Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Matthew Hecht | New Jersey Army and Air National Guard members listen to closing remarks at a...... read more read more
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Soldiers and Airmen from the New Jersey National Guard came together with documentary filmmaker Steven H. Besserman for a screening of his movie “Only A Number,” about the story of his mother Aranka, a Holocaust survivor. Her story documents the horrors she faced at the hands of the Nazis, how she met her husband Josef, and finding the will to survive.
“Thank you for coming, thank you for sharing, and most of all, thank you for your service,” said Besserman to a floor crowded with Guardsmen. “On this very special day, I always tell people that if you’re a Holocaust survivor or the child of a Holocaust survivor as I am, every day is Holocaust Remembrance Day.”
Many Soldiers in attendance noted the historical ties with their unit and the Holocaust.
“New Jersey has a connection to the liberation of camps, through the 42nd Infantry Division,” said Maj. Amy Glatz, the Equal Opportunity Officer for the New Jersey Army National Guard. “The 42nd, made up of multiple National Guard units, including New Jersey, is recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army’s Center of Military History, as well as the United States Holocaust Museum.”
Aranka was originally from a small town in Hungary, and found herself uprooted from the life she knew after being captured by Nazis as anti-Jewish policies grew more repressive. She, her mother, and sisters were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and then to slave-labor factories.
It was at one of those factories that she met Josef, who was from a village in Poland. Despite the language barrier, he declared his love for her, even having a fellow prisoner forge an engagement ring.
When allied forces reached the camps, Aranka and Josef were freed, married, and then immigrated to America.
“My Mom passed away in 2012, yesterday would have been her 95th birthday,” said Besserman. “Interesting that it coincides with Holocaust Remembrance. I lost my Dad in 2016, and ever since my parents passed, whenever I share the story, I wear their rings.”
“There were six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, and another five million people that were not Jewish, either political dissidents or gypsies or other religions or other sexual preferences and if you were different, and you didn’t subscribe to the horrible ideologies of the Nazis, they murdered you,” said Besserman. “I encourage people to stand up and speak out against hatred and prejudice, wherever it exists.”
| Date Taken: | 05.02.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 05.03.2019 10:40 |
| Story ID: | 320595 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Web Views: | 55 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The New Jersey National Guard observes Holocaust Remembrance Day, by SMSgt Matthew Hecht, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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