Remembering...
Red & White - Fall 2004/ Winter 2005
   Through the speaker program of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, Mayer and Rena Schondorf came to Stanstead College in May to tell their tale of surviving the Nazi genocide.
   Originally from Slovakia, Mr. Schondorf showed students a photo of the 60 young boys and girls from his village school. Of the 60, only Mr. Schondorf survived the Holocaust. In all, 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.
   “I survived not because I was smarter or stronger or bigger but simply because I was always in the right place at the right time,” he said.
   Mr. Schondorf recounted being smuggled at age 13 into Hungary, escaping capture, returning home, only to end up in a cattle-car headed for Birkenau.
   “When the doors opened up, all I heard were the screams and moaning and dogs barking. You could smell the stench of bodies being burned,” he said.
   Mr. Schondorf survived the Death March out of Auschwitz in 1945, walking for days and days in the January cold. Anyone who stumbled was shot immediately.
   “The shouts and pleading and crying of people will never leave my ears,” he told the students.
   After more tribulations and hardship in Weimar, Mr. Schondorf was liberated by the Americans.
   Mrs. Schondorf was 7 when the Germans invaded her native Poland. She recalled her Grade 4 teacher entering the classroom and announcing, “All Jews collect your books and belongings. Jews don’t need to be educated.”
   Forced to live in the Jewish ghetto, she avoided being shipped to the camps through the guile of her mother, who dressed her to look older and convinced authorities the girl could do needlework.
   Eventually, Mrs. Schondorf ended up in Plaszow. When this camp was liquidated in 1944, Rena’s task was to “clean up” the camp – helping remove and burn the 3000-5000 bodies in mass graves.
   In the fall of 1944, Rena and her mother were transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, then to Bergen-Belsen, where they were liberated by U.S. forces in 1945.
   Mr. and Mrs. Schondorf met in Montreal after the war and have been married for 53 years. They have two children, 10 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
   “Why did all this happen to us? It came from discrimination and hatred,” Mr. Schondorf told the students. “Therefore whatever you do, we want you to protect society from such things.”

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