Undergraduate Studies program are focusing on careers in the health sciences that necessitate a heavy emphasis on science courses. However, it is also the goal of the College “to promote academic achievement through traditional study of liberal arts and sciences in the undergraduate divisions and to foster humanistic and ethical values…” (Touro College Bulletin).

Helping to achieve this goal, for the last few years I have had the privilege of having Holocaust survivors visit my Holocaust Studies class. Although most of my students have attended schools on Long Island, where numerous Holocaust survivors live, I am always amazed to discover that for many students the Holocaust Studies class is their first experience hearing a survivor.

Each survivor’s story is unique. The students sit and listen, seemingly with feelings of awe, shock and thankfulness. They appear to be awed by the speakers’ having survived during that horrific time. They look shocked by the brutality that the survivors witnessed and often were subjected to themselves. They express gratitude that they are now living in a country that allows religious freedom and combats racial and ethnic discrimination.

I have worked with the speaker’s bureau from the “Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust” in Manhattan and the “Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center” of Nassau County to arrange for speakers to attend the classes. This past year my students heard from:

Sally Frishberg
Sally was born in Poland. She hid in an attic with her Jewish family for more than two years during World War II. Sally Frishberg also shared her appreciation for the new life given to her in 1947, when her family came to America. She eventually became a New York City high school teacher.

Fred Margulies
Fred was born in Berlin in 1927. His family was torn apart after Kristallnacht. He and his sister were smuggled into Holland when he was eleven. He alone reached England, through the Kindertransport, where he spent the war years. He came to the United States in 1947, the only survivor of his family.

Julius Eisenstein
Julius was born in Tomaszow, Poland, one of five children. His mother, father and three sisters perished in Treblinka. He and his brother, as well as his future wife, survived many camps, including Auschwitz. After forty years, he was reunited with an American GI, who appeared with him in a photo of the camp on the day of liberation. He has dedicated himself to telling his story to young people so that history should not repeat itself.

Werner Reich
A native of Berlin, Werner was living in Yugoslavia when the Nazis came to power. Sent to Theresienstadt, he survived Auschwitz and a death march, only to be liberated in May 1945 with a severe case of frostbite. He immigrated to England in 1947 and to the U.S. in 1955.

I know my students are learning a great deal about the Holocaust from my lectures, class discussions, and movies and documentaries shown in class. However, the speakers, in telling their stories, bring to class a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience with power and presence that makes this tragic era become even more real to the students.

All of the survivors agree that this generation of students will be the last generation to hear from actual survivors. The speakers want their listeners to remember - and to tell others what they have heard so that the knowledge they have gained will be shared and help prevent other similar events from occurring in the future.

Clearly, I get a great deal of professional and personal satisfaction from teaching this Holocaust class. So that others in the College may benefit from this rare opportunity, I provide a schedule of when Holocaust survivors are going to be in my class to each program at the School of Health Sciences and welcome them to attend.

The study of the Holocaust is an extremely important course, and hearing survivors’ stories has become an integral part of the course. From hearing witnesses, the students not only learn the history of the Holocaust, but gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for humanistic and ethical issues that confront the world today.