By Angela Marshall
Charles Sternbach has a unique perspective on Thanksgiving. A Holocaust survivor, Mr. Sternbach uses this celebration to be thankful that decades of pogroms against the Jewish people have failed.
Speaking before a crowd of pre-teens at the South Baldwin Jewish Center on Sunday, Mr. Sternbach said, "We are very lucky that we're here. Be thankful."
In 1944, Mr. Sternbach and his entire family were moved from their home in a Hungarian village into a ghetto. Within three weeks, they were loaded into boxcars on freight trains and taken to Auschwitz, one of the most infamous death camps.
"In every transport, there were 2,000 people," he said as he described the scene of Jews disembarking at the gates of Auschwitz. "All of the sudden, I lost my parents."
They walked from the trains not to be judged before God but before Josef Mengele, a doctor who led thousands to their deaths. Despite his small stature, the then-19-year-old was saved. His parents and two sisters were not. He learned later that they had been sent immediately to the gas chambers. His sisters could have lived, but they refused to let go of their children, and so were sent to their deaths.
Within hours, he was subjected to sights he had never seen before. "They were taking bodies of people and throwing them into the fire," Mr. Sternbach said.
He and his four surviving sisters, although not together, were sent to real showers, where they were stripped and shaved bald.
The days stretched out in front of Mr. Sternbach, who did not believe he would survive. "Every place you went, you got a beating for no reason," he said.
Three weeks later, he was on the move again, this time to a stone quarry. He struggled to move the concrete in the manner demanded by his captors, and was beaten for his inability. So, when an opportunity to do office work was offered, he volunteered even though he knew that these offers were often false and led to severe beatings. "If they kill me, I have nothing to lose," he told a friend. "I was sure I wasn't going to make it."
But it was not a ploy, and Mr. Sternbach was able to obtain larger rations, which he shared with young children -- many of them the same age as those he spoke to on Sunday.
In April 1945, he began his final journey in the hands of the Germans. He and the rest of the quarry workers were led on what would become known as the "death march," as the Nazis fought to keep ahead of the Allied forces. They walked for days without rest or food, and those who stopped were "summarily shot," he said. "We lost half of the people."
Within days of reaching their destination, the Jews were liberated.
Mr. Sternbach was reunited with his four surviving sisters, and after unsuccessfully trying to find a new home in Europe, he was given a scholarship and moved to America. He studied to be an engineer and has lived in Baldwin for 40 years.
Mr. Sternbach said he speaks out so that no one will ever forget what happened to the Jews and what could happen again if people did forget. "It can happen here," he said, "just as it happened there."
So the idea that Americans celebrate the coming together of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans is something Mr. Sternbach can understand. "In this world, you have to be able to live with other people," he told the children. "Compromise is a very important thing."
