Henry Oertelt - An Unbroken Chain
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   I-pod information on Henry Oertelt's book from St. Cloud State University. |
You can get a copy of Henry Oertelt's book here at Amazon.com. |
November 1, 2000 |
Image Gallery
View image gallery, Courtesy of Henry Oertelt.
A Study Guide to Accompany
An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through The Nazi Holocaust. This is especially geared for middle school to high school use. Download or view here (PDF).
Choral Reading
Families: Resistance And Triumph. See script at end of the study guide (p.24).
It was first performed for the 2001 Holocaust commemoration by members of CHAIM, (Children of Holocaust Survivors in Minnesota). The author, Stephanie Oertelt-Samuels, (651-481-8038), or the JCRC (612-338-7816) could also possibly arrange a performance for your organization followed by a panel discussion. Your own group could perform it as well. Please call for any inquiries.
In the News
Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Saturday, March 31, 2001.
Hatred's risk
by John Welbes
Above. Auschwitz survivor Henry Oertelt told seventh-graders Friday that "you have to do everything in your power ... to see that hatred will not exist anymore." Oertelt showed a picture of a concentration camp barracks during a presentation at Scott Highlands Junior High in Apple Valley.
Henry Oertelt remembers an incident when be was 6 years old and a group came down the street, singing a ditty about how things would go well soon as the blood of people like him squirted on their knives.
He remembers when his public school teachers stopped correcting and evaluating his work. And he remembers the knock on the door in the middle of the night in June 1943 when he and his family were taken away to a concentration camp.
On Friday, he shared his story of surviving the Holocaust to more than 200 seventh-graders at Scott Highlands Middle School in Apple Valley. The seventh-grade curriculum at the school covers U.S. history from the Civil War to the present.
After the incident on the streets of Berlin in 1927, he asked his mother if they and other Jews were in danger.
"My mom said, 'They are just a bunch of hoodlums and idiots, forget it,' " he said. But he noticed even then that the groups saying bad things about Jews were everywhere.
Oertelt, 80, has lived in Minnesota since 1949. He regularly makes presentations at universities and high schools about his survival, and recently wrote a book about his experience called "An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust." He said he makes very few changes in his presentation for the different age groups, and his talk Friday held the kids' attention for more than 11/z hours.
"My message is what can happen if hate goes uncontrolled," he said. "You have to do everything in your power . . . to see that hatred will not exist anymore.
"That doesn't mean you have to love everybody," he added. "I've had neighbors I do not love. But do you want to destroy. them because of it? Of course not."
Oertelt's father died when he was young. His mother lost her job about the same time he was kicked out of school. By 1943, 90 percent of Jews in Germany had been taken out of their homes, but his family hadn't met the same fate. "We always were convinced the Allies would defeat the Nazis," he said.
After Oertelt was removed from school in the mid-1930s, he went to work in a plant where he learned how to design and build furniture. That skill would be a key to his survival at the concentration camps. While other people at the camps did hard labor, he worked on furniture and the few calories he received went a little further, he said.
He was at Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945 when American Forces started to close in and the camp was evacuated. He and 16,000 other inmates were put on a death march for three days and nights; those who straggled or fell were shot. On the third day, a contingent of American armored vehicles approached, and the German guards fled. That day, April 23, marked his mother's birthday. She was murdered at Auschwitz.
Ian Dallas, one of the seventh-graders, hadn't heard about the marches out of the concentration camps and was surprised that Oertelt was able to survive. Artie Peckskamp, another student, said a lesson from that era is that while it's OK to be mad at someone, letting that turn into hatred and killing is wrong.
Oertelt told the students that the dehumanization of the Jews in Germany happened gradually, as Hitler blamed them for the country's woes and was able to convince others.
"A lie repeated often enough soon will be believed," he said.
John Welbes covers Dakota County education.
He can be reached at jweibes@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-2175.
- Also read American Jewish World: Henry Oertelt's Shoah memoir tells of Survival and hope
- Henry Oertelt's Talk to the Pommern Reginal Group, July 25th, 2006