Survivor’s story a lesson in genocide
NEOLA — History remains very alive in the memories of Bea Karp, a survivor of the Holocaust who spoke to eighth graders at Tri-Center High School on Thursday.
Karp’s account of her days before, during and after losing both parents at a concentration camp were part of the students’ final lessons on World War II.
Nearly 50 students packed into the school’s library to hear her speak, for which Karp was thankful.
“I hope to God what happened to me will never happen in this country,” Karp began.
Karp was born in 1932 in Germany, shortly after Adolf Hitler had risen to power. She remarked that she never knew a Germany that was not under Hitler’s control.
Her father ran a textile business. The family — all Orthodox Jews — began to worry about the growing anti-Semitism around them.
But her father waved it away, telling her uncle that “God will take care of us,” or that another nation would intervene to stop Hitler before things could worsen.
“But no one intervened,” Karp said.
Family members split apart — some to England, others to New York City, others still to Palestine, now modern day Israel — but Karp’s sister and parents stayed behind.
One day, her parents became nervous after being forced to register at a Nazi office; Jews were assigned identity cards. Soon, signs forbidding Jews from the park, the theater and certain businesses began to appear everywhere.
The family moved to another town. As she played in the street one day, she saw two uniformed Nazis and for the first time she felt hatred, she said.
“I hated them — I was overcome with hate,” she said. “I threw pebbles at them and they chased us kids through the alleyways, but we escaped.”
However, Karp couldn’t escape her mother, who saw the whole ordeal play out. Her mother scolded her for her reckless behavior, she said.
Discrimination and prejudice were rampant at school, too, Karp said. Children would insult her, call her “Christ killer” and other names, and stain her dress with ink.
One night, she woke to noise and smoke outside. It looked as though the whole city was on fire as the Nazis torched the synagogues and destroyed and looted Jewish businesses.
It was Nov. 9, 1938. The Kristallnacht — the “Night of Broken Glass.”
“My father left to see what he could save from the fires at our synagogue,” she said.
He did not return that night. She recalled watching her mother sick with worry when they found out men had been rounded up and taken away that night.
Sometime later — how long she wasn’t sure — her father returned, muddy and bloody from forced labor.
More time passed, and then, in the middle of the night, a knock at the door. Her mother opened it, and two Gestapo members — the state secret police — began barking orders to pack.
Karp said she ran to her room to retrieve her favorite doll, but a Gestapo told her she could not take it. She thought he meant that he wanted the doll.
“I told him, ‘If I can’t have it, neither can you,’” she said, recalling that she shattered the doll’s porcelain face against the ground.
The family joined many others on their way to the train station on a truck. They were forced into passenger cars. People tried to flee while the train was in motion through opened windows, but guards on the roof shot them, she said.
When they arrived at the camp, the first thought Karp had was how dismal it was. Brown, gray and black, surrounded by barbed wire.
Their money was taken. Golden fillings were ripped from teeth. Karp’s mother, who wore two golden hoop earrings, had them ripped from her lobes. Karp can still recall with clarity her mother’s scream.
The family was divided up: Karp, her 5-year-old sister and mother went to one camp, and her father to another.
Children would go on long walks under the supervision of guards as the adults were forced into labor. Karp said a woman would yodel and give the children cheese, which the starving kids would fight over.
Later on, Karp fell ill after digging through the trash for food. As she lay in bed, she awoke to see her father and asked why he was allowed to see her.
He was leaving, being taken to another camp. It was the last time she saw her father. Some time later, she was taken by Œuvre de secours aux enfants — the Organization to Save the Children — to France.
But that meant saying goodbye to her mother for the last time.
“Saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing I have ever done,” she said.
Karp was taken to France and given a false identity, a new name and a birthplace in Paris. She was moved 14 times while within the organization to throw the Nazis off the children’s trail.
She was reunited with her sister in one of the homes. Moved to a small French town, the girls stayed in a convent and attended Catholic services but did not take communion.
At that time, she considered staying at the convent and becoming Catholic, but she remembered what her father had taught her about her Jewish heritage, she said.
When the war ended, the girls were discovered by their grandmother and arrangements were made for them to live with their aunt and uncle in London.
From London, she moved to New York City, and at age 15, she met her husband. They later moved to O’Neill, Neb., where they have pretty much stayed since, she said.
“You young people,” Karp said to the students. “Are the future of this country. Vote. Feel lucky to live in a democracy. Know world matters. There is a big world we live in.”
