[Pages S7857-S7858]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

WORLD WAR II HEROES AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on Tuesday, November 11, Americans across
the country will gather to honor those who have fought for our freedom
and thank them for a debt we can never fully repay.
This year marks the 97th anniversary of the end of World War I. Our
victory in that ``war to end all wars'' showed us that we could not
ignore the rest of the world. And as President Clinton said, ``while
that war proved our strength, it did not prove our wisdom. . . . We
turned our backs on the rest of the world. We ignored the signs of
danger. Soon we had a Great Depression, and soon that depression led to
aggression and then to another world war--one that would claim a half
million American lives.''
Whenever freedom is threatened, our brave men and women have answered
the call to serve. Today, I would like to highlight our debt to the
heroes and survivors of World War II. Earlier this year, we
commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day and paid tribute
to the nearly 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime. This year
marks the 70th anniversary that Allied Forces entered concentration
camps--like Auschwitz-Birkenau--and liberated thousands of prisoners.
On the eve of this Veterans Day, nine American heroes and Holocaust
survivors are being honored in my home State of Illinois. Today, I want
to share their remarkable stories. As the memory of the Holocaust
passes from those who were there to the generations that weren't we
can't forget the importance of remembrance.
GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied Forces in
Europe, understood this and documented what he saw. After visiting a
liberated Nazi camp, he urged Washington to send congressional
delegations to witness Nazi crimes firsthand so that in the future
there could be no attempt to dismiss these allegations as
``propaganda.''
With the remaining eyewitnesses in their twilight years, the
responsibility to ensure that future generations never forget these
atrocities falls to us. I want to commend these men and women for their
brave actions and quiet courage. Today, we honor their sacrifice by
remembering the horrors they witnessed and proclaiming in one unified
voice: ``Never again.'' I am privileged to honor them and remember
their stories. They are true heroes.
I would like to acknowledge Dr. George Brent, Edith Stern, Margie
Oppenheimer, Hannah Messinger, Walter Reed, Joseph Dobryman, Lewis
Pazoles, Harry Nichols, and Anthony Gargano. But behind every name is a
story. I ask unanimous consent to have their stories printed in the
Record.
Our hearts break for these men and women who mourn their families.
But while their stories agonize, they also inspire. Their lives are not
just stories of survival; they are stories of triumph and grace in the
face of unspeakable evil. I want to thank each of them for the courage
to share their stories.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Dr. George Brent

When George was 14 years old, he and his entire family were
transported by cattle car to Auschwitz-Birkenau with
thousands of other Hungarian Jews. When they arrived at the
camp, those who were still alive were dragged off the cars
and forced into one of two lines. An SS soldier decided
whether they would go left or right. George and his father
were sent one direction--to live; his mother and ten year-old
brother were sent the other direction--to die.
As the Allied Forces advanced, George was sent on a death
march from Auschwitz and then on a coal train to Mauthausen-
Ebensee Concentration Camp in Austria. On May 6, 1945,
General Patton's 3rd Army Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron
liberated the camp. Here's how one of General Patton's tank
commanders described what he saw: ``thousands of skeleton-
like figures who were skin and bones. The living laying side
by side, often times indistinguishable, from the dead.''
George was one of the prisoners that survived. He was moved
to a displaced persons camp and learned how to be a dental
technician. In 1949, George came to America. He learned a new
language and started a new life.
In 1950, he joined the United States Air Force and served
as a dental assistant during the Korean War. Following his
service, he attended dental school at the University of
Illinois--and has practiced dentistry until 2011--when he
retired at the age of 81. Dr. Brent not only survived these
horrors, he thrived. George Brent may not have been born in
America, but he is an American hero.

Edith Stern

In February 1942, when Edith, 21 years old, and her parents
were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. She met and
married her husband, Otto Rebenwurzel, at Theresienstadt. In
1944, not long after the wedding, Edith and her mother were
sent to Auschwitz where a sign mockingly read, ``Work makes
you free.'' At Auschwitz, Josef Mengele stood before them to
decide their fate. Left meant survival, for a few weeks at
least. Right meant death in the gas chamber. Edith's mother
was sent to her right. She was 55 years old when she died.
Edith was sent to a forced labor camp.
In 1944, while Edith was in the Theresienstadt Ghetto with
her husband, she became pregnant. By early 1945, her
pregnancy began to show and she was transferred to the
Grossschoenau labor camp. Edith was liberated from
Grossschoenau when she was nine months pregnant. Still
dressed in her striped blue prison uniform, she immediately
went into labor. Three days after giving birth, the baby she
named Peter, died.
Edith moved to the United States in 1964 and became an
administrator at the Self Help Home on the South Side of
Chicago. After living through the horrors of war, Edith's
belief in the goodness of mankind was unshakable. She devoted
her life to helping others rebuild their lives. What an
inspiration.

