HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR SPEAKS TO SOCIAL INJUSTICE CLASSES
Holocaust Survivor Speaks To Social Injustice Classes
Press Release from Matt Pesyna of Washington Twp School District
The trials, tribulations and atrocities that Helene Bouton witnessed and endured came into focus on Tuesday, December 10th, as the 96-year-old Holocaust survivor visited Washington Township High School to speak to Ms. Brittany Mason’s social injustice classes. Standing at a microphone in the school’s instructional media center and speaking with unbridled passion, Bouton detailed an unthinkable experience, which began when she was just 15 years old living in Czechoslovakia. Her town was invaded by German S.S. soldiers and turned into a ghetto for unwelcome Jewish people. Bouton’s home, which once housed she, her parents and four siblings, became a shelter for more than 70 people. Not long after, the residents of the ghetto were transported by train to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – a nearly four-day trip where passengers were not afforded food, water or any sanitation areas. “They wanted to kill all of the Jewish people in any way possible,” Bouton said.
Once at Auschwitz, Bouton and other young, able-bodied Jews were shuttled into one line, while her parents and siblings were herded into another. “I saw my parents and siblings getting shoved into the gas chambers, even though, at the time, I didn’t know what they were,” Bouton said. Bouton was taken to Essen, Germany, where she worked in a factory that produced ammunition for the German army. There, the prisoners endured 12-hour work days, plus long walks from their “bombed out basement” shelter to the factory. Dinner, every night, was a bowl of soup. That wasn’t the worst of it for Bouton, though. As the war continued, Bouton was transported to other camps across Germany. Her final stop was the camp at Bergen-Belsen.
“It was the worst place any human has ever seen or ever will see in their lives,” Bouton said. “Dead people just bulldozed into pyramid piles. And the smell of the typhus, you’ll never forget that.” Eventually, Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British. Bouton was rescued by the Swedish Red Cross. Just 17 years old, she had endured a lifetime’s worth of strife. While in Sweden, she was contacted by a friend of her mother’s who lived in the United States. It took four years, but Bouton eventually received a visa to come to America. She later married and has two children, a son and a daughter. When she speaks at schools, she comes with a message of anti-discrimination and a plea to take control of the world they live in. “Don’t be prejudiced. Don’t discriminate. Be nice to one another,” Bouton said. “You have a chance to bring peace. You have a chance to make the world better, and to make sure these atrocities never happen again. Six million people died (in the Holocaust). They had nothing to do with the war. Only to do with discrimination. Do not let that ever happen again.”