light of this learning, I began to understand the holocaust more and feel some of what the prisoners had to feel.
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