Margie Oppenheimer

Seventy-seven years ago, Margie awoke to a Nazi soldier
pointing a rifle at her face--she was 14 years old. It was
November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht--the night of broken glass--
when Nazi soldiers coordinated attacks all over Jewish
communities in Germany and Austria. Windows were smashed.
Synagogues burned. Homes and Jewish-owned stores ransacked
and looted. Margie's family apartment and small department
store were destroyed. This night began seven years of terror
for Margie and her family. She was sent to five concentration
camps: Sloka, Riga-Kaiserwald, Bruss-Sophienwalde, Stutthof
and Goddentow. As a prisoner of these camps, she hauled
backbreaking cement bags, was beaten with clubs, broke
concrete, laid bricks, fought hunger . . . fear . . . and

[[Page S7858]]

typhus. Through it all, she repeated the words: ``I WILL be
strong. I want to live.''
One day at the Stutthof concentration camp, Margie was
emaciated and unable to work. She was placed into new
barracks and had the Roman numeral II scrawled on her
forearm--it was a death sentence. That night, two of her
friends did the unimaginable. Without saying a word, they
pulled a helpless Margie under an electric fence to another
side of the camp and they scrubbed off the number on her arm.
She was no longer marked for death.
On March 10, 1945, Margie was liberated. She was 21 years
old. In 1953, Margie and her husband came to the United
States. She became a nurse. And just as her friends helped
her at the Stuffhof camp on that fateful night, she devoted
her life to helping those who couldn't help themselves.

Hannah Messinger

In 1938, Hannah and her family were forced to abandon their
home and business. A few months before her twentieth
birthday, Hannah married Karl Kohorn. In 1941, Carl was
deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Two weeks later, so
was Hannah. Hannah worked as a hairdresser--an occupation in
high demand--because the Germans wouldn't allow women to have
long hair. In 1942, Hannah's parents and sister arrived at
Theresienstadt, but stayed only three days before being
deported to Auschwitz.
Hannah is one of the last living witnesses to the
International Red Cross visit to Theresienstadt on June 23,
1944. The Nazis created an elaborate hoax to show how well
Jews were being treated under the ``benevolent'' Third Reich.
It was lie. More than 33,000 inmates died as a result of
malnutrition, disease, or the sadistic treatment by the Nazis
at Theresienstadt.
On May 8, 1945, Allied Forces liberated the Merzdorf labor
camp--where Hannah was moved to. But when she returned to
Prague she learned that all her family members were murdered.
After the war, Hannah began corresponding with an Aunt in
Budapest--her last surviving relative in Europe. In the
letters, Hannah poured her heart out sharing Holocaust
experiences and losses and recounting the suffering she and
her loved ones endured. When her aunt read the letters out
loud, a friend of the family, Imre, was listening and fell in
love with her writings. Imre began to correspond with Hannah
directly. Through those letters, they fell in love. Hannah
moved to the United States in 1946. Eventually, Imre joined
her. They married the following year and moved to Chicago.
Hannah has created pencil drawings based on her experiences
as a prisoner in several concentration and labor camps from
1941-1945. A number of her pieces can be seen at the United
States Holocaust Museum in 2010 and in the Smithsonian.
Hannah's work allows future generations to better understand
her experience and see it through her own eyes.

Walter Reed

On Kristallnacht, Walter was jailed by Nazi soldiers for 3
days--he was 14 years old. In 1939, his parents put him on a
Kindertransport (children's transport) to Belgium. This
decision saved his life. Walter lived in a boys home near
Brussels until the Germans invaded in 1940. Walter and more
than 90 other children escaped to southern France, where they
lived in a barn and later in an abandoned chateau--they
became known as the ``Children of La Hille.''
In 1941, Walter was able to leave France for New York. He
became a U.S. citizen in 1943 and returned to Europe in 1944
as a soldier in the United States Army. Walter served in the
95th Infantry Division under General George Patton. His team
was charged with interrogating German prisoners and civilians
near the front lines. Walter first arrived in the United
States as a survivor of the war and he returned as an
American hero.

