Express_2011_04_15

“Their voices will not be silenced by hate”

Holocaust survivor relates horrors to students

Prisoners at Auschwitz were treated like

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sister. After the camp was liberated by British

animals. The bread they were given was

P LANTAGENET

“If people gave up

and Canadian troops, she soon made her

made with 30 per cent flour and 70 per cent

way to Sweden where she eventually met

sawdust. The soup they were served was

her husband before the two immigrated to

they died. I didn’t

“I’m here to speak for them – for the

made from dirty potato peelings or worse.

Canada.

children – so that their voices will not be

One day prisoners arrived with something

For years, Olsson kept her story secret,

want to die because

silenced by hate.”

known as “surprise soup” made with tufts

but eventually she knew the world needed

While some teens must cope with a bully,

of human hair and bones.

to hear it to prevent it from happening again.

a teenaged Eva Olsson had to deal with the

I had a sister who

Olsson and other female prisoners were

“Nazi Bully.”

later sent to Essen where she was forced to

She offered simple words of advice for

<texte standard>At 17, the Hungarian-

work in the Krupp munitions factory. While

was three years

the children at Plantagenet in order to

born Olsson was torn from her home, put on

things were better there, the Allies soon

eliminate the kind of hate that can lead to

a cattle car with other Jews and then forced

bombed the factory and the barracks where

bullying, and in extreme cases, lead to the

younger than I was

to live out a two-year nightmare at the World

the prisoners lived.

kinds of horror she experienced.

War II German concentration camps of

With the Allies advancing into Germany

“Just do unto others as you would want

and I was

Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. By the time

in 1945, she and other prisoners were sent to

them to do unto you and I guarantee you

Bergen-Belsen was liberated in April 1945,

Bergen-Belsen by the Nazis in hopes the

there won’t be any bullying at your school.

she had seen her extended family of 19

responsible for her.

camp would finish them off. Dysentery was

Things we buy will lose their value. The way

nearly exterminated – with only Olsson and

rampant. Prisoners too sick to move lay on

we treat other human beings with respect

her younger sister remaining.

the floor of the prisoners’ barracks among

If I died there

and dignity will never lose its value – never.”

The 86-year-old author told the grim

the dead and dying, relieving themselves on

The presentation had a profound impact

story of her experience to a group of students

the floor.

on the students.

wouldn’t be anyone

at Plantagenet Public School on Wednesday

“I was lying on the barren floor among

Grade 8 student Elias Zimmermann said

as part of the Upper Canada District School

the dead, the diarrhea and the lice, but I was

that hearing a personal account of the

else to look after

Board’s character development program.

still strong enough not to give up,” she said.

Holocaust had a deeper impact than reading

Olsson tells her story so that people will not

“If people gave up they died. I didn’t want to

about it in books or seeing it on the History

her.”

forget the six million Jews who died in

die because I had a sister who was three

Channel.

concentration camps, and so that children

years younger than I was and I was

“It really made me feel like I was in her

will recognize the dangers that bullying and

responsible for her. If I died there wouldn’t

shoes living it,” said Zimmermann, 14. “I

hatred can bring.

be anyone else to look after her.”

felt. I don’t want to hate anymore because,

don’t feel the same anymore. I wouldn’t

“I’m here to bring the madness of the

Olsson survived along with her younger

as she says, hate can kill.”

want to bully anyone because of how she

power of hate to the screen so you will have

the opportunity to see what hate did,” she

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said, standing before a screen where she

PAROISSE SAINT-PIERRE-APÔTRE Église Saint-Alphonse-de-Liguori Hawkesbury

projected pictures of the Holocaust during

her presentation. “I am going to speak of the

Nazi bully.”

She mentioned the grim statistics of the

Holocaust – 11 million dead, including 6

million Jews and 1.5 million children under

SEMAINE SAINTE

the age of 14.

The school gymnasium, filled with

Jeudi Saint

le 21 avril

19 h 30 Messe de la Cène du Seigneur eur

students from Plantagenet Public School and

St. Columban’s Catholic School in Cornwall,

fell silent as the vibrant grandmother spoke

Vendredi Saint

le 22 avril

15 h

Célébration de la Passion du Seigneur

of that fateful day in May 1944 when she

19 h 30 Chemin de la croix

was packed into a rail car filled with 110

people outfitted with only one bucket of

Samedi Saint

le 23 avril

20 h

Veillée pascale avec messe de Pâques

water and another bucket for a makeshift

toilet. The air was stifling.

Jour de Pâques dimanche le 24 avril

Messes de la Résurrection du Seigneur

The prisoners had been told they were

8 h - 9 h 30 - 11 h

being shipped off to work at a brick factory.

Instead, the train stopped at the Auschwitz

concentration camp. When she emerged

Gracieuseté des Chevaliers de Colomb Conseil 9952 Ascension

from the car, she had hoped to finally breathe

fresh air. Instead the wind was filled with

smoke and an acrid smell she didn’t

recognize.

Prisoners were separated into lines of

the healthy and the sick. Young women

such as Olsson and her sister who could still

work were sent to one line. Seniors, mothers

and children, the sick and infirm went to

another … the one leading to the gas

chambers.

During the process, Olsson was separated

from her mother. She turned to look for her,

but she was gone.

“How I wished I could have put my

arms around her and told her how much I

loved her and how sorry I was for the times

I disobeyed her. But it was too late. I never

saw her again.”

It took victims 20 minutes to die in the

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gas chambers. When the chambers were

reopened, guards routinely found children

at the bottom of the body piles, their heads

crushed under the weight of the corpses

above them. Hair was removed from the

dead and sent to Germany where it was

manufactured into felt. The bodies were

then sent to the crematorium.

“That’s what we smelled day and night,

human flesh burning – our families’ flesh.”

She spoke of how the Angel of Death –

Dr. Josef Mengele – conducted experiments

at the camp on 4,000 sets of twins,

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deliberately infecting them with diseases

such as tuberculosis, and exposing them to

radiation treatments to make them sterile.

Only 148 survived.

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