In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Emory University President Gregory Fenves and Emory College of Arts and Sciences Dean Barbara Krauthamer discussed their families’ experiences surviving the Holocaust and its impact on their personal lives and professional endeavors on Jan. 29.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on Jan. 27, the date on which the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp in Oświęcim, Poland. The day is dedicated to remembering the six million Jews the Nazis murdered during the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other victims the Nazis killed.
Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Miriam Udel moderated the conversation. The Tam Institute organized the event in partnership with the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life and Emory Hillel.
“This is a time for reflection, for seeking the understanding that becomes possible when we augment numbers and statistics with faces, names and stories,” Udel said. “We have extraordinary resources here at Emory to engage in that process.”
Krauthamer said that her father was about 10 years old when the Nazis imprisoned her grandfather for preparation of treason against them in 1936.
“My father’s early childhood was characterized, from his earliest memories, of one of uncertainty and instability of witnessing the rise of Nazism,” Krauthamer said.
She described her father’s journey from Berlin to the countryside, where her grandmother’s family owned property. However, her family was still affected by Kristallnacht, the night when Nazi officials arrested about 30,000 Jews and vandalized and plundered Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses. When Krauthamer’s grandfather was released from prison in 1938 or 1939, he fled to Berlin and arranged for her father and grandmother to escape Germany and join him as Jews faced increasing threats.
As a child, Krauthamer’s father demonstrated “resolve of biblical proportions” in his journey to safety through and outside Europe, Udel added.
Born in 1931, Fenves’ father was the son of the owners and publishers of a local newspaper in Serbia, a Hungarian province.
On the day Hungary declared war on Yugoslavia, Fenves’ father and his aunt were kicked out of school because of their Jewish identity, according to Fenves. He said that an increasing series of anti-Jewish laws in Hungarian provinces followed. Fenves explained that his grandfather was forced to close his business and halt the newspaper’s production because the law prohibited non-Jews from working for Jews.
“My dad still remembers the pain on his father’s face when the non-Jewish employees of the newspaper, who had worked for the paper for years and years, just started spitting out antisemitic slurs,” Fenves said.
Soon after Fenves’ father’s business closed, his family was kicked out of their home and sent to a ghetto. Fenves shared that his father and family experienced “unspeakable deprivation” as they were put on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Fenves’ father and aunt were put in the youth camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he stayed for five months.
“He held the hand of his mother and sister,” Fenves said. “For his mother, it turned out to be the last time. He never saw her again.”
Udel noted that after being liberated and arriving in the United States, both Krauthamer and Fenves’ fathers served in the U.S. Army. Krauthamer said that it was a time for her father to reflect on the “depth and breadth of Nazi ideology.” He found that in Nazi literature, there was not only antisemitic language but also racist and anti-Black imagery. Meanwhile, Fenves said his father’s army experience broadened his understanding of multiple perspectives and humanity.
Krauthamer recalled that her father’s Holocaust experience was always a part of her life. She especially remembers how he “softened” his stories to make them age-appropriate.
“At the time, what was most striking was that all of the stories were about a sense of loss and deprivation,” Krauthamer said. “Even though he tried to make scavenging for blackberries and chestnuts a fun story, and then you realize that’s all they had to eat.”
In his current role as University president, Fenves said he draws on his father’s experience to be “anchored in a sense of right and then what’s wrong” when he deals with duties such as approving budgets.
Similarly, Krauthamer attributed her appreciation of culture and literature and her love for the “richness of the human experience” to her father.
Fenves further highlighted the importance of learning about difficult aspects of family history, noting that he taught his daughters about their grandfather’s experience from a young age.
“It’s part of education,” Fenves said. “You have to seek out the learning. The museums that I’ve mentioned, like the U.S. Holocaust Museum, are very meaningful for somebody to see the story, see what happened and see what the impacts are.”
Attendee Avital Kessler-Godin (26L) was particularly struck by the enduring influence of familial experiences during the Holocaust on the Jewish community today.
“In times of such despair, it’s really great to be surrounded by community in hearing about our leaders’ families’ history and our history as a Jewish people and what their families went through in the Holocaust and how … those familial experiences shaped who they are today and how maybe those experiences help them lead our community today,” Kessler-Godin said.
Ilah Ross (27C) contributed to reporting.
