Team Eglin remembers Holocaust

  • Published
  • By Samuel King Jr.
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Team Eglin members came together at the East Gate Chapel to pause and reflect on those lost in the Holocaust during the Days of Remembrance observance April 20, just three weeks before the 65th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

Close to 100 people listened to prayers, music and guest speaker, Dr. Victor Sapio, a holocaust survivor, tell his story of the prison camps and eventual prominence in America.

Doctor Sapio began by saying he has many vivid memories, while other memories came from talking with his mother afterward. He said he wished he had spent more time listening to his mother and her friends, also survivors, talk about what happened.

Then he told the story of his last day in the concentration camp under Nazi control.
He said the day began like any other day with prisoners lining up and being counted. Normally, two people were shot in front of the group daily and the bodies of failed escapees were laid out so the group could see them.

He also mentioned that in his prison they did not work and the boredom was, at times, unbearable. Other topics he talked about were the sense of timelessness in the camps and that there was no measure of status except one's own survivability.

The 74-year-old said that three hours after their day had begun, the German troops loaded up in trucks and left. Shortly after, the British 8th Army entered the camp.
The British began to feed the prisoners and he recalled as a little boy seeing "mounds and mounds of food" and thinking he'd never be hungry again.

In conversations with his mother, he said he worried constantly about eating during his time in the camp. His mother told him she was constantly worried about staying alive.

Shortly after the camp liberation, Doctor Sapio tasted vanilla ice cream for the first time. He said he fantasized it was strawberry ice cream. Once he made it to America, the first thing he had was strawberry ice cream; it didn't live up to his fantasy flavor back in the camp.

"I didn't like it," he said.

His mother told him about one of the guards she met toward the end of the confinement. The guard was a college-educated lawyer. She asked him why he didn't become an officer. He told her that as an enlisted, he swore an oath to protect Germany, as an officer he would've sworn an oath to Hitler. The soldier said he couldn't do that.

The doctor and his mother eventually made it to America, where she became a translator with the United Nations and he learned English.

He would go on to earn his doctorate at Ohio State University. He became a published author and teacher of American Foreign Policy at numerous universities. He and his wife of 50 years (in August) live in Pensacola, Fla.

The doctor took questions from the audience from topics of where he lived prior to the encampment to his feelings on Holocaust deniers. He answered them all before receiving a coin from Col. Bruce McClintock, 96th Air Base Wing commander, and signing a few autographs.

"This was Eglin's first remembrance observance and I think we had an impact," said Barbara Woods, Eglin Equal Opportunity office. "It is important to remember these atrocities, so we can prevent them in the future."

Hurlburt Field will host another Days of Remembrance event May 4, at 1:30 p.m. at the Commando auditorium.