Published: May 12, 2009 04:17 pm      

Holocaust survivor tells her story in Pryor

Prejudice, said Holocaust survivor Lisl Bogart, moves from our lives into other lives.

Bogart, originally from Czechoslovakia, lived under the Nazi regime from her early teens until the Russian Army liberated her from the camp at Terezin.

Bogart visited Mayes County in April and spoke at several area schools, including Thunderbird Youth Academy. She also spoke at First United Methodist Church. Everywhere she went, Bogart warned her listeners of the dangers of hate and prejudice.

Bogart said prejudice begins with words. Following hurtful words is avoidance of a certain person or group of people. Next comes discrimination, when there is an agreement to exclude certain people. Physical attacks follow and culminate in murder.

Words and actions, said Bogart, pass from generation to generation.

Holocaust researcher Paul Whitham, a close friend of Bogart, gave some details on the Nazi regime before Bogart told her story.

The Nazi Party governed Germany from 1933 to 1945. Whitham said Adolph Hitler was voted into office and “through political corruption,” was named prime

minister.

Germany removed Jewish citizenship in 1935. The Nazis entered Austria, Holland and Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. They invaded Poland and began building murder camps.

Jewish families were forced to live in crowded apartments in subhuman conditions.

Bogart was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which is now the Czech Republic. The Nazis occupied her country in 1939 and she was taken in 1942 to a concentration camp.

Bogart said Jews from 24 countries were brought to the concentration camp. Wealthy Jews were transported in passenger cars. When they were deported to other concentration camps, they went in cattle cars.

“We are the last generation to live among the survivors of the Holocaust,” she told her audience. “Survivors enhance human dignity, human responsibility and

they are the human

conscience.”

Bogart is one of few witnesses remaining.

“We witnessed the agony and the pain,” she said. “We also witnessed the bravery, heroism and self-sacrifice.”

In her small Czechoslovakian town, Bogart attended a good school and had a beautiful home and family life. Her family, including aunts, uncles and cousins, numbered 43.

Bogart is the sole

survivor of her family.

“Everyone else was brutally killed,” she said.

Why did she survive? Bogart said “it was either fate, or luck, or God’s will.”

Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia March 15, 1939. Overnight, German tanks and soldiers moved into Bogart’s town and decorated it with swastikas.

Bogart went to school, and the teacher called her a dirty Jew, a pig. In confusion, she turned and went home.

Bogart said that incident was the first time she felt anti-semitism herself.

Bogart’s father owned a small store. His business was taken away. Bogart and her family lost their education and means of livelihood on the first day of German occupation.

Germans took away anything of value, including jewelry, art and baseball cards.

“We were losing our freedom,” said Bogart. The Nazis had decided Jews were not human.

Jews were not allowed in any public place. They could not take public transportation. They could not be on the street past 7 p.m.

Jews were not allowed to market food. They were assigned one hour to shop before closing time.

The smallest infraction of these rules was punishable by death.

Bogart said it was difficult for the elderly to stand in the long lines. She and other young people would make several trips through the market lines to buy food for the elderly.

All Jews were required to wear a yellow star.

The word of a Jew had no meaning. Anyone could falsely accuse a Jew of not wearing his star or being out after curfew.

“Anytime you left home, you didn’t know if you would return or if you would be killed,” said Bogart.

In 1942, the Nazi regime arranged for 1,000 Czech Jews to be transported to a concentration camp.

The Jews were told they would be taken to a small village where they could live their lives in peace. Friends were afraid to acknowledge they knew the Jewish Czechs. They were afraid to acknowledge knowing what would happen to the Jews.

“The whole world knew what was happening to us,” said Bogart. “And nobody came to our rescue.”

Researchers speculate 250,000 to 500,000 people helped rescue Jews and other minorities. Bogart said that number equals approximately one-tenth of 1 percent of the population of Europe at the time.

Bogart said her brother was taken first. She said she was more fortunate; she went with her parents to a holding place.

Bogart told her listeners to imagine closing the door of their home behind them, knowing they would never, ever return.

Bogart, her parents and hundreds of other Jews were forced to sit for two and a half days on the concrete floor of the Nazi holding place.

“Believe me, two and a half days is a long time,” said Bogart.

Bogart said the Nazis’ intention was to dehumanize their prisoners through humiliation. Sanitation buckets were lined up against the wall. Bogart said some of prisoners gathered in a circle around the buckets to provide privacy.

