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Recently,
David Wisnia, a Polish Holocaust survivor, came to Oakcrest High
School and enlightened students with his amazing story. OHS Social
Studies Teacher Doug Cervi organized the event.
Although
he spared the gruesome details and joked around quite a bit about
his good looks (he even held his photo up and joked, “Look
at this cute kid”), his story was very informative and inspirational.
He truly opened the eyes of Oakcrest’s students and emphasized
the importance of learning history, because as we well know, those
who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Wisnia
was born in 1924 in Sochaczew, Poland, a small suburb of Warsaw.
In 1940, his family entered the Warsaw Ghetto where they were contained
and not permitted to leave. The following year, he and his older
brother both escaped from the ghetto, although separately. When
Wisnia returned, he found that the Nazis had killed his family
(his parents and a younger brother). One of his neighbors, a non-Jewish
woman, hid him for a day and a half. At that point, a non-Jewish
friend of his grandfather’s took Wisnia to the city of Chervinsk,
where he hid him. But, he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Fortunately for Wisnia, he was one of the 470 men kept alive out
of the 2,700 others who were arrested and sent on the train with
him.
Wisnia told how he volunteered to sing for the Nazi SS and was
given a job washing and disinfecting clothes, while also singing
for the Nazis when requested
in the year 1942. In 1943, as a punishment for falling asleep and missing roll
call, Wisnia was lashed ten times and had a “fake” hanging, while
actually being sent to camp prison for three months. Afterwards, his new job
was unloading dead bodies and luggage from incoming trains.
A
year later, he begun the death march to Gliewitz, Poland and then
was taken by train to Dachau for two months. Following that, he
volunteered to go to another camp for forced labor, but escaped
by jumping out of the train window. A few months later, he met
a column of American tanks and the 101st Airborne gave him the
job of interpreter, as he speaks German, Polish, Hebrew, and some
Russian. Meanwhile, with the Americans, he also learned English.
He moved around quite a bit with the 101st Airborne (he was part
of the 506th H Company), sometime in between which the war ended. “You
know, most people are blessed with one life, a good life. But I
was blessed with two,” Wisnia said. “My first life
ended when I got to Auschwitz. My second life began when I met
you, the 101st Airborne. May God bless the souls of those who died
and bless you, 101sters.”
Finally,
in 1946, Wisnia took the Monarch of Seas, a liberty ship, to New
York where he met with and stayed with his mother’s sisters. “The
longer I live, the more I begin to understand that you cannot appreciate
this country unless you came from a different place,” Wisnia
explained. “I became immersed in Americanism. I never knew
anything else. I totally abandoned my past life.”
The
following year after being accepted to the American Cantorial Society,
he enrolled in it and has been singing ever since. In 1948, he
married his wife, Hope, in New York with him he had two sons and
two daughters. A year later he became the Cantor at Temple Shalom
in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where he remained for twenty-seven
years.
In
1984, he became the Cantor at Har Sinai temple, in Trenton New
Jersey, where he still sings today. Wisnia’s children are
all grown up now, but he has five grandchildren with another one
on the way.
During
his presentation, students asked questions about Wisnia’s
experiences. He was presented with a gift and greeted students
after his remarks.
For
more information, contact:
Darlene A. Kopania, Journalism Department
909-2631
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