David Gewirtzman

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David Gewirtzman, around 1998

David Gewirtzman (born April 15, 1928 in Łosice , Poland; died September 18, 2012 in New York City ) was a Holocaust survivor and human rights activist .

Life

David Gewirtzman grew up in Łosice, which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in 1939, shortly after the Germans invaded Poland. Of the 8,000 Jews in Łosice, 16 survived the Holocaust. David Gewirtzman, his parents and two siblings survived because a farmer kept them hidden in a hole in the ground under the planks of a pigsty for 20 months. When the Germans withdrew on July 31, 1944, David Gewirtzman was able to escape. 50 members of his extended family were murdered in the Treblinka extermination camp . David Gewirtzman first lived in Italy before emigrating to the USA in 1948. In 1954, now a student of pharmacy, he married the Holocaust survivor Liliya (Lillian) Rajs, who was also born in Poland, in New York. Immediately after completing his studies, David Gewirtzman was drafted into the US Army in 1955 and posted to Germany, where he was stationed in Crailsheim , Baden-Württemberg, until 1957 . He was accompanied by his wife Lillian, who had become stateless after the end of the Second World War and had already lived in Displaced Persons camps in Germany ( Ulm and Feldafing ).

After returning to the United States, David and Lillian Gewirtzman ran a drugstore in Little Neck, Queens , New York City for 35 years . They had two children, Steven, born in 1958, a pediatrician, and Rena, born in 1961, a child psychologist.

Act

Upon retirement, David Gewirtzman began to strengthen his commitment to the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in New York. He visited school classes to educate people about the Holocaust and to warn them to fight against human rights violations and genocide of the present. In 2001, during one of these school visits, the now 75-year-old met the young Tutsi Jacqueline Murekatete, who survived the murder by Hutus in 1994 at the age of nine as the only child of her family of nine in Rwanda . For the next ten years, David Gewirtzman and Jacqueline Murekatete shared their life stories in front of many auditoriums in American high schools, colleges, and various community groups. A video developed from this can be viewed in an endless loop in the permanent exhibition of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County. Three years after David Gewirtzman's death, Jacqueline Murekatete founded the Genocide Survivors Foundation in New York.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fighting Hate, Across Cultures and Generations. Retrieved May 13, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Willi Böhmer: Time travel to one's own childhood. In: Südwest Presse . January 27, 2007.
  3. ↑ Dagmar Königsdorfer: “We mustn't teach children to hate”. In: Neu-Ulmer Zeitung . January 26, 2007.
  4. ↑ Descendants of Holocaust Survivors: David Gewirtzman and Jacqueline Murekatete. 3GNY, accessed May 13, 2017 .
  5. ^ Fighting Hate, Across Cultures and Generations. Retrieved May 13, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Lillian Gewirtzman: Our children will ask ... they will ask ... will ask . In: Lillian Gewirtzman and Karla Nieraad (eds.): After the silence. Stories of descendants. 2nd Edition. Klemm + Oelschläger, Ulm 2017, ISBN 978-3-86281-105-2 .
  7. ^ Bernard Starr: Two Cultures, Two Genocides, One Story. In: Huffington Post. Retrieved December 28, 2011, May 13, 2017 (American English).
  8. ↑ Rena Schwartzbaum: Below the surface . In: Lillian Gewirtzman and Karla Nieraad (eds.): After the silence. Stories of descendants. 2nd Edition. Klemm + Oelschläger, Ulm 2017, ISBN 978-3-86281-105-2 .
  9. ^ Holocaust Museum on Long Island | HMTC Nassau. Retrieved May 13, 2017 (American English).
  10. ↑ One Tragedy, Two Lives - Vol. 61 No. 12 . In: PEOPLE.com . March 29, 2004 ( people.com [accessed May 13, 2017]).
  11. ^ Fighting Hate, Across Cultures and Generations. Retrieved May 13, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Our Founder: Jacqueline Murekatete - Genocide Survivors Foundation . In: Genocide Survivors Foundation . ( genocidesurvivorsfoundation.org [accessed May 13, 2017]).
  13. ^ Bernard Starr: Two Cultures, Two Genocides, One Story. In: Huffington Post. Retrieved December 28, 2011, May 13, 2017 (American English).
  14. ↑ HMTC: Survivor Soulmates. May 13, 2013, accessed May 13, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Home - Genocide Survivors Foundation. Retrieved May 13, 2017 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Gewirtzman, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Holocaust survivor and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Łosice , Poland
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 2012
Place of death New York City