Holocaust survivor set to tell story to students
Bea Karp, a Holocaust survivor, speaks to Arlington High School students during a 2013 presentation. Karp will be speaking at Logan View High School at 1 p.m. Monday in the gymnasium.
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.
Bea Karp, a Holocaust survivor, plans to speak to high school students and the public during a presentation held 1 p.m. Monday in the Logan View High School gymnasium.
Bea Karp has been telling nearly the same story for more than 52 years, and even though she is now 83 years old, her tale is just as relevant today as it was when she started sharing it more than half a century ago.
Karp, who was sent by the Gestapo to the Gurs Internment Camp in late 1940, plans to share her story of overcoming nearly insurmountable odds during the Holocaust with Logan View and Scribner-Snyder students at 1 p.m. Monday in the Logan View Jr./Sr. High School gymnasium.
The event is also free to the public, said Ben Schole, one of the event’s coordinators.
The speaking engagement was coordinated by Men in Mission, a church group comprised of men in the Uehling, Hooper and Scribner area.
For the past three years, Men in Mission has looked for various ways to educate students and the public about important, pressing issues.
In 2014, a program was held at Logan View where a Vietnam veteran spoke about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and in 2015, a speaker addressed issues facing correctional facilities at Scribner-Snyder Community Schools.
Schole said that he feels privileged that he can play a role in providing students with additional learning opportunities.
“It provides citizen input into what our kids get to hear and be educated on — some of those things that they don’t get to learn all about in a text book,” he said.
Hearing Karp’s testimony is a perfect example of this, he said.
Karp was born in Lauterbach, Germany, and lived peacefully until she and her family were sent to Gurs in 1940. Both of her parents died during the Holocaust, along with approximately 5 to 6 million other Jews.
Following World War II, Karp moved to England and then to the United States where she later married and raised four daughters with her husband in O’Neil.
Karp lives in Omaha where she continues devoting her time to speaking to area schools, churches and community groups, released information says.
In addition to speaking, Karp enjoys volunteering, traveling and spending time with her friends.
Schole said that Karp’s message is one that everybody should hear.
“She is a very important woman who has a tremendous story to tell,” Schole said. “It’s so important because people need to recognize what happened in Germany because of the fear and misinformation that Hitler spread. It led to the Holocaust. This is what happened because of those things, the Jewish people were persecuted and killed.”
Karp’s story is one that everybody should be able to take something away from, he said, and he believes she will continue taking speaking engagements as long as she is physically able to.
“She plans on speaking until she can’t anymore. It’s kind of her quest,” he said. “She wants people to take a stand against bullying and prejudice, and to tell them to not judge others when you know nothing about them. These are Bea’s words, and this is what she wants the kids to know.”
