A Holocaust survivor tells his tale
By Rachana Dixit, news editor
Posted on April 10, 2006

Thursday evening, in his second appearance at JMU for Holocaust Remembrance Week, Holocaust survivor Alex Lebenstein made it clear that every survivor has his or her own story to tell.

“If a cat has nine lives, I must’ve had twenty,” said Lebenstein, who survived Kristallnacht, or “Night of the Broken Glass,” two ghettos, two concentration camps and four slave labor camps.

Lebenstein was born in 1927 in Haltern, a small town of 14,000 people in northwest Germany, and said no one believed in the 1930s that Hitler would come to power.

“He was a housepainter,” Lebenstein said.

However, he said, in the mid-to-late ‘30s, Hitler’s influence on Germany was becoming increasingly apparent. In 1937, Hitler gave an order to forcibly remove all foreigners from the country.

“Anti-Semitism was taught for the past two thousand years,” Lebenstein said. “The fundamentals [for Hitler’s takeover] were already there.”

Then, on Nov. 9, 1938, Kristallnacht went into full force across Germany, pillaging and destroying Jewish houses, neighborhoods and synagogues. Lebenstein was 11 years old.

“When you’re eleven years old,” he said, “You live a protected life. You can tell when something’s wrong.”

Lebenstein said he and his family kept thinking that maybe the Nazis would not come to their small town, since the wealthiest people lived in large cities.

But on Nov. 10 around 3 p.m., Lebenstein said, the noise came closer.

“They told us our synagogue was being burned,” he said. Standing by his father, Lebenstein’s hand held in his, he said he saw people his age pillaging Jewish houses.

“That was the first time I ever felt my father’s hand perspire,” Lebenstein said.

Within the next few minutes, Lebenstein’s father was beaten, his army medals were crushed into pieces and their house was looted for valuable belongings.

“[Kristallnacht] has become my nightmare,” Lebenstein said. “How could you ever forget, when you’re eleven years old, and you go through that?”

After his family’s house was destroyed, Lebenstein never returned home. In January 1942, he was transported from a ghetto to his first camp and was transported to different concentration camps and slave labor camps until his liberation. He said the thought of his mother being alive kept him going for all those years.

“I’ll admit,” Lebenstein said, “I was really a mama’s boy.” He was the youngest child out of four, his three older siblings all female.

 Lebenstein was liberated by Russian troops in March 1945.

However,  he said, “I don’t remember being particularly joyful because I was too sick.” He was battling his second bout of typhus at the time and was heavily infested with lice. Lebenstein said he stayed in the hospital with Russian doctors for a few weeks until he was cured of his ailments.

Eventually, Lebenstein ended up in the United States when one of his older sisters found him on the survivor list in the latter part of 1946. He said he was reluctant to go, though.

“In my childlike mind, I expected [my sisters] to do more to save us,” he said. But at the persistent demands of his sister, he ended up fulfilling her request to come to the United States.

Since moving here, Lebenstein has been back to Germany three times. He goes to Germany in order to spread tolerance and educate students on the Holocaust, since many do not like to speak of the atrocities.

 “Am I going to give up on these kids? No way,” he said.

Lebenstein is set to go to Germany again this May, his fourth visit since 1995. He said he also hopes to continue speaking in the United States. about his experiences.

“I prayed in the car coming up here today,” Lebenstein said. “You know why? I don’t know why I’m still alive.”

After a moment of thought, he added with a smile, “Well, maybe for this.”