Art, memories and a pair of gray-and-white striped pants took center stage at Hillel last night, as Holocaust survivor William Bernheim shared his experiences with the crowd.
William, grandfather of College sophomore Taylor Bernheim, chronicled his journey from Poland, to the Lodz ghetto and ultimately to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
The event commemorated the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass - when Nazi soldiers destroyed the homes, businesses and synagogues of German Jews.
Bernheim told the crowd of the horrors he witnessed in Nazi ghettos and concentration camps, including brutal beatings and executions.
After surviving the evils of Nazi Europe, Bernheim made it to America where he found a new life. He worked many odd jobs, sleeping some nights in Central Park.
"I prayed that some day I would tell the world what the Germans did," he said.
To share his personal story, Bernheim began to paint images that reminded him of the war. He learned to paint when he was young but only returned to it years after his liberation, when he was ready to deal with the graphic memories and put his experiences on canvas. He didn't want the world to forget the horrors of the Holocaust.
Taylor Bernheim displayed slides of his paintings, which portrayed her grandfather's personal experiences, Jewish values and the mass murdering of Jews in concentration camps.
One painting, she commented, is on exhibit in Yad VaShem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial.
After presenting his oil paintings, he had one more surprise for the crowd: the pants he wore when freed by American soldiers in 1945. He saved them as reminder of what he had been through.
College sophomore Rivka Fogel, a friend of Taylor's, felt the need to commemorate the Holocaust. "I came," she said, "because I'm a part of the Jewish nation and I'm tied to the Holocaust."
Bernheim left the audience with several messages he carries from his experiences. "Don't take your freedom for granted," he warned. "We must continue to remind the world of this injustice."
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