Andy Holten survived the Holocaust as a child because of his parents' determination and the courage of strangers. The rest of his family wasn't so fortunate.
Holten was among the speakers at the Holocaust Remembrance event May 5, Holocaust Memorial Day, in the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center Leaf Presentation Center.
Holten said he was born a couple of years before World War II. In 1940, Germany invaded Holland, where he and his parents lived.
"Persecution of the Jews was what they were trying to do in Holland," he said.
In 1942 or 1943, Holten said, the Nazis began sending all young men to German factories to work and Jews to concentration camps.
"There was no easy way to avoid arrest," he said.
They couldn't leave the area because Holland was surrounded by water and unfriendly countries, he said. To survive, Jews had to hide, which wasn't easy, either.
It was illegal for non-Jews to help Jews, Holten said, and food rationing made it hard to feed people in hiding.
When Holten, an only child, was 5 years old, his parents thought they'd found a place for all three of them to hide. However, the would-be benefactors backed out.
Holten's parents contacted the underground resistance and asked for a place to hide their son.
A Christian couple in their 60s took him in under an assumed name, hiding his Jewish identity until the war ended.
"My parents, my grandparents, pretty much the rest of my family, were arrested," he said.
The Nazis sent Holten's parents and one set of grandparents by train to Auschwitz.
His father worked in a factory there for four to six months, until he became too sick to work and the Nazis sent him to the gas chamber.
Holten's mother and grandparents were killed the day they arrived. So were the 122 children on the train.
Had Holten been with them, he would have met the same fate.
His other grandparents were sent to Sobibór death camp. They were not among the few survivors.
When Holten was 7, Allied troops marched through the streets, having liberated Holland. He still remembers the day.
His foster parents knew only his last name and had to approximate his birth date, but they registered him so his family could find him if they survived.
"But no one came back," he said.
So, his foster parents raised him.
"I admire them, and I'm eternally grateful for what they did," Holten said.
His foster family became his only family, and he still keeps in touch with their grandchildren.
When Holten was 10 or 12 years old, he began to grasp what happened to his biological family and struggled. He always hoped someone would come back for him.
After finishing high school in Holland, Holten came to New York City and earned a college degree in physics. He qualified for U.S. citizenship after college and joined the Air Force on the way to the citizenship ceremony.
Following five years as an Air Force officer, he became a civil servant. He eventually took a position with a professional services company in Albuquerque, supporting the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center.
Holten quoted a Holocaust scholar in saying no one should ever perpetrate insults or killing based on who people were born as, or be a bystander to such crimes. By Argen Duncan,
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14 апр 2018
