Community takes time to remember Holocaust victims

Published April 27, 2007
By Wayne Cook
Fort Dix Public Affairs

FORT DIX, N.J -- Members of Fort Dix, McGuire and local communities joined together April 18 at the Fort Dix Chapel to observe a day of remembrance for those who lost their lives during the Holocaust and those who survived it.

During World War II, Hitler set out to exterminate all Jewish people, gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals and many other groups of people. He succeeded in wiping out more than six-million Jewish people and millions more from the other targeted groups before he came to his own demise.

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation's commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. Today, more than ever before, individual and communal acts of heroism during the Holocaust serve as a powerful reminder of how the nation and its citizens can -- and must -- respond to acts of hatred and inhumanity.

The day's events began with the colors being posted by the Air Force Junior ROTC from West High School in Cherry Hill. Chaplain (Col.) Larry Biederman, installation chaplain, opened with the invocation followed by Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Lee Hardgrove, installation staff chaplain, who led the congregants in a prayer for the nation.

Rod Martell, Holocaust Remembrance Committee chairperson, then welcomed everyone to the event and introduced Leonard Berger who led the lighting of the memorial candles ceremony. The candles were lit by Mathilde Middleberg, Holocaust child survivor, Charles Middleberg, Holocaust child survivor, Lt. Col. Cynthia Palinski, officer-in-charge, Mobilized Unit In-processing Center, Sarah Johnson, Morale, Welfare and Recreation director, Denise Horton, Alcohol and Drug Control Officer, and Staff Sgt. Fred Cohen, installation chaplain assistant.

Mr. Berger followed the candle lighting with the reading of a poem titled Poem on the Holocaust, written by 13-year-old Jennifer Harris of Voorhees, and then the Creed of a Holocaust Survivor.

The guest speaker, Charles Middleberg, took the podium and shared his experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, on Nov. 4, 1929, Mr. Middleberg's family migrated to France when he was two years old. A younger brother was born in 1934. As a youngster, he lived a happy life, going to school and playing. His father provided a modest living as a watchmaker and his mother was a homemaker.

The peaceful living ended abruptly when the Germans invaded France. Once they set up their government, they went after the Jewish people. No explanation or reason was ever given or known why they targeted the Jewish, according to Mr. Middleberg; they just did. All Jewish people were made to have all their papers stamped with the word 'Juif' (Jew in French) in red. They then were made to sew a large yellow Jewish star on all of their outer garments, which had to be displayed whenever they were in public. Most of their privileges were taken away and they were made to wait at the end of the food-rationing lines, most times meaning that the food was gone when they finally got to the disperser.

In 1941, Mr. Middleberg's father was taken away on a bus and sent to a camp south of Paris. While interned there, he would send postcards when possible to his wife and children back in Paris, and then they could go to visit him. Some months after he had been taken to the camp the postcards stopped. When Mr. Middleberg's mom went to the camp, she found it had been emptied out. All of the men had been loaded onto railroad cattle-cars and taken to undisclosed camps.

One night, his mother heard there were going to be massive raids throughout Paris and all Jewish people were going to be cleaned out of the city.

The janitor of the apartment building where the family lived was a World War I veteran who hated the Germans. During the war, he had lost a leg and was forced to wear a peg leg.

The janitor knew the Middlebergs were a Jewish family and he didn't want the Germans to get them, so he took them to a secret maintenance room in the ceiling by the roof. He told them that when the Germans came that evening he would remove the rubber pad from the bottom of his peg leg, and when he brought the Germans up the stairs to the Middleberg's apartment' he would bang the leg on the steps as a signal for them to hide in the secret room.

It happened as he had expected, and when they heard him coming with the Germans they fled to the secret room where they stayed until noon the next day. Mr. Middleberg's mother sent him out to find some bread so they could eat. He was a child and would be less likely to be noticed. The streets were busy and he retrieved the bread for his family. The second day his mother sent him out again, this time the streets were empty.

The family left their hiding place and returned to their apartment. They then moved about sleeping where they could until one day their mother sent them away with a Gentile woman to a farm outside of the city. The farmer's family was nice enough and the boys were well taken care of. Five or six weeks after they had arrived at the farm, Mr. Middleberg received a letter and one of his mother's rings, which he immediately recognized. The letter said his mother had been taken away.

He decided to return to Paris with his brother and stayed with a family who owned a café. Mr. Middleberg went to work in the café and his brother returned to school. To help cover that he was Jewish, he was taken to a Roman Catholic priest who explained that he needed to become Catholic to hide his identity. He was baptized, graduated Catechism and took communion. He even served as an altar boy.

When the war ended, Mr. Middleberg was notified of his mother's passing while she was at Auschwitz. His father, however, survived his internment at Auschwitz and was reunited with his sons. The only family members of the Middleberg family to survive the war were his father, an uncle, his brother and himself.

Mr. Middleberg gives credit for his survival to the righteous people who were in his life at the time -- the janitor, the Gentile woman, the farmer's family, the family with the café and the priest.

Upon his father's return, Middleberg resumed his identity as a Jewish boy.
"There are three reasons that my wife and I share our experiences: People -- mostly of high positions -- say the Holocaust didn't happen, I am a living witness; we must remind people that this happened and should never happen again, this outrageous act should never be perpetrated on anyone ever again; and to teach tolerance, to keep people from getting into the mindset of hatred. Hatred turns into violence every time," Mr. Middleberg said.

"It's not easy sharing this. Many times I become very emotional. As many times as I have done this, there are certain remembrances that are hard to get out. But, I feel I have a duty to fulfill. My wife and I are getting older, and as long as we can we will share about this. Our children also share this information so we don't forget. They tell the children who will tell their children so we don't forget," he said.

This was the first time the Middlebergs have spoken to adults. Their usual audiences are made up of children. According to Mr. Middleberg, it is just as important for the adults to be conscious of what happened.

Upon the conclusion of his sharing, Mr. Middleberg was presented a plaque of the Ultimate Soldier by Lt. Col. Roger Cotton, deputy installation commander, who said that as long as the American fighting men and women are around, the hope is that there will never be another Holocaust.

The event came to a close with Chaplain (Col.) Ira Kronenberg, deputy installation chaplain, reading the Kaddish, a mourner's prayer that praises God and expresses a yearning for the establishment of God's kingdom on earth.

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