‘Hell’ gave her family a voice

Sandra Scheller had poured so much of herself, her parents and her Jewish community into the Holocaust remembrance exhibit she’d been working on for 2020 that when the COVID-19 pandemic put it on hold, she was devastated.

“The exhibit was open for 67 days. I don’t think I have ever cried as much as I did — not for me, but for those that supported this project,” she said of the initial shutdown.

One of the many things she’d learned from her parents, though, was creativity. So, she got creative. She got as much content as she could online. She shifted her focus slightly and began recording interviews with local Holocaust survivors and uploading those to the Chula Vista Heritage Museum’s YouTube channel. The reception the exhibition and its accompanying elements have received has been uplifting for her.

“RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust,” named for Scheller’s mother, Ruth Sax, has been extended through December of this year. The exhibit features photos, documents and other items from local survivors, and has been recognized by the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation as the first Holocaust exhibit in San Diego County.

Scheller, 66, is also an author, speaker and educator who lives in Chula Vista with her husband, Mark Scheller, and they have two children. She took some time to talk about this labor of love, what she learned from what her parents and others survived, and why she’ll never forget.

Q:

Tell us about “RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust.”

A:

This exhibit at the Civic Center Library in Chula Vista features the stories of 12 Holocaust survivors who settled in the South Bay and also focuses on the Jewish community in Chula Vista.

My mother was known for her work as an educator and for visiting classrooms and speaking to students and adults about the Holocaust. We both volunteered, and she was still speaking to students up until two weeks before she died. As I was writing my book about her (“Try to Remember — Never Forget”), I noticed all of the photographs a non-Jewish relative had saved. Ruth hadn’t gone through the photos, and I knew how important it was to see her past in print. I realized that there were other Holocaust survivors in Chula Vista who probably had photos and such, and that their children might want to know more about their family members and what they’d survived.

Q:

In your TEDx talk “Keeping Memories Alive,” you mentioned the first time you heard the word “holocaust.” Can you tell us about what happened that time?

A:

Sure. I was about 6 or 7 years old, and I was asleep when I heard my mom scream. I didn’t know what my mom went through; she was busy being a mommy hero to me, and I never knew about her past. I went into the room, and there was my dad, hugging my mom and she was so frightened. I will remember this moment until I die. The next morning, my dad explained the dream my mom had the previous night, and the reality of her life before. “Someone wanted to kill us for being Jewish? What? Why?” I was too young to understand, but then again, Hitler didn’t care if someone was 6 or 60 when it came to the Holocaust.

Doing a TEDx talk was probably the hardest and greatest thing I ever did. It’s out there and it tells the story in a short amount of time. It validates.

Q:

Your mother and father, Ruth and Kurt Sax, were both Holocaust survivors, with your mother surviving three concentration camps. What did you learn about your parents and what they experienced during that time?

A:

My father was 16 when the Nazis invaded his hometown. He could no longer go to school and the Nazis took over the place where he worked. Coming to America was almost impossible, but with help, it happened for him in 1939. As for my mom, she was 10 when the Nazis invaded their hometown in former Czechoslovakia on my grandmother’s birthday, March 14, 1939. In 1941, my 13-year-old mother and her parents were sent to Theresienstadt. My mom was separated from her father and worked in a children’s garden while my grandmother worked in the kitchen. They came up with the idea to keep the kettles on the burners so they could use the water to bathe on Fridays. They did this for three years. When my mother and grandmother entered Theresienstadt, they were told to find a job around food. They’d have to eat potato peels, but they’d have some food.

In 1944, my mom and grandmother were sent to Auschwitz. When they arrived, Jewish men shaved them while Nazis stared, pointed and laughed. Then, they faced Dr. Mengele (the “Angel of Death”) six times. I guess I had a perfect mom and grandmother because he approved them and kept them alive. There weren’t any more striped uniforms, so they had to find something to wear from piles of clothes taken from those who’d died. My mother threw her dress away after they were liberated, but my grandmother saved hers and now I have it.

Later, my mother was sent to Oederan (in Germany) to a thread factory, and in April of 1945, she was placed in a death march. My mother and grandmother ended up in Theresienstadt to be liberated and my mom believed her father was dead. Someone called out to her to approach the electric fence, and she thought it was her uncle. It was her father. The family had survived and my mom and her parents returned to their village, but everything was bombed. There were 11,000 people who left that village, and only 200 returned. My grandfather took in 20 children who’d lost their parents, and my mom remembers sharing everything, including mashing up food so they could all have something to eat.

The anti-Semitism didn’t end, though. My mom was 17 and hadn’t been in school, so she ended up in a classroom with 12-year-olds. The teacher didn’t say things like “1 + 1 = 2” but instead, that “one bad Jew, plus one bad Jew, equals two bad Jews.”

My grandmother was livid and felt she had nothing to lose, so she complained. I guess you could say she was an advocate for education back then. They just went through hell, and hell gave them a voice.

Q:

Did what you learned shape how you saw and understood yourself, who you are?

A:

Of course. My mom, especially, taught me to never ever give up on anything. I will say this: I don’t trust people upon meeting them right away. That is a mom thing for sure. As for my dad, I learned to do the fair thing. It makes one sleep better at night.

Q:

What can people expect to see and learn when they visit “RUTH”?

A:

First, an awareness that this happened. Then, the community bond. There’s art from Rich Walker, an incredible and sensitive artist who incorporated the Holocaust in his work. In the exhibit, people will see the survivors from many angles: hiding, escaping, in camps, starving, standing in a gas chamber that didn’t work that day, people doused in disinfectant powder, humiliation. They have different stories, but they all survived.

Q:

What would you say is your mother’s legacy?

A:

My mother’s legacy is to be kind and never take no for an answer. As Ruth would say, “(God) created such a beautiful world, only some people make it so miserable. Surround yourself with positive people.” That’s my Ruthie.

Q:

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

A:

“Enjoy the silent moments and never give up,” from my mentor Marta Becket. The best things have happened from the moments of silence and being alone.

Q:

What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

A:

I have a pilot’s license, and I used to be an assistant to a knife thrower. Stood there and trusted someone with 3-foot knives and hatchets. What was I thinking? Oh yeah, trust.

Q:

Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A:

Walking on the beach or sitting in my lounge chair at the beach with my husband under an umbrella. Maybe horseback riding at the border, boating in Otay and watching the parachuters fall from the sky, going to the desert in Borrego (minus the snakes), hiking in East County, visiting Mission Hills and shopping on Lewis Street. It’s all ideal.