As you may have noticed, I usually try to upload a picture or two to go along with my post--just to try and keep things a little more interesting and not only tell, but show you, what I've been up to.
Well, today is different. Today, I'm glad I have no pictures to share. The images that would help bring to life the words I am about to write, aren't the kind easily shared by the click of a button, nor are they the type easily forgotten. And so today I will attempt, without photos, to accurately articulate the emotions I felt and heart brake that overwhelmed me as my life was changed by the unforgettable story of one Holocaust survivor.
As much as my host parents wanted to attend, they had no extra room in their already busy schedules and so at 7:00pm, Thursday evening, I seated myself in a new church next to a new acquaintance. I figured if I could handle an entire year in a new country, family and language all alone, one night in a new church probably wouldn't kill me. Although I'm getting a bit off topic, I was quite impressed by the number of people who approached and introduced themselves and by the time the presentation began, I felt relaxed and welcome.
Peter Loth walked onto the stage, but not alone. The only explanation I could come up with is that someone would be translating--I was right. Although I understand more and more German each day, hearing the words in English, directly from his heart, made me ecstatic. I could not only understand the words with my mind, but with my heart.
The first thing I noticed was what I'm labeling the world's coolest accent. Peter's mother tongue, Polish, mixed with years of living in Texas--oh, it was priceless! However, the accent was the only thing funny about the words he spoke. He started by stating how fortunate he was to have even been born into a concentration camp that spared the lives on infants on only one specified day--the camp's anniversary. His life was, instead, used for the purposed of experimenting--in anyway his merciless captors decided. Although death was not certain, the percentage of children who survived the incredible amount of drugs forced into their fragile bodies was small.
Yet Peter survived. He lived to survive a series of events he can't even remember in which his mother made a desperate attempt to save his life. Walking up to a Polish women, his mother asked her to hold the child, and his paperwork, for a brief moment while she ran back to grab something. For the next 14 years, that Polish woman was the only mother Peter would ever know. In fact, until the Polish government found out of his nationality, Peter too, believed he had been born and raised in the land that was his home--Poland.
By the time the Polish government found out of his nationality, Peter had already experienced more trauma that any human should every have to see. He'd been beaten and tortured in a variety of ways that he vividly described in words I'll never forget. He'd been raped. He'd been starved. He told of events that happened decades ago yet remain forever ingrained in his memory. His tears were contagious as he struggled to tell us the story of his Jewish friend, Star. He wasn't even 10 years old when they were taken together. In her last moments, she screamed his name, begging for help. She was shown no mercy. She was given no funeral. Peter told us that if it wasn't for a women who literally put her body between his and the barrel of the gun, his fate would have been the same.
At 14, his German mother was miraculously found alive and he was told he must return to Germany. "Only if you come with me" he replied to his Polish mother. They arrived at Checkpoint Charlie together. His papers were shown and he was hustled across the border. In fear of the unknown he turned back to his mother, expecting the nurturing comfort he'd received from her all his life. Instead, he saw her standing a distance away, waving. over 50 years later, he still cries when speaking of that day. His reunion with a family he couldn't even remember wasn't easy and after months of being teased for speaking Polish, not German, the family migrated to the U.S.
The United States. Finally, freedom, peace, and the chance to start over in equality, right? It was Georgia. It was the nineteen-sixties. His sisters were fathered by a black man. After surviving the Nazi's and the polish police, Peter and his family faced persecution from the KKK. He was spit on, discriminated against, laughed at, and even beaten.
Yet peter survived--everything. More than one of his vivid descriptions left me wondering how on earth he survived such brutality. His answer was clear--God. Years later, Peter began telling his story. but for him, it was more than a story, it was firsthand proof of the healing forgiveness can bring. Peter stood there and told us all of the moment he returned to the concentration camp of his birth, got down on his knees in front of the portraits of two Nazi officials who were far more than just names in his mind, and said, "I forgive you."
Okay, so at this point, I'm distributing my little Kleenex paccket to people around me who, only an hour before, had been complete strangers. The most amazing part of it all though, was that Peter wasn't a bitter person or a serious old man. He was a genuinely happy person--who LOVED giving hugs! If I hadn't know better, I might have guessed that he could be found in an overcrowded mall every December talking with little kids sitting upon his knee. If anything, or anyone, has ever proven to me the true healing power found in forvieness, it is the life story of Peter Loth.
I can honestly say, in those two hours, my live was changed. The Holocaust will never again feel like something "out of a history book", and forgiveness will never again feel like something "only in the Bible". I will never forget that night.
