Holocaust survivor speaks to Arlington students
Bea Karp, a Holocaust survivor, visits with Arlington High School teachers and students following a 2013 presentation. Karp will speak at Logan View High School at 1 p.m. Monday in the school's gymnasium. Tony Gray, Fremont Tribune
Few Americans today understand persecution like Bea Karp.
As a Jewish child in Nazi Germany, she knew what it was to be called hateful names and to see the fires of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). Later, she would know the pain of being separated from beloved family members and intense hunger during life in a concentration camp.
On Thursday, the petite Omaha woman shared her story at Arlington High School. Approximately 100 students from 10th- and 12th-grade classes gathered for her talk. The students have been reading Holocaust-related literature and learning about World War II.
“We thought it would be a great opportunity for our students to hear about these events firsthand,” said English teacher Amber Sims. “This is not going to be an opportunity that’s going to be around forever.”
Karp recalls when Adolph Hitler decreed that Jewish people couldn’t own property and later that Jews and Gentiles couldn’t fraternize. Her family had to give up their home and textile business. Her father couldn’t find work. Karp remembers signs in shop windows saying that Jewish people were forbidden there. Other restrictions surfaced.
“We couldn’t go to the movies. We couldn’t go to the symphony. … We couldn’t even go to the park that we used to always visit … because those signs appeared all over, even on benches,” she said.
Karp faced terrible name-calling.
“Going to school and coming home was a nightmare,” she said.
After a while, Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend school.
Then one night, the family was awakened by noise in the streets. They hurried to a window.
“As I looked out, it was as though the whole city … was burning. There were fires all over the place,” she said.
Karp’s father realized their synagogue was burning and hurried there, hoping to save religious items. He didn’t come home that night. Instead, he and other men were taken to concentration camps. Karp still remembers seeing streets littered with glass. The Nazis had broken windows in homes and apartments where Jewish people lived.
“It was a horrible, horrible night,” she said.
Karp believes World War II might have been prevented if the German people had stood up to Hitler at that time and said “enough is enough.”
“But nobody stood up,” she said. “They just looked on and saw what was happening, but didn’t do anything. Nor did any country come to our aid. Why didn’t they? I don’t understand — even to this day — and it hurts.”
One day, a man covered in mud and blood came through the door. It was her father. The very sick man had escaped from the camp.
Another day, two Nazis came to the door and ordered her mother to pack. One man saw Karp pick up a beloved doll.
“Where you’re going, you don’t need this doll,” he said.
Realizing he was going to take it, Karp threw down the doll and its porcelain face broke into many pieces.
Karp’s family was taken to a railroad station. Nazis were deporting the Jewish people from her city. It was October 1940. Jewish people, including Karp’s family, were put on a passenger train. Those caught hiding money were taken off the train, lined up on a platform and shot.
“They shot all of those people,” Karp said. “I heard the shots, but my mother took my face — she did not want me to watch — and she put it in her lap.”
There was no food or water and the young girl licked the windows just to get a little moisture.
The train took passengers to the southern part of Nazi-occupied France. Karp’s father was taken to one camp. She, her sister and mother were taken to Gurs concentration camp. Karp remembers how her mother cried in pain when gold earrings were yanked from her pierced ears.
Camp conditions were filthy. There were rats and lice. Once a day, about 50 inmates in the barracks had to divide a single loaf of bread and terrible fights broke out.
“When you are hungry, it hurts and you will do almost anything to get a crumb of food inside of you,” she said.
At one point, Karp and her sister went to visit their father. When a guard argued with them, Karp kicked him in the boot, called him a name and the sisters left.
She found her father, who’d received a raw egg, but discovered blood in it. As an Orthodox Jew, he followed dietary laws that forbid eating blood, and threw the egg against a wall. Karp ran to lick the egg off the wall, but first turned to her father. Seeing his facial expression, she couldn’t do it.
Karp later realized her father was trying to teach her that while she couldn’t control what the Nazis did to her physically, she still mentally had the choice to do what was right.
She and her sister later were sent to a home in France and later to a convent. In 1945, they went to England. She still recalls walking down a street and, for the first time, realizing she didn’t have to be afraid. She was 12 years old.
Karp, whose parents died during the Holocaust, eventually came to the United States, married, raised four daughters and has seven grandchildren.
She encouraged students to take an interest in their government and remain good citizens. Students gave Karp a standing ovation.
“I thought it was really good,” said senior Nick Kaup of the program. “I can visualize it better when she’s talking, rather than in a history class. … The teacher does a good job, but it’s just more personal when she’s talking.”
