EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- A Holocaust Days of Remembrance ceremony was held at the Air Armament Museum April 28.
More than six million Jews died during the Holocaust from 1933 to 1945.
The guest speakers were Anne Kelz, who gave accounts of family members who were Holocaust victims; and Rabbi Robert Declau, from a local Jewish temple, whose grandparents escaped the Holocaust.
Kelz, a local resident, lost 33 family members. They were deported in May 1944 from Hungary to Auschwitz, in the same railroad car. Kelz said she knew about her family members’ deaths through survivors’ stories and letters sent to her father.
“My grandfather inspired others in the camp by telling them to live another day,” Kelz said of one account. “He and his brother died in November 1944. They walked arm-in-arm into the crematorium. He only cried when the Nazis cut off his beard.”
Kelz recalled a cousin who saw her mother-in-law about to be cremated.
“She left her work station to be with the old lady, so she wouldn’t be afraid and alone when she died,” Kelz said.
She said some family members who survived went on to have many children and grandchildren.
Kelz ended her speech encouraging the audience to look for the positive things in life.
“I believe in beauty and joy,” Kelz said. “This Holocaust remembrance calls upon us to care and do our part to make the world kinder and better.”
Declau spoke next. his grandparents, Joseph and Lili Idelkovitz, barely escaped the German occupation of Austria in 1938.
The pair escaped incarceration because he had a Sumatran passport, which did not identify him as Austrian. They made it to a train station and eventually to America, where they shortened the family name to Declau.
Joseph’s brother, Daniel, a doctor, survived Auschwitz by performing medical experiments on prisoners. He also eventually made his way to America.
“My grandparents and my uncle were never the same after their experiences,” he said. “They hardly talked about it afterwards. They entered a synagogue on only three occasions afterwards.”
Col. Joseph Augustine, 96th Test Wing vice-commander, delivered closing remarks.
“The guest speakers’ touching stories and experiences are constant reminders of the power of the human spirit,” he said. “We must never forget about the Holocaust.”