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发表于 2009-5-21 23:39
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哈佛大學網站上的新聞:
Oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks at Harvard Jehovah’s Witness offers a message of hope By Colleen Walsh Harvard News Office
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2009/05.07/99-holocaust.html
Aided by a wheel chair, his slight frame bent in part by a curvature ofthe spine since birth, in part by the passage of time, a man whoendured unspeakable cruelty 70 years ago told his story of survival toa Harvard audience.
Austrian Leopold Engleitner, purportedly the world’s oldestconcentration camp survivor, spoke at the Science Center May 4 to adiverse crowd: young and old, men, women, and children.
Interned in three concentration camps during the Second World Warfor refusing to renounce his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness, pledge hisallegiance to Adolf Hitler, or join the German army, Engleitnersurvived torture and incarceration by the Nazis from 1939 to 1943.
Approximately 12,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were sent to concentrationcamps during Hitler’s ascendancy. It is estimated that between 2,000and 5,000 perished. Unlike the millions of persecuted Jews who wereimprisoned and died at the hands of the Nazis with no chance of escape,Jehovah’s Witnesses were offered their freedom in return for signing adeclaration stating they renounced their religion and fully supportedthe German regime. Engleitner repeatedly refused to sign the document.
A chance encounter with Engleitner in 1994 by filmmaker BernhardRammerstorfer led to a book and a DVD about the former’s life as wellas a lasting friendship. Introducing the diminutive and spirited103-year-old, the biographer described their first meeting, noting thatEngleitner “talked and talked and talked.”
Amazingly, in the years following the war, his Upper Austrianneighbors turned on him, branding him a coward. Some even claimed theconcentration camps never existed, said Rammerstorfer, who realized “itdid [Engleitner] good to have someone at long last to finally listen tohim.”
In addition, the chance to be able to tell Engleitner’s story,Rammerstorfer said, “could provide valuable lessons for the peacefulcoexistence of mankind.”
Though his voice was shaky and frail, the elderly Austrian’sdetermination was visibly resolute. He responded to questions inGerman, tapping his hand firmly on the table in front of him with eachanswer to emphasize his points.
With the aid of an interpreter, Engleitner recounted some of hisharrowing moments while imprisoned at the concentration campsBuchenwald, Niederhagen, and Ravensbrück.
“Every morning when you woke up, you would not know whether youwould live to see the evening,” he said, describing how he narrowlyescaped being put to death by forcing himself back to work aftercollapsing from hunger. Later, on a march from one of the camps, he waskicked so fiercely by a guard he was left sterile.
When told by a Nazi officer he must either sign a declarationrenouncing his faith or he would “leave through the chimney,”Engleitner said he replied, “I will neither sign, nor will I leavethrough the chimney. I will go home.”
He was so certain that we would make it home, he bought a suitcaseat the Niederhagen concentration camp, one that once belonged to adeceased prisoner, as a symbol of hope. The very same black, weatheredsuitcase was perched behind him against the hall’s blackboard as hespoke.
In 1943, Engleitner was finally released from Ravensbrückconcentration camp, under the condition that he submit to forced labor.He weighed only 62 pounds. But his suffering wasn’t over. Close to theend of the war, the Nazis ordered him again to join the Germany army.Instead of complying, Engleitner fled to the mountains, where he hidfor several weeks, continually hunted by Nazi officers, until the warfinally came to an end.
Engleitner’s visit to campus was sponsored by Harvard’s Center forEuropean Studies. The event was the beginning of a nationwide tour topromote the most recent version of the book “Unbroken Will: TheExtraordinary Courage of an Ordinary Man.” The tour is the third in theUnited States for Engleitner and Rammerstorfer. Throughout the past 10years, the pair has traveled close to 60,000 miles in Europe and theUnited States, speaking at schools, universities, and Holocaustmemorial sites.
In response to the question, “How did you manage to get this old?”
Engleitner replied, “I am a happy boy, I find joy in everything, [and]I don’t really have time to die,” adding, “I’ll be back.”
Rammerstorfer called his friend “the most contented man he had evermet,” and said that even at his age, he is “still determined to teachus the lessons of peace and tolerance.”
For Barbara Deforge, who traveled from Marion, Mass., to hear Engleitner speak, the trip was well worth it.
“When you a see a person who has actually been [through theHolocaust] it makes it more real. … I am glad I came. It was reallyvery encouraging,” she said of Engleitner’s message and unbrokenspirit, “and very hopeful.” |
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