MS Students Videoconference With Holocaust Survivor
On Wednesday, April 2nd, the eighth grade class had the privilege of video conferencing with Holocaust survivor, Bea Karp. Read on to learn about her remarkable story.
Bea Stern was born in the scenic village of Lauterbach, Germany. After Hitler and the Nazis came to power, Germany began passing anti-Semitic laws. Bea recalls that around 1936 her uncle and her father argued over whether to stay in Germany or flee. Bea’s uncle favored leaving, and her father did not. As things worsened for the Jews, Bea’s uncle made the decision to leave, taking his mother and sister with him to Palestine.
Eventually the Nazis decreed that Jews could not own property or do business with non-Jews, making Bea’s father lose his textile store. Bea’s parents were shocked that their fellow German citizens did not stand up for the Jews and stop the Nazis. In the face of such hostility, Bea’s family (her parents, herself, and younger sister, Susie) moved to Karlsruhe, a city near Germany’s western border with France. It was difficult for them to find a place to live, and people, even the children Bea went to school with, were cruel.
Then came Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938. On this night, mobs of Nazis went through the streets, smashing windows of Jewish-owned buildings, looting Jewish shops, and burning synagogues. Bea’s father went to the synagogue to try to rescue some items, and he didn’t return. He and many other Jewish men were taken to Buchenwald concentration camp. He did eventually return home, but he was almost unrecognizable because he was covered with blood and mud. The ordeal had made him very sick.
By the fall of 1940 Bea was eight years old, and Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend school. One day the Gestapo showed up at their door and demanded that they hurry up and pack enough of their things to last two weeks. Bea recalls throwing her beloved porcelain doll on the floor when the Gestapo agent told her she couldn’t take it with her. When it was time to leave, Bea just clung to the leg of their kitchen table, refusing to let go. The event was very traumatizing for her.
Along with many other Jews, Bea’s family was taken to the train station and forced onto a passenger train. They had no idea where they were headed. Some people jumped out of the train’s windows and were shot by soldiers standing on the roof of the train. When the train stopped at the French-German border, a voice on a loudspeaker ordered everyone to get rid of their money or else be shot. Bea knew her mother had money, so she begged her to get rid of it. Bea’s mother gave the money to Bea and told her to throw it in a toilet, so she did. Moments later, Bea saw the Nazis searching everyone, and the people who were caught with money were shot. Bea says, “My mother hid my eyes, but I heard the shots.” While on the train, they were never given any water or food. Bea describes being so thirsty that she licked the condensation from the windows of the train.
The train stopped again in southern France, and the prisoners were ordered to load into trucks, which transported them to a concentration camp called Gurs. Upon their arrival, the males and females were separated. Bea, her mother, and her sister shared one straw-filled mattress. Lice and rodents were everywhere. They were only given watery soup, plus one loaf of bread to be shared by the entire barracks. The starving women fought over how equally the loaf was divided.
Once Bea and her sister walked away from the women’s compound to try to find their father in the men’s compound. When they found him, he was frail and weak. While visiting her father, the men were each being given a raw egg to eat. The starving girl could hardly wait to share in such a great meal. However, when her father cracked open the egg, he saw that there was blood inside. Being an Orthodox Jew, he could not eat such an egg, so he threw it against a wall. At the time, Bea remembers being upset with her father, “We were starving, after all.” But her father said this: “I have no control over what the Nazis do to me physically, but mentally, I still have a choice.” He was able to stick to his principles. Bea told the students, “Later on in life, when temptations came along, I remembered the egg.”
After the family had been at Gurs for several months, Bea’s sister, Susie, developed an infection from scratching her lice-infested head. She was among a group of children taken out of the camp by the OSE, a French Jewish humanitarian organization. In late 1941, Bea had cholera, so she was also rescued by the same organization. Bea never saw her parents again.
Over the next two years, Bea stayed in a series of safe houses. She moved fourteen times, and eventually found Susie. The sisters were given French identity cards and taught to speak French.
By 1943, Hitler had established the death camps, and the homes where the refugee children had been staying were no longer safe. Bea and Susie were moved to a Catholic convent in Millau. Bea liked it at the convent, and that is where she stayed until the war ended.
After the war, the OSE helped Bea and Susie locate their remaining family members in Israel and England. The sisters moved to London to live with an uncle and his family. A few years later they moved to New York City to live with an aunt and her family.
After getting married, Bea moved with her husband to O’Neill, NE. Her husband, Bob Pappenheimer, worked in the grocery trade and they raised four daughters there. While living in O’Neill, Bea received official word that her parents had died at Auschwitz.
Today Bea lives in Omaha, and she regularly shares her story with students. She ended by telling the students this: “You are the future of this country. It’s up to you to make sure we always have the freedoms that we have here. Be good citizens. Vote. You have the responsibility to speak up for what’s right.”
We are grateful to the Institute for Holocaust Education in Omaha for arranging for our students to videoconference with Bea. This coming Wednesday, our sixth graders will have the same wonderful opportunity.
