By Steve Guggenheim
The Holocaust continues to resonate all these decades later with the untold stories of those who suffered through Hitler’s monstrosities. One of those survivors spoke at Beth El Synagogue in East Windsor this week. His tale is one not of despair but of hope.
Sol Lurie began the journey that would change his life at the tender age of 11. In a four-year period he survived six concentration camps. But why did he survive?
Mr. Lurie was born April 11, 1930, in Kovno, Lithuania. His family traces its Lithuanian heritage back to 1492. The Monroe resident says he’s a direct descendant of King David.
During 1941 the Jews of Kovno fled the area because Lithuanian soldiers started their killing spree. While escaping, fearing the killing that was engulfing the region, they assembled in a neighboring synagogue. The Germans insisted they return to their hometown. The horses pulling the Lurie family wagon were stolen so the large family started pulling it by hand when they ran into a group of German soldiers. Fearing what would happen to these Jewish residents, several German soldiers went off and brought them horses and warned the family not to take the main road back since they would be killed. And they would have been since those on that road were slaughtered.
Mr. Lurie makes this point to show that not all Germans were bad, saying there is no question their lives were saved by those soldiers.
Back in Kovno the family’s 90 horses had been stolen and house ransacked, so they ended up staying in the stable. Life was becoming increasingly unbearable. The Germans told the Jews they had to walk in the gutter not on the sidewalk, since they were now considered animals, not human beings anymore.
The Germans built a ghetto for the Jews that eventually became a concentration camp. Mr. Lurie says 9,500 people were taken to a fortress, told to dig graves, and were then killed. Others were brought from the ghetto to bury them. They said the ground was vibrating so much only to discover many were buried alive.
While walking with his cousin the two were stopped by soldiers. They did not think the cousin was being respectful enough so in front of the young Sol Lurie they killed his cousin. Young children were especially vulnerable. In one instance he recounts a seven-and-a-half-month old baby that was thrown in the air and caught with a bayonet.
During his four years in concentration camps Mr. Lurie traveled through Dachau, Auschwitz and eventually was liberated in Buchenwald on his birthday, April 11,1945.
But why did he survive? Mr. Lurie, who retains a positive outlook in life, says it was God’s doing. God said now that you have seen Hell, go out and educate people to not hate their fellow man.
That is Sol Lurie’s mission in life. Telling people that not everyone is bad, like the German soldiers that saved his life, and that you should treat people the way you want to be treated.
