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I'm Still in Awe with their Decision Friday, May 3, 2024, 10AM (MST)
Featured Guests: Holocaust Survivor Andre Holten
RSVP: https://www.azjhs.org/holocaust-survivor-conversations
Holocaust survivor Andre Holten, 85, will share with the Arizona Jewish Historical Society how he survived the genocide, which claimed the lives of around six million Jews. He was the only survivor of his immediate family, staying alive by stowing away with a righteous family for the last two years of World War II. Andre’s experience is as a "hidden child," after his birth parents made the excruciating, but ultimately life-saving decision to ask a Christian family to take him in. Andre was a Jewish 5-year-old, when he went "underground" with Johannes and Petronella Meijer in the town of Haarlem, not far from where he was born in Holland, where he hid out under a false name for the last two years of World War II. In January 1944, his parents and maternal grandparents were loaded onto a train with nearly 1,000 others, 122 of whom were children, bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. His mother and grandparents were immediately sent to the gas chamber, while his father was forced to work in a nearby camp for around four months before he fell ill due to work conditions and was executed in August. Holten survived the war, completing high school under the wing of the Meijers, who he emotionally said "elected to keep" him, before immigrating to the United States in 1956, where he earned a physics degree from the City College of New York. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, reaching the rank of captain and helping design protection for the fuel system of the attack aircraft A-10 "Warthog" Thunderbolt II, before moving to Albuquerque and eventually becoming a substitute teacher in Rio Rancho for around 22 years. Above all, Andre feels his story is one that teaches young students to practice tolerance, and about the many different sides of humanity.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
122 E Culver St, Phoenix, AZ, United States, Arizona 85004