Lessons from the Holocaust resonate today
Willie Glaser apologized for not wearing his military uniform with all his medals. He’d given a talk to high school students the previous day, he explained, and took it to the dry cleaners to ensure it will be pressed and ready in time for Remembrance Day commemorations this weekend. Glaser is a veteran of the Second World War. Now 97, he is typically in demand as a speaker this time of year. But it’s the events he witnessed before he became a soldier that resonate on this sombre occasion. Eighty years ago Friday, Kristallnacht marked the start of the Holocaust, when the Nazis orchestrated attacks on Jewish synagogues, schools, institutions, businesses and individuals. Mobs unleashed vandalism and violence across Germany, while police and firefighters were ordered to stand down. Many citizens who didn’t participate in Kristallnacht looked the other way as state persecution of the Jews intensified. Glaser was 17 years old and attending a trade school in Munich when Kristallnacht happened. On Sunday, he will reflect on this turning point in history at the Montreal Holocaust Museum. But he sat down recently to discuss warning signs the world ignored and the personal toll of the Nazi genocide that followed. Glaser described his younger self as a strapping lad with blond hair and blue eyes: a German-born Jew who could pass under the radar. “And I wasn’t afraid of anybody,” he said. “I was wearing lederhosen with the brace, you know. I was German.”
He’d had the chutzpah to walk into Nazi headquarters in Munich to request the release of the manager of the youth hostel where he was staying. The man had been arrested and the 30 or so students who were living there were “a bit lost,” he recalled. The Nazi colonel was so taken aback at the “nerve” of this brazen teenager before him, that he did release the manager a few hours later. But overnight Nov. 9 to 10, 1938, Glaser’s sense of belonging to the broader society was deeply shaken. He saw synagogues burning and crunched through the broken glass littering the streets that gave Kristallnacht its name. Then he boarded a train and returned to his home village in southern Germany. Finding his family frightened but unhurt, he headed out to Synagogue Square, named for the five synagogues that once surrounded it. “Fürth is a town, my hometown, where everybody knew everybody. And I met a couple of people while going there that knew me. Some looked away from me. Some gave me a little nod and acknowledged me,” he said. “There was an iron entrance gate to the square that was closed. And a bunch of Germans were standing there watching the smouldering. The timber was burning still.” Glaser was born in Germany, but he, along with his parents and siblings, had Polish passports. After Kristallnacht, the family made plans to escape. His sister was sent to Britain as part of the Kindertransport, a rescue program for Jewish children. Glaser soon followed. “I left Germany one week before the war broke out,” he said. Glaser’s father went to France in hopes of laying the groundwork for the rest of the family to join him. Glaser’s mother waited in Fürth with his remaining three siblings. For a period of time, he was able to exchange letters with his mother. Then, suddenly, they stopped. He still has the last postcard she sent him for his birthday. “‘May god bless you and keep you and protect you from all bad things,’ ” Glaser said, quoting her haunting words. “It’s my most cherished possession.” In England, Glaser discovered that the Polish government in exile was forming an army to join the Allied effort against the Nazis. So he enlisted and became a tank and radio operator in the First Polish Armoured Division. “We landed in Normandy D+10,” he said, referring to the D-Day invasion that marked a critical juncture in the war. He fought his way through France, Belgium and Holland. After peace was declared, Glaser ended up doing “policing” work in northern Germany. Because he spoke German, he even went undercover in Displaced Persons camps to find Nazis in hiding. He exposed two high-ranking officials and turned them over to the military. All this time, he wondered what had become of his family. “Being in the Polish Army, we knew what was happening in Poland. We didn’t know details. We knew that there was murder going on and that Jews were being killed,” Glaser said. “Here I was sitting in a big powerful tank, yet I was so helpless. I had no news from my father, no news from my mother and the children. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” He took a leave from his posting in northern Germany to return to Fürth, which was now under American control. But his
I was sitting in a big powerful tank, yet I was so helpless. I had no news from my father, no news from my mother and the children.
family — and all the other members of a once-vibrant Jewish community — had long since disappeared. Eventually Glaser came to Canada under a program to resettle Polish army veterans and moved to Montreal. Using his military knowledge and trademark “nerve,” he has uncovered the fate of his lost family members. Only the sister who preceded him to Britain survived the Holocaust. He found out his mother and three siblings perished in Belzec, a concentration camp. During the interview, he pulled out an aerial photo showing a clear-cut area the size of two football fields where 700,000 Jewish men, women and children were put to death. He pointed out the mass graves. Glaser has visited Belzec twice to say the Kaddish prayer of mourning. “The second time, the Polish man in charge of the camp managed to get me some ashes,” he said. “I took the ashes home in a jar. … I took part of the ashes to Israel and we buried them in Israel.” The remainder he buried in the Jewish cemetery in Dollard-desOrmeaux. As for his father, Glaser learned that when Germany invaded France, he fled first to the part occupied by the Italians and later crossed the Alps into Italy. He worked on farms in exchange for food and shelter. But in a cruel twist of fate, an elite unit named for Hitler was sent to that region after being “beaten up” in major tank battle in Russia. To keep them busy while they recuperated, Hitler instructed his troops to round up Jews hiding in the countryside. In all, 216 Jewish men, women and children were caught, including his father. He was later shipped back to France and then to Auschwitz, where he was killed. For years now, Glaser has been speaking to students and the public about the horrors of the Holocaust in hopes that sharing the lessons of the past will prevent history from repeating itself. This work has new urgency now, with anti-Semitism and hate crimes on the rise, a dangerous brand of populist politics emerging worldwide and tragic shootings like the one in Pittsburgh sparking new fears. “I think it’s important to educate people, educate the public. A lot of people still don’t know what happened. A lot of people take things for granted,” said Glaser. “There are a million stories out there (about the Holocaust). Each story is different. But it’s basically the same story.”