Joseph Dobryman

In 1941, Joseph was 18 years old and forced into the
Bialystock Ghetto with his parents and two brothers. The
Ghetto was liquidated in 1943 and everyone was sent to camps.
Jospeph and his brother Henry were separated from the rest of
their family. In 1943, they sent to the Lomza Ghetto and then
to the Danzig, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen Belsen
concentration camps for the rest of the war. Joseph and Henry
were liberated from Bergen Belsen by Allied Forces in 1945.
They were the only members of their family that survived.
In 1949, Joseph married Nettie Goldberg and they made their
way to the United States. They had no family waiting for
them, but Joseph found work as a plumber and went to school
at night to learn English. Joseph and Nettie settled and
raised their family in Skokie, Illinois, where he still lives
today.

Lewis Pazoles

Lewis was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the son of Greek
immigrants. Immediately after graduating high school, Lewis
was drafted into the U.S. Army. On April 6, 1944, Lewis
joined a medical battalion attached to the 83rd infantry and
shipped out in a convoy to England to prepare for the
Normandy invasion. Corporal Lewis Pazoles and his unit,
followed General Patton's Army to Omaha Beach on June 11,
1944--five days after D-day. His unit proceeded to fight in
the Battle of the Bulge--and moved through the Ardennes,
Rhineland and Central Europe toward Germany.
On April 11, 2045, the 83rd liberated Langenstein--a sub
camp of Buchenwald--where they found about 1,100 malnourished
and emaciated prisoners. The prisoners were forced to work 16
hour days in nearby mines and were shot if they were too weak
to work. Corporal Pazoles' unit reported that the death rate
at the camp was about 500 a month. The 83rd Infantry also
recovered Nazi documents later used by war crime
investigators.
In 1946, Corporal Pazoles was honorably discharged--he was
20 years old. He returned to the United States and became a
partner in his family's grocery store business in Chicago.
Today, Lewis and his wife reside in Palos Hills, Illinois.
Here are some of the honors that Corporal Pazoles received
during his service: The Victory Medal, The European African
Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon with 1 Silver Battle Star, 3
Overseas Service Bars, the Good Conduct Medal, the Purple
Heart, and a Bronze Star. Lewis Pazoles is an American hero.

Harry Nichols

Harry was born in Alliance, Ohio, and was drafted in the
U.S. Army in 1942. On June 6, 1944, Harry was in the third
wave of U.S. forces who stormed Omaha Beach in Normandy,
France. Known as Operation Neptune, it was the largest
amphibious operation ever attempted. More than 160,000 Allied
troops landed along the 50-mile stretch of heavily fortified
French coastline to fight the Nazis. Afterward, Harry fought
in the battle of St.-Lo and the Battle of the Bulge. He
helped liberate the French cities of Laval, LeMans, Orleans
and Nance. Harry also fought through Luxemburg and Holland,
crossed the Rhine River into Germany and up the Elbe River
before May 7, 1945--V-E Day.
In 1945, while training with his unit to fight in the
invasion of Japan--the Japanese surrendered. Harry returned
home to Ohio and began working in a bakery. In the late
1940s, he made his way to Chicago where he worked as a
waiter, a grocer and florist. Harry Nichols is an American
hero.

Anthony Gargano

On December 7, 1941, Tony's 22nd birthday, the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor. Less than six weeks later, Tony
enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to one of three
ships masquerading as merchant vessels. In 1942, he and his
shipmates were captured by the Japanese and taken to Hakodate
prison camp on an island just north of mainland Japan. Tony
remained a POW for three years and was set free the day the
Japanese surrendered and abandoned the camp. He returned to
America, married the love of his life--Julia--and worked six
days a week as a maitre'd at Elliot's Pine Log Restaurant.
For nearly 70 years, Tony has kept the details of war and
the horrors of his imprisonment to himself, but has recently
began to share his story. Tony will tell you, he is not a
hero, his brothers lost in battle are the heroes. What an
inspiration.

____________________