SAYREVILLE – Following years on the run and in hiding as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany-controlled Europe, a survivor of the Holocaust looks to inspire younger generations with his story and message of standing up for what is right.
Daniel Goldsmith visited Samsel Upper Elementary School (SUES) on April 19 to speak to fifth grade students about his experiences during the Holocaust and how he managed to avoid being sent to a concentration camp.
Goldsmith’s appearance was presented by Jewish War Veterans of the United States Fegelson Young Feinberg Post 697. Senior Vice Commander Jimmy Clendennen and Junior Vice Commander Allan Silverberg, both Vietnam War veterans, were present.
Silverberg informed the pupils of Nazi Germany’s belief in a master race and their efforts in the Holocaust to exterminate those they viewed as beneath them.
The event was part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which SUES participates in each year.
Goldsmith was born in Belgium on Dec. 11, 1931, to Chaim and Ruchel Goldschmidt. He informed the students that his parents were originally from Poland and would travel through Europe. Chaim, his father, was a plumber and Ruchel, his mother, was a homemaker.
Goldsmith’s sister Lillian was born in 1939, the same year World War II began, when he was 8 years old. Now 86, he made note of how the students in the room will be the last generation to see Holocaust survivors in person.
“You youngsters are the last generation to see a Holocaust survivor and I’m one of the young ones,” he said.
Belgium was invaded and taken over by Nazi Germany in 1940.
Goldsmith spoke about restrictions that were gradually placed on the Jewish residents, such as prohibiting the making of kosher food, Jewish-owned stores having to identify themselves with other citizens advised not to shop at them, a curfew being set for the Jewish citizens, Jewish individuals not being allowed to enter public places, Jewish children being expelled from public schools, and Jewish individuals being ordered to register and wear golden stars sewn into their clothing.
When Goldsmith’s father was 39, he was sent to a labor camp in 1942, unaware of Nazi Germany’s plan to exterminate all Jewish individuals, known as the Final Solution. Goldsmith recounted the final conversation he had with his father at the train station before he was sent away.
“He told me, ‘You’re the little man of the house now, you’re going to have to take care of your mother and sister now,’ and I said I would,” Goldsmith said. “That was the day I lost my childhood and I was only 10 years old.”
It was not long afterward that Goldsmith’s street was raided in the night by Nazis rounding up Jewish residents. Goldsmith noted because all of the Jewish citizens were ordered to register themselves, the Nazis knew where they lived.
However, because Goldsmith and his family lived in the center of the street and the Nazis began their raids on both ends of the street, his mother was woken up by the commotion before the Nazis reached his home.
As he witnessed people being dragged out in their night clothes, Goldsmith and his sister were taken to the skylight of the building they lived in by their mother and the three of them hid under a blanket. German soldiers searched the area, but did not find them.
“I believe a small, little miracle happened that night,” Goldsmith said. “Lillian slept through the night. If she cried, we would have been caught.”
Following the raid, Goldsmith’s mother went to friend who was a member of the Belgium Resistance and made arrangements to hide him and Lillian at a Catholic Covenant. At the covenant, Goldsmith said only the mother superior was aware of his and his sister’s identities as Jewish children.
During this time, Goldsmith’s mother became a messenger for the Belgium Resistance. When she discovered the covenant was about to be raided by the Nazis, she immediately took Goldsmith and Lillian away to hide elsewhere. In doing so, Goldsmith noted she also saved the lives of the members of the covenant, as the Nazis were to immediately shoot anyone hiding Jewish individuals.
Lillian was sent to live with a private Catholic family, while Goldsmith was sent to an orphanage, which he said now exists as a homeless shelter. He was looked after by a priest, given the new name “Willy Peters” and provided with false Baptism papers. Later, Goldsmith was transferred to another orphanage, where he became an altar boy.
However, he was eventually caught in a raid, along with five other Jewish boys who were unaware of each other’s identities. The six boys were loaded onto a train, but Goldsmith described how Joseph, the oldest of the boys at 16, had a plan for them to escape. Joseph pried away wood from the train with a piece of steel he had on him to create an opening the boys could fit through. When the train slowed down or stopped, Joseph told the boys that was when they could free themselves.
The train never stopped while the boys were onboard, but it slowed down, giving Goldsmith and the rest of the boys the opportunity to jump out. The boys rolled away from the tracks as they escaped, and although they sustained cuts and sprains, they did not suffer any broken bones.
Nevertheless, the boys were injured, with Goldsmith being one of them who had a sprain, and did not have food or water as they hid in the woods. In what Goldsmith called a courageous and risky action, Joseph went to a nearby village and informed a priest about himself and the other boys. Goldsmith commented that the priest could have refused to help the boys or contacted the Nazis, but the priest decided to help them.
The priest sent Goldsmith and the other boys to live with private Catholic families, with only the priest knowing where the boys were. Goldsmith lived with the Beauthier family, who hid him in an attic and gave him a pet rabbit.
Meanwhile, Goldsmith’s mother learned about the raid on the orphanage he had been hiding at, and sought to find out what happened to him by meeting with a member of the Belgium Resistance. Unfortunately, the day she went to the city for the meeting, it was bombed by the Allies. Goldsmith’s mother survived the bombing, but lost her left leg.
Goldsmith remained with the Beauthiers during Belgium’s liberation from Nazi Germany and the Beauthiers also found his mother. As Goldsmith’s mother was initially too sick to care of him, the Beauthiers continued to look after him.
Eventually, Goldsmith, now 12 years old, went to a children’s home set up by American soldiers for Jewish children. Among the children living at the home were survivors of the Nazi camps, which is how Goldsmith found out about what had been taking place at the camps. He was later sent to another home to help him and the other children adjust back to society.
“We had to learn how to become children again,” Goldsmith said.
It was also around this time that Goldsmith learned his father died in Auschwitz.
When Goldsmith and his mother went to the Catholic family who hid Lillian to reunite with her, they learned the family had become so fond of her, they did not want to give her up. Goldsmith’s uncle, an American soldier, was able to use his authority to get Lillian back, but this greatly upset the Catholic family.
“The family was so hurt, they would not speak to us again,” Goldsmith said. “That’s the sad part of this. My mother was not able to thank them for protecting Lillian and putting their own lives in jeopardy. They just would not talk to us.”
Goldsmith acknowledged he initially did not wish to speak about his experiences, but changed his mind after being contacted by the U.S. Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, a nonprofit organization established by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, that conducts recorded interviews with survivors and witnesses of Holocaust and other genocides.
“I am very happy to be speaking nowadays,” he said. “We were very lucky we survived.”
He concluded his remarks by advising the students to work toward bettering themselves and the world around them and helping prevent future tragedies.
“I do not believe this has changed,” Goldsmith said, making note of atrocities that have since taken place in Rwanda, Darfur and Syria. “We must act against evil, intolerance and hatred. Do not hate, we must be tolerant. Become righteous human beings. Say something, do something when you see something wrong.”
Contact Matthew Sockol at [email protected].