Photo By Giancarlo Casem | Guest speaker Rolf Gompertz holds up his father's medal during his speech at the...... read more read more
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"If I had not been born a Jew, I might have become a Nazi. I was born in Germany."
Those words came from Rolf Gompertz, the guest speaker at Fort Irwin's Holocaust Days of Remembrance to commemoration at Reggies,' April 22.
It was a time in history that most would wish never happened, the Holocaust. Gompertz's Family bore witness to Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass Nov. 9, 1938. Gompertz read from his memoirs the experiences during his childhood in Nazi Germany. Gompertz's speech echoed the sentiments of this year's theme, "Never Again: What You Do Matters."
Fort Irwin's Dental Activity Command hosted the event which invited Soldiers throughout the post in the various tenant units stationed at the National Training Center.
The DENTAC commander, Col. Kha Vo, said it is important to remember the Holocaust.
"People should always learn from mistakes, and if you don't know that the mistakes exist, how can you learn from them?" he said. "By remembering and discussing why and how the Holocaust happened, we can hope to prevent future ones."
Vo also said that as servicemembers, Soldiers have an added responsibility.
"One word, education," Vo said. "It is important to commemorate the Holocaust because I have no doubt could happen again. As Soldiers, we may be called upon to stop it from happening, like in Bosnia. Also there are many different ethnic groups and religions in the military; we need to recognize that prejudice can be very destructive."
Gompertz started his story in the town of Krefeld, Germany, in 1933, when Adolf Hitler comes to power, Gompertz, at this time, was only five years old. He witnesses the book burnings that take place during that time. Gompertz explained the systemic prejudiced treatment harbored by the Nazi regime. In the months before Kristallnacht, anti-Jewish sentiment and views were fueled by members of the Nazi party. They helped propagate the Jewish-scapegoat ideology.
"They ban and burn books. Any book, by a Jew or about a Jew. Books by anyone and about anything considered incompatible with Nazi beliefs," he said. "Orders are given, laws are passed to boycott Jewish stores, businesses and services. To forbid Jews from becoming doctors or lawyers. To terminate Jews from teaching positions in public schools and universities, to dismiss Jews from civil service jobs, to stop socializing with Jews, to forbid intermarriage between Jews and Christians."
On the night of Kristallnacht, Gompertz recalled being woken up by a loud pounding on his Family's door.
"Open up, open up, or we'll break it down," Gompertz said as he recalled a shouting voice. As his mother opens the door, half a dozen Nazis storm through the door knocking her against the hall, he said. The Nazis, with rifles, rush up the stairs and try to catch his Family.
"We run around through the rooms, one after the other. As we come to the study, my father rushes to his desk, with the head Nazi close behind," Gompertz said. "My father opens a drawer, pulls out the Iron Cross, his medal from World War I, holds it up and shouts, 'Is this the thanks I get for having served the fatherland?'"
After staring at each other in silence for what seemed like an eternity, Gompertz said, the head Nazi signals at his men and leave their house.
Kristallnacht served as a "dress rehearsal" for the following Holocaust. In, 1939, a few months after that night where Nazis assaulted and murdered Jews and vandalized Jewish buildings, Gompertz's Family fled to the U.S. They had escaped the Holocaust, however, other members of his Family were not so lucky. Gompertz said that half of his Family did not survive the Holocaust.
"Most German's participated actively or passively, but there were those who didn't," he said. "There were those who resisted, there were those who helped, in ways small and large, individualy and collectively, at the risk of their lives; and at the cost of their lives."
Gompertz said that he, and many other Jews, found it hard to return to Germany, years after those events. As an author and speaker, he has used his writing and speeches to do his part to help ensure another Holocaust will never happen again.
In 1987, Gompertz returned to Krefeld and lived with a German Family. Before Kristallnacht, there were roughly 16,000 Jews in the town, by the end of the Holocaust, half were murdered, while some fled.
"In a city that was once a place of evil for us," he said, "I find good decent human beings again."
In the years after, Gompertz had tried to put himself in a German's shoes during that time, to try and rationalize those events and how they could have happened.
"Then comes the question that has never occurred to me and has always blown my mind, 'If I had not been born a German Jew, how would I have acted under the Nazis?'
"Would I have been a conformist? Or would I have shown courage? Or would I just gone along but offered resistance? Would I have participated in the Hitler youth, or Auschwitz? I've come to a terrifying and humbling conclusion; I do not know how I would have acted. We never really know how we will act in a time of crisis until we are tested."
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 04.28.2009 13:23 |
| Story ID: | 32971 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 413 |
| Downloads: | 232 |
This work, Fort Irwin observes National Days of Remembrance, by Giancarlo Casem, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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