On Wednesday, March 11th, the class of 2018 was visited by guest speaker Lillian Birch. Birch gave a compelling presentation about her mother and father, who both survived the Holocaust. Lillian was born after the Holocaust, but it still was able to have a great impact on her. She was about nine or ten years old when her mother began telling her stories, and she still doesn’t "know the whole of it." What she does know though she shares with students in middle and high school in an attempt at keeping their stories alive.
BY RITA STUBBS
On Wednesday, March 11th, the class of 2018 was visited by guest speaker Lillian Birch. Birch gave a compelling presentation about her mother and father, who both survived the Holocaust. Lillian was born after the Holocaust, but it still was able to have a great impact on her. She was about nine or ten years old when her mother began telling her stories, and she still doesn’t “know the whole of it.” What she does know though she shares with students in middle and high school in an attempt at keeping their stories alive.
During her presentation, Birch stated that one of her parents’ biggest worries after the Holocaust was that everyone would forget about them and that their suffering will have been done for nothing. By sharing these stories, she prevents their memories from being forgotten.
To begin her story, she shared details about her mother’s, Anca, and grandparents’ lives. During this time she shared how her mother was taken to Auschwitz, which was one of the worst death camps to be sent to at the time.
She arrived there with her sister, Birch’s aunt. They were originally sent to the left, this line was famous for being the line of people who were sent to the gas chambers. While walking, her mother saw a familiar face, a girl she knew from school. Lillian’s mother was the only person who was friendly towards her in grade school, and, in turn, she spared them their lives by pulling Anca and her sister into a different line of people.
This was not the only miracle-like experience that happened during her time in Auschwitz. On yet another occasion Anca came close to her death. She had been selling diamonds through the fence to the townspeople for food and medicine when she noticed a guard dog and its master. Immediately, she took off running. The dog caught up to her but immediately halted. Instead of attacking as it had been trained to do, it let her go. The officer was so shocked by the dog’s reaction that he let her continue on with the bread that she had traded her diamonds for.
Anca once told her daughter that one of the only things keeping her alive in such a terrible place was that miracles happened to her, and her life was spared on multiple occasions. This gave her hope, which was one of the only things keeping people alive.
On January 27, 1945, Anca’s birthday, she was liberated from Auschwitz. When entering the camp she was 24 years old and weighed about 125 pounds. On Liberation Day, she was 27 years old but only weighed 85 pounds. It was a miracle that she had survived.
Lillian’s father was a poor Jew who had joined as a soldier in an attempt to avoid a camp such as Auschwitz, instead he was stationed in a labor camp. After returning from the war, he returned home to find his own parents dead.
After the war, Anca and Mr. Birch met. For him, it was love at first sight but she was not interested. Countless attempts later, he won her over. Together, they were able travel to Paris. In Paris, Lillian Birch was born.
As a family, they decided it would be best to move to the United States. No Jews wanted to continue living in Germany, or anywhere near it. This made travel arrangements extremely difficult.
Along with the lack of money for transportation, Anca had tuberculosis. At the time, the United States was forcing health screenings before travel in order for their country to stay disease free. Anca was able to use her sister’s lung screenings to pass the examination.
They were all able to travel to the United States safely. Together, her parents lived a long happy life. Her mother passed in 2000 at the age of 82 and her father in 2002 at the age of 89. While the memories they had would always haunt them, they are able to carry on and teach future generations.
The class of 2018 greatly appreciates Lillian Birch’s visit, especially since students are currently reading NIGHT in English classes which recounts Eli Wiesel’s experiences with the Holocaust. The presentation was followed by a question and answer session during which CHS students asked some interesting questions of Mrs. Birch.
A collection will be taken up among the grade nine students in attendance so that a donation can be made to the foundation Birch is associated with dedicated to keeping stories of what happened in this dark time in history known so that history never gets tempted to repeat itself. See your ELA teacher if you would like to contribute.
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