Walter digit

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Walter Digit shares his experience at Asheville Buncombe Community College.

Walter Number (born March 5, 1927 in Těšín , Czechoslovakia , now the Czech Republic ) is a survivor of the Holocaust and retired professor of Bible study and theology . After immigrating to the United States , Digit received an engineering degree from Vanderbilt University , two masters degrees from the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Strasbourg in early Christian history , Biblical Hebrew and comparative religion . He is the author of many books and speaks regularly in North Carolina about his experiences during the Holocaust.

Life

Early life and the Holocaust

Walter Zahl was born in March 1927 in Těšín , on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia before World War II. His parents are the lawyer Leo Numbers and Anny Borger Numbers. Both were "not very religious".

In 1942, as a young teenager, Zahl was taken from his home, separated from his family, and taken to a Jewish ghetto in what is now the Czech Republic. Digit was sent to a total of seven different Nazi slave labor camps during the war . In 1945, at the age of 18, he was liberated by Soviet troops and was able to reunite with his parents and some of his siblings, who had been held in separate camps and survived until they were liberated. When Digit came out of the war in 1945, he weighed 87 pounds . He returned home and trained as a mechanic .

Next life

In 1948 he left Europe on just $ 5 to live with an uncle who had fled the war to Nashville . He enrolled in high school and graduated in less than a year. Digit applied to Vanderbilt University in 1949, aged 22 . He successfully appealed to the dean of the engineering school of Vanderbilt to give him a chance. At Vanderbilt he became an engineer as he had hoped, but he also embarked on a spiritual journey that removed him from his uncle's family and set him on a completely new path. Through his friend Burton Grant , whom he met while studying, Zahl was exposed to the churches of Christ and he converted to Christianity .

Digit married Carolyn Harris Kinnard , whom he met in an introductory social science class. After graduation, they moved to Ohio , where General Motors had accepted a job as an engineer. In the later years Ziffer's work revolved mainly around his teaching and lectures at various universities . He also wrote about Christianity's views on Judaism and gave guest lectures about his experience with the Holocaust. After more than 25 years, Digit converted back to Judaism and became active in the life of the synagogue .

In 1993 he moved again to a town near Asheville , North Carolina .

But as the title of his memoir suggests, Digit has since become a secular humanist . In the memoir published in 2017, he expands on his conviction that he did not believe in God or that any higher power saved him from death during the Holocaust, but that it was sheer luck that he survived the concentration camps. He said in an interview: “I disagree with your view that God's protection is for my survival. I don't and I don't want God in any way singling me out from the rest of the world Jews , a third of whom were killed by Hitler and his henchmen during the Holocaust . How could God make me survive while a million and a half innocent children died without God intervening on their behalf? "

Today Zahl lives in Weaverville with his wife Gail Rosenthal . Digit has six children and twelve grandchildren .

Web links

Commons : Walter Digit  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography. In: WALTER ZIFFER. February 11, 2018, accessed January 13, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Holocaust survivor explores concept of evil. October 5, 2017, accessed January 13, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b c d Lauren Stepp, Times-News Correspondent: Walter Digit to speak on the Holocaust. Accessed January 13, 2019 .
  4. ^ Walter paragraph, Th.D. | North Carolina Humanities Council. Retrieved January 13, 2019 .
  5. ↑ ~ Walter: Here is where my life began. In: WALTER ZIFFER. February 11, 2018, accessed January 13, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b paragraph Walter. Accessed January 13, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c Holocaust Survivor and Scholar Walter Digit to Speak April 18 at UNC Asheville | News Center. Retrieved January 13, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f In the Face of Destruction. In: Vanderbilt University. Retrieved January 13, 2019 (American English).
  9. ↑ WALTER ZIFFER presents CONFRONTING THE SILENCE | Malaprop's Bookstore / Cafe. Retrieved January 13, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b Holocaust survivor says it was luck, not God's angels, who spared him. Accessed January 13, 2019 .
  11. ↑ GLENN GANNAWAY • Post News Editor: 'Ordinary' man recalls Holocaust. Accessed January 13, 2019 .
  12. ↑ jfswnc - Friends of JFS 2017-Donor List. Accessed January 13, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Digit, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Holocaust survivor and retired professor of Bible study and theology
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Těšín , Czechoslovakia , now the Czech Republic