On Tuesday, November 10th, Smithtown High School West teacher Christina Cone arranged for a holocaust survivor, Mordechai Miller, to come speak to a select group of students about his traumatic experience. After being persecuted by the anti-semitic values of Polish culture since he was just three years old, him and his family were forced to a makeshift Jewish ghetto by the Nazis, he, along with his family, were able to escape the ghetto and go into hiding for years on end. After giving his moving speech, I was able to interview him and ask him a few questions.
Q: A lot of Jews stuck around when Nazi reign took over because they thought things would get better. Why did you stick around? Is there any moment you started to realize things weren’t going to get better?
A: “We didn’t have anywhere to run, there was no chance.” he said that there was never a moment when things were going to get worse, the biggest thing he thought about was trying to stay alive.
Q: When was the first time you experienced anti-semitism?
A: “When I was only three years old, on older kid beat me up, accusing me of ‘Killing Jesus Christ’. I didn’t even know what that meant. I went home to my mother and asked her ‘Who is Jesus Christ and why are people saying I killed him?”
Q: What was the most shocking thing you encountered during your experience?
A: “The constant living in fear, everything was a shock.”
Q: If you can go back and do one thing differently, what would it be?
A: “Not be born in Poland. The Poland independent church, even today, shows anti-semitic values and refers to it as being patriotic”
Q: What was the most difficult part of going back to normal life after the war ended?
A: “I still feel the effects of no education. I am intelligent and open minded but i have no diploma to prove it. People listen to my story but then when they realize i don’t have a high school education, they don’t take me as seriously.”