MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW)-Thursday is holocaust remembrance day. It’s a day that many lessons will be taught as we remember one of the worst genocides in history. News13 talked to a survivor who said he doesn’t need a day to remember the holocaust because not a day goes by that he forgets.
Hugo Schiller was just seven years old when a military officer knocked on his door and took his father. A little while later he was in the same concentration camp before he was rescued by a Quaker. That was just the beginning of his survival story.
For almost two years Hugo was in France with more than 40 other Jewish kids doing their best to keep a low profile. During that time he remembers one piece of bread for breakfast, and mostly broth at night for dinners. Though always hungry and hiding, he knew he was lucky to be alive.
When he was nine, he was shipped to the U.S. and luckily his family raised him in New York. While grateful to outlast evil, he still thinks of all the ones who didn’t get the same chance.
“We all have some sense of guilt that we survived when so many thousands of others didn’t. We weren’t smarter or kinder or better or more religious or any of that. We just survived and they didn’t.”
A fellow survivor and well known author named Ellie Wiesel wrote a book called Night.
The survivor discussed an excerpt from the book that says, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”
Hugo thanks the Quaker who came and found him in concentration camp. He says if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be telling his story.
His biggest fear though is watching genocide after genocide. He says there are far too many stories that sound just like his.
“We haven’t learned very much. And certainly we have had our Rwanda’s after this where people were killed just because of who they are. Right now, Christians are being killed in the middle east because they’re Christians so we haven’t progressed very far. There’s always hope but so far we haven’t evolved since the time of the Holocaust.
The new butterfly memorial will be used as a teaching tool for children. The monument says, “Remember all the children and their families who died in the holocaust. Honor the brave holocaust survivors, the righteous-among-nations rescuers, the United States military members, the United States military liberators and the allied powers. Remember.”
Hugo said his point of survival is to tell his story so that others may never forget.
