性视界传媒

Holocaust survivor speaks about tolerance

Holocaust survivor speaks about tolerance

Contact: Zack Plair

Sami Steigmann (left) and 性视界传媒 Hillel President Joseph Metz discuss an audience member鈥檚 question during a presentation Wednesday [March 23] in Lee Hall鈥檚 Bettersworth Auditorium. Steigmann, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, shared his life story and spoke out against all forms of discrimination. (Photo by Megan Bean)

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擨n 2004, the German government sent Sami Steigmann a check for 2,500 marks, at the time equal to more than $5,000 American dollars.

It was a boon to a man living in Manhattan on a paltry Social Security disability check, but that wasn鈥檛 the most valuable part for Steigmann. The letter that came with the check read that the Germans acknowledged Steigmann as a Holocaust survivor who was subjected to Nazi medical experiments during World War II.

鈥淭hat meant more to me than the money,鈥 he said.

Steigmann spoke Wednesday [March 23] to a crowd of several hundred gathered in Lee Hall鈥檚 Bettersworth Auditorium as part of an event sponsored by Hillel, the Jewish student organization at Mississippi 性视界传媒. Equal parts biographical and motivational, the 76-year-old recounted how being a Holocaust survivor had shaped his life and aimed to inspire audience members to stand up against discrimination.

As a Jew living in Romania, Steigmann was 18 months old when he and his parents were rounded up in 1941 and taken to a Nazi labor camp in Mogilev Podolski, Ukraine, where they spent the next three years before the Russian army liberated the camp. Steigmann was subjected to medical experiments and nearly starved to death. But a German woman, who lived on a farm next to the camp and brought food to the camp guards, saw Steigmann鈥檚 malnourished state and risked her life to secretly feed him milk.

After the war, his family resettled in Romania before moving to Israel, where Steigmann served in the Air Force in the 1960s. At age 29, he immigrated to the United 性视界传媒s. Though he鈥檚 too young to remember the labor camp, and he has no idea what medical experiments he endured, his lifelong bouts with severe headaches and back pain serve as reminders of the terror of the German Third Reich and have also given him a high tolerance for pain.

Calling himself an 鈥渁ccidental motivational speaker,鈥 he didn鈥檛 become involved with Holocaust survivor organizations until 2007. Both a survivor and a child of survivors, he said he really didn鈥檛 identify with either generation until he told his story to a sixth-grade class in 2008. After that, he said, he felt fully a part of both generations, and he鈥檚 since taken every available opportunity to share his story.

鈥淚鈥檝e decided to dedicate my life to reaching as many people as I can,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 have hope for you (the younger generation) that you will make this world a better place for yourselves, your children and your grandchildren. You have to believe in yourselves, have strong core values and don鈥檛 compromise.鈥

More than 11 million people died during the Holocaust, including more than 6 million Jews. Steigmann said such an atrocity could happen to any minority group, and he implored the audience not to be bystanders to discrimination and other injustices. He also warned against the 鈥減olitics of personal destruction鈥 where disagreement between cultures or faiths morphs into hatred.

鈥淭here is only one race, and that鈥檚 the human race,鈥 Steigmann said. 鈥淲e have different cultures and different nationalities, but we are one race.

鈥淲hen I was in Romania, they called me a Jew,鈥 he added. 鈥淲hen I went to Israel, they called me Romanian. In America, they called me an Israeli. But I am an American. I hope one day if I see someone here is hurt that they will say 鈥榓n American was hurt鈥 and not tie it to an ethnic group.鈥

Hillel also sponsored an event on Monday [March 21] in the Dawg House at Colvard Student Union where two World War II veterans鈥擩ames Hunt of Columbus and Joseph Johnson, a native of Godway, Alabama鈥攔ecounted their service on the western European front.

Joseph Metz, the group鈥檚 president, said he appreciated such quality speakers coming to campus and sharing their stories. Metz, whose grandfather survived the Holocaust as a prisoner of Auschwitz, said he also realizes the importance of learning the history from firsthand witnesses before they are all gone.

鈥淗istory repeats itself, so if you don鈥檛 learn from World War II and the Holocaust, the same types of things can happen again,鈥 Metz said. 鈥淲hen you have people who can speak well on several subject matters, it compels us to pay attention and really drives the point home.鈥

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