The group of Jews traveled from the holding place in cattle cars. Nazi SS soldiers squeezed 80 to 90 people in each car. The Jews were taken to the Terezin concentration camp.

“We became the slave labor for the Nazis,” said Bogart.

One 12-year-old boy at Terezin wrote a poem saying, “Butterflies are free. I’ll never see another butterfly.”

At Terezin, Bogart was separated from her parents and placed with 27 other girls. She said Terezin had been a nice village before the war. During her stay at the concentration camp, Terezin had up to 70,000 people, wall to wall.

The prisoners lived on a starvation diet. They received brown water in the morning and a slice of bread. After a long day’s work they were given a small bowl of soup, which Bogart described as ugly grayish brown mush.

Bogart said the prisoners ate their mush and licked their bowls until it was all gone. If somebody was weaker, others shared their mush.

Fleas and lice plagued the prisoners. Bogart said the sick had no chance to survive.

One girl in her barracks became Bogart’s best friend.

“Some 63 years later, we are still the closest of friends,” said Bogart.

The prisoners were always under SS supervision. They lived by silent, mental resistance.

One day a young SS man walking by raised his rifle to strike Bogart. She ducked and stepped back, and the rifle caught her on the foot.

At that moment, Bogart gave in. She sat down, her silent resistance broken.

Bogart’s best friend reached down and pulled her to her feet, with the help of another girl.

“If she had not pulled me up, I would not be here to talk to you today,” said Bogart.

On a certain day, Bogart said the Nazis decided to give Hitler a special present. Bogart said the Nazis selected 5,000 Jews to be transported to Auschwitz for extermination. The Nazis chose March 7 as the day to kill these 5,000 Jews, which was the birthday of the first Czechoslovakian president.

Bogart and her parents were among those chosen to go to Auschwitz. The day the prisoners were shipped out, SS soldiers stood on each side of the ramps to herd them into the cattle cars.

As Bogart reached the ramp, a soldier called out her number. He reached out and pushed her aside. In confusion, she stepped onto the ramp again and the solder again pushed her off.

Bogart later learned the extermination roster for those 5,000 prisoners contained 5,004 names. She said she was one of four lucky persons who was eliminated from the roster.

Bogart’s brother was one of the four extra names. Hearing that his parents and sister were headed to Auschwitz, Bogart’s brother volunteered to go. He took the death train with Bogart’s mother and father.

Out of the 5,000 who journeyed to Auschwitz, 3,600 Czech Jews survived until March 7. Bogart said the others died of “natural causes,” which included beating and torture.

Those 3,600 Czech Jews went to the gas chambers March 7. They didn’t have any outside help, said Bogart. In her research she has learned that those prisoners put up the only resistance they could as they were taken on their final march.

“They resisted to their last breath,” said Bogart.

Bogart said prisoners had to be undressed to enter the “showers.” Documented history says the prisoners went to the gas chambers with their clothes on, singing “to their last breath the Czech anthem.”

Bogart received a postcard from her father which had been postdated to March 27. The card stated he had arrived well. She said she immediately knew something was wrong because of the way the card was signed.

Later, Bogart learned the truth about her

family.

Bogart was freed by the Russian army on May 7, 1945. The camp of Terezin was located farthest from the front, close to Berlin.

Bogart had typhoid when the Russians arrived and freed them. She was in the typhoid barracks when her friend came to the window and yelled, “We are free!”

Bogart said the Russians fed them a slice of white bread.

Concentration camp survivors had no identification papers, and it took Bogart a year to obtain her papers. She left Europe in 1946 and came to America to live with her uncle.

In the 1970s, Bogart and her husband Hank became founding members of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation in Skokie, Ill. Every year she tells her story to high school students and other groups. Bogart contin-

ually looks for an opportunity to share her personal experiences during the Holocaust.

“Every morning, I have a slice of toast,” said Bogart, “and I remember freedom.”

To this day, Bogart said she gets angry with her grandchildren when she sees them wasting food, “especially bread.”

Bogart tries to instill in her grandchildren what hate and prejudice can do. She said prejudice is actually pre-judging

others. Hitler had decided to create, by his judgment, a perfect race.

As a result, six million Jews died in the extermination efforts. One and a half million children died, many of them victims of horrific medical experiments. The Nazis killed five million other minorities such as gypsies, homosexuals and the physically and mentally disabled.