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Survivor remembers
Kristin Egeland
Issue date: 1/31/05 Section: News
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But for Margot DeWilde, a survivor of the Holocaust, her story of endurance is something she hopes will educate, inform and prevent the horrors that occurred during World War II from happening again.
Thursday marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Although she was not at the camp during the liberation, DeWilde survived the conditions in Auschwitz for a lengthy period of time. According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum Web site, the Nazis established the camp in Poland in 1940.
The camp was gradually enlarged with three main parts and over 40 sub-camps. Throughout the years, prisoners included Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, the Roma (known as Gypsies then) and beginning in 1942, European Jews.
Most of the Jewish people deported to Auschwitz were immediately sent to the gas chambers at Birkenau. The Nazis evacuated most of the camp toward the end of the war in an attempt to erase all evidence of what occurred at the site. Prisoners unable to leave were liberated on January 27, 1945.
Born in 1921 in Germany, DeWilde moved from Berlin to Amsterdam at age 11. In 1940, Holland (also known as the Netherlands), surrendered after only one day. Although DeWilde and her family had experienced persecution in Germany, the oppression began in Holland as well. DeWilde described the oppression of European Jews as Hitler having heard the story of Robin Hood, but confusing the Jews with the rich people in the story.
"(The) limitations became bigger and bigger," DeWilde said. "You couldn't go shopping anymore, (it was) special times and stores."
The restrictions also affected schools and professions, but the restraints didn't affect DeWilde's spirit.