Editor’s note: This press release was provided by the Pelham School District.

Pelham Middle School 8^th graders learned firsthand about the horrors of the Holocaust from two guest speakers whose lives were upended by the atrocity. Esther Geizhals and Helga Schmitz-Fernich Luden were younger than 10 when they were forced to abandon their homes in Poland and Germany respectively because they and their families were Jewish.

Both faced extreme hardships and overcame the odds to survive and eventually emigrate to the U.S. The presentations by Holocaust survivors have been held annually at Pelham Middle School in conjunction with the students’ social studies unit on World War II as well as their reading of “Night” by Elie Wiesel, a powerful autobiographical account of a teenager’s experience during the Holocaust.

Mrs. Geizhals was moved from her home in Poland with her family to the Lodz ghetto when she was 10 years old. In 1944, she was taken to Auschwitz where her younger brother and mother were executed and she was separated from the rest of her family. Eventually, Mrs. Geizhals escaped with four others from the “death march,” during which prisoners were forced to march without food or water from the Rochlitze concentration camp where she was imprisoned to avoid the approaching allied armies. She was eventually reunited with her father, who survived, and immigrated to the United States in 1947.

Helga Schmitz-Fernich Luden was born in 1934 in the Rhineland region of Germany, but in 1939 she and her mother were separated from her father and sent to the Gurs transit camp. With the help of her mother, Mrs. Luden escaped to the woods and was found by French-Jewish Partisans in failing health. After staying at a convent, she recovered and then was miraculously, reunited with mother. After staying with a Catholic family near Marseille, Mrs. Luden and her mother boarded a boat bound for the U.S., and to their surprise found that her father, who had been in a slave labor camp, was also on board. The boat was turned away from the U.S., forcing the occupants, including Mrs. Luden’s family, to the Dominican Republic for years before eventually making it to the U.S. in 1946.

Both speakers sought to inspire the students through their stories in the hopes that others won’t have to face the horrors they lived through.

“Why can’t we all be friends and love each other,” Mrs. Luden said. “We have so much in common.”

Additionally, on March 26 8th grade students visited the PMHS library were high school students in the Human Rights class presented posters they had made on the Holocaust to further supplement the unit.

Both speakers shared their vivid recollections with the students, who also asked them questions following the lectures. The students then reflected on the experience when they returned to class.