Holocaust survivor inspires young lives
Millstone Twp. Middle School students study genocide, cultural tolerance
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer
Ilse Loeb's mother had to let go of her to save her life. At the age of 13, Loeb, now of Monroe, fled Vienna on a train headed for the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. She remembers her mother accompanying her to the railroad station, saying goodbye and letting her go.

ERIC SUCAR staff Holocaust survivor Ilse Loeb talks to Millstone Township Middle School eighth-graders about hiding from the Nazis. The Monroe resident spoke at Diversity Day on April 2.

"The mothers were the real heroes," Loeb told eighth-graders on Diversity Day at the Millstone Township Middle School April 2. "They had to let their children go away with strangers, not knowing what would happen to them just to save their lives."

En route to the Netherlands, Loeb was forced to wear a big, red "J" on her coat. When a Nazi came to her seat on the train to check her passport and saw the mark, Loeb viewed an expression on his face that she would never forget.

"Suddenly, he felt it was not worthwhile to talk to me, look at me," Loeb said. "He took my passport and put it into his pack and walked away. It was my only link to freedom, so I ran after him."

ERIC SUCAR staff Holocaust survivor Ilse Loeb collects her thoughts before speaking to a group of students at the Millstone Township Middle School on April 2.

Loeb had to get off the train, and once she located him had to beg to have the passport returned. He did not want to give the document back to her and said he wouldn't until one of his superiors came along and ordered him to give it back to her.

"Just as I got it back, the train left," she said. "I was alone at the railroad station on the Dutch border."

Loeb eventually escaped to Holland where a Jewish family took her in as a foster child. Soon, the Nazis invaded Holland and Jews started experiencing the same discrimination in Holland as they did in the country she had just left. They could not work. They could not go to school. They had to follow different laws, she told the students.

"People tried to leave Holland, but could not," she said.

By 1941, the letters from her parents stopped and she feared the worst.

"When the letters stopped, I knew it was bad news, but I had to think about my own safety and survival," Loeb said.

In 1942, the same day that Margot Frank received her deportation letter from the Gestapo, Loeb received notice to report to the train station at midnight to board a train to a concentration camp. Her foster family and friends told her not to go, but she wondered how she could disappear.

The Dutch Underground movement came to her aid and outfitted her with false identification. Her cousin's fiancé gave her a coat without a Jewish star. A non-Jewish family, Johtje and Aart Vos, who sheltered 32 Jews and four dissidents in their home during World War II, gave her refuge.

"I was not Jewish from that time on," she said. "I was Yopi Lock, born in Holland. I brainwashed myself to be that girl."

Loeb went into hiding for three years. When the Nazis searched homes for hidden Jews, she ran to an upstairs room where she crawled into a hole in the wall that the family camouflaged with wallpaper.

"I would be shaking like a leaf, praying that they would not find me," she said.

Not only did Loeb have to fear being found, pushed into an empty cattle car and taken to a death camp, but she had to survive in hiding during a time when the horrid winters left individuals and families without electricity, gas and food.

"We had to eat out of garbage pails," she said. "Sixteen thousand people died between 1944 and 1945 from starvation and cold."

The Nazis killed 600,000 people in the 10 months before she would finally be liberated.

"My parents were among them," she said. "After the war, I wanted to do something with my life. So, I'm telling you young people to make a better world so this cannot happen again. We want tolerance and understanding. When you see wrong being done, please don't be a bystander. Be someone who can help."

Loeb also told the students that many Holocaust survivors are dying and those who remain were children at the time and have little memory of the actual events between 1938 and 1945.

"You will have to carry this message on," she said. "You have to stand up for us and say yes that happened."

Loeb spoke to the students as part of the middle school's Diversity Day, which serves as a culminating activity for the eighth-graders interdisciplinary unit on the Holocaust, genocide and cultural tolerance. On Diversity Day, students have the opportunity to hear individuals from all over the globe discuss their experiences.

While Loeb spoke about surviving the Holocaust, Gavin Cummings discussed coming to America from Guyana at the age of 14. Eli Bavarsky discussed defecting from Communist Russia. Leonard Zabasajja shared his experiences about growing up in Uganda under Idi Amin's regime. And, Christina Evans talked about growing up in England before moving to the United States.

The Millstone Township Middle School PTSA also sponsored a live multimedia per- formance by Living Voices, a drama organization that uses interactive drama to explore the issues of prejudice, bullying and social justice. The performance centered on African Americans' struggles and sacrifices for civil rights in Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s.

Eighth-grader Annalee Lane, 13, said, "After all that she has been through, to come here and help us understand that she only wants the world to be a better place and not so full of hatred, I find it amazing that she could do this," Annalee said.

Eighth-grader Lindita Nikovic, 14, said, "Everyone should learn and think about what really happened in the past."

Eighth-grade language arts teacher Arlene Agulnick said, "We're hoping that the students will take the message of survival and hope and pass it on to other children so that when these survivors are no longer alive they can be the ones to carry their message on."