Holocaust survivor speaks today at 3
Rosemary Peters
Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: Living
Screams wrench the night. The smell of burning flesh fills your nostrils making you gag. You've lost your mother, your brothers, and your grandfather.
You're afraid it is their burning bodies your smell as you sit feeling utterly alone in a strange room that is crammed full of other strangers.
This is a reality that 80 year-old Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana has had to live with for the past 65 years of her life.
"Right away they separated us. First the children and the mothers and then they selected people they thought they could use for work. It was a big commotion," Cahana recalls. "My grandfather was an older man. He was taken immediately to the crematory. My little five year-old brother, my 10- year-old brother, my grandfather, my mother… How could they put little children into the crematory?"
"We didn't do any wrong," she adds.
Cahana has invited all UP students to take part in a conversation with her today at 3 p.m. in Buckley Center 163 as a way to celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Week. This conversation will consist of her experience in the Holocaust, how she has worked through it and what UP students can do to remember the important tragedy.
Cahana was taken to Auschwitz in a cattle train at the age of 15 and was forced to stay there until the prisoners were liberated toward the end of World War II.
According to Cahana, one day in Auschwitz was an eternity. "You cannot image what a day meant and how terrible it was," Cahana said. "There was no numbers to count that time."
A typical day in Auschwitz began and ended with a cup of black coffee. Most of the time, the coffee had sticks floating at the top. The food they were forced to eat wasn't any better.
"You couldn't eat it, but you were so hungry that you had to," Cahana said. "My sister and I promised each other that we would never tell my mother how bad it was."
When Cahana was finally rescued, she was incredibly sick. In the hubbub of the liberation, she even lost her sister. She was taken to an interim home with many other children. She was terrified that she would be alone forever, when one day her doctor brought her news.
You're afraid it is their burning bodies your smell as you sit feeling utterly alone in a strange room that is crammed full of other strangers.
This is a reality that 80 year-old Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana has had to live with for the past 65 years of her life.
"Right away they separated us. First the children and the mothers and then they selected people they thought they could use for work. It was a big commotion," Cahana recalls. "My grandfather was an older man. He was taken immediately to the crematory. My little five year-old brother, my 10- year-old brother, my grandfather, my mother… How could they put little children into the crematory?"
"We didn't do any wrong," she adds.
Cahana has invited all UP students to take part in a conversation with her today at 3 p.m. in Buckley Center 163 as a way to celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Week. This conversation will consist of her experience in the Holocaust, how she has worked through it and what UP students can do to remember the important tragedy.
Cahana was taken to Auschwitz in a cattle train at the age of 15 and was forced to stay there until the prisoners were liberated toward the end of World War II.
According to Cahana, one day in Auschwitz was an eternity. "You cannot image what a day meant and how terrible it was," Cahana said. "There was no numbers to count that time."
A typical day in Auschwitz began and ended with a cup of black coffee. Most of the time, the coffee had sticks floating at the top. The food they were forced to eat wasn't any better.
"You couldn't eat it, but you were so hungry that you had to," Cahana said. "My sister and I promised each other that we would never tell my mother how bad it was."
When Cahana was finally rescued, she was incredibly sick. In the hubbub of the liberation, she even lost her sister. She was taken to an interim home with many other children. She was terrified that she would be alone forever, when one day her doctor brought her news.