The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Holocaust survivor shares her story
Wickliffe Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders got a once-in-a-lifetime experience on Sept. 25.
Holocaust survivor Regina Wolovits shared her inspiring and courageous journey living through a time of senseless hatred.
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups including Roma (Gypsies), the disabled and some of the Slavic peoples. Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological and behavioral grounds.
Wolovits, who is now 93, was 20 years old when she was taken away from her home in Czechoslovakia.
“The Germans occupied our town and that was the end of our freedom,” she said.
“They separated me from my mother and father. My father went with the men and my mother went with women. I never saw them again.”
She was the youngest of 11 children and lost her parents, along with many of her siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles.
“They came in to kill the Jews,” she said. “Most were killed with gas. But, they were saving the young people, because they needed the young people to work for them.”
Wolovits endured cruel conditions in five concentration camps. She was held captive, beaten and malnourished.
“It was terrible,” she said. “We were so hungry and we couldn’t ask for nothing. They gave us a piece of bread then they told us we had to go to work. We worked day and night.”
After World War II, Wolovits and others survivors were liberated.
She later came to America, where three of her siblings were living at the time. Wolovits got married and had two daughters, eight grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren.
Wolovits’ presentation kicked-off this year’s One District, One Book. As part of this reading initiative to build a community of readers, the seventhand eighth-graders will be reading “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by John Boyne.
Wolovits shared a powerful message to get the students excited about reading “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” that further discusses life during that time.
“Do not hate anybody,” she said. “Every one of you are human beings and you should respect each other. That’s the most important lesson for you to learn.”