Karen's experience meeting Ms. Firestone

Hello fellow bloggers. Karen here with a brief history on Renee Firestone as I understand it since attending her speech. She started her speech with a brief history of the time, Hitlers ascent to Chancelor of Germany in 1933, and allowed her audience to answer some questions she posed. "Why was this attack on humankind so attrocious at the time?" An audience menber answered, "this was done by a civilized nation not an uncivilised one." To which she answered, "yes." Renee was 14 and living with her family in Czechoslovakia when they received the news in regards to Kristallnacht in 1938 in which the Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes. Her brother was to receive his honors in highschool at this time, but before that could take place Hungary invaded Czecheslovakia and forced the Jews under rules. Their former friends and neighbors had to break all contact with them fearing the threat of death. It was decided that her brother was to receive his diploma, but the day before the ceremony he disappeared along with his fellow Jews. He was accused of being a communist and because he was of millitary age, he was taken to a forced labor camp. In September of 1939, Hitler and Stalin agreed to take over Poland. The land in between would be that of mass graves. In 1944 Renee and her family were still at home, but living under the rules. Renee stated that she never understood why the Chancelor of Hungry (an anti-semite)did not kill all of the Jews at the time of Hungary rule. At the age of 20 Renee and her family were rounded up and transported by cattle car to Auschwitz with the promise they were being transported to a German work camp. The ride lasted 4 and a half days with no food or water. In the middle of the trip, the German soldiers would stop the train and state to the people that if they had any valuables they must give them up now. They had already given these things up, but the soldiers would kill people off the trains as the people inside heard the shooting. This was just done to get rid of people and create fear among the rest. She arrived at Auschwitz with her sister (her mother and father being transported in another cattlecar) and expected to be at a work camp for the Germans which they were told before the journey. She got off the train and got into a line of people being told where to go. The line she was in was managed by Dr. Mangala (forgive me if I don't know the correct spelling) who was a known killer. She was told to go to the left, but her sister was not. She held her sister's hand and would not let go. She told her sister to follow her and they both went to the left. People afterwards told her she should be dead for that move. She was not able to keep her sister with her unfortunately. Her fate was in the hands of Dr. Munch (which we have placed a link to her discussion of meeting him years later)which reveals the fate of her sister. She was experimented on and then shot rether than returning her to the camp to tell her story.

Renee's biggest problems stemming from this time seem to be the "terrifying unknown" of her fate and the fact that she never had any closure as to the rest of her family (until that of her sister's years after).

She is so well spoken and engaging as a speaker that I had to ask her after she spoke, "how did you first begin to tell your story." She related the story of how she was contacted by a man, involved with Simon Wiesenthal and his endeavors to create the Museum of Tolerance, who wanted her to share her story with the public. She said that she laughed at him and then hung up the phone. Days after that, she had her first survivor nightmare in which she woke up hearing her own voice saying, "they said this would never happen again." That along with the fact that a synagoge in the Los Angeles area had been burned overnight compelled her to contact him and begin her life's work. Renee was a professor at UCLA in fashion design at the time and doing quite well.