By Brianna Hobson
Above: Tobi Gerson - Photo from AHEC website
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The University of Alabama’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion hosted a special two-hour program to celebrate the lives of those lost during the Holocaust at the Student Center Theater on April 10, 2023.
Second-generation Holocaust survivor Esther Levy shared the harrowing journey her mother, Tobi Gerson, and her brother Manuel Kamor, experienced during the Holocaust. In Poland their names were Tauba Kamornik and Monelah Kamornik respectively. Levy has been a speaker for the Alabama Holocaust Education Center since 2007, one year after her mother passed away.
Tobi’s family was from a small town in Szczerców, Poland where the Jewish population made up one-third of the town at the time of the Nazi invasion. Traveling on foot for a week to escape the German bombardments of their small town, they sought shelter in Lodz until it was over. When they traveled back there was nothing but ashes. Levy’s story recounted various deportations and death camps her mother was taken to and the horrors she witnessed. Those camps were Chelmno, the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and Ravensbrück.
“It is estimated that 17 million people were murdered during the Nazi regime's time in power. That number includes innocent civilians, prisoners of war, political opponents and resistors to the Nazi ideals, Roma people, people with mental and physical disabilities, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and Jewish people. All Jewish men, women, and children were marked for total extermination. During WW2 Nazi Germany, allies, and collaborators killed nearly 2 out of every 3 European Jews using deadly living conditions, brutal mistreatment, mass shootings, gassings, and especially designed killing centers.” Levy said.
Chelmno was where the Germans used mobile killing units where Levy detailed how SS officers would beat Jewish people and shove them into the back of trucks. Once there, the doors were locked and carbon monoxide fumes from the engine were purposely rerouted to the back. They were then transported to mass gravesites, where they died in transit from poisoning or suffocation. If they didn’t die during transit they were killed immediately upon arrival.
The heart-wrenching journey came to an end, where Levy discussed the Swedish Red Cross rescue orchestrated by Norbert Masur. He had a secret meeting with Henrich Himmler, second in command only to Hitler, where Masur negotiated the release of 7,000 Jewish women from Ravensbrück concentration camp between April 22nd – 28th of 1945.
Following Levy’s presentation, refreshments were served as attendees viewed the traveling exhibit from the Alabama Holocaust Education Center called Darkness into Life: Alabama Holocaust Survivors Through Photography and Art at the Intercultural Diversity Center.
“This sensitive exhibit of photography and art offers a special glimpse into the private memories of 20 Alabama Holocaust survivors, revealing stories of childhoods past, lost family and friends, despair and sadness, cruelty beyond belief, bravery, the joys of liberation, and new lives in Alabama.” According to the Alabama Holocaust Education Center.