Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1988)
1 FEATURE Holocaust victim opens up to history class each other. Nothing but pity.” with hatred,” said Marth Cunn history class people who were eye students to see an eye witness to Conditions were so bad that ingham. witnesses to tremendous events. an event that we talk about in they would literally pray for She was actually one of the last general terms that we really can’t It is indeed a special event to Diana Golden, holocaust vic bombs to be dropped on them. have Mrs. Golden speak at the ones to remember this vividly and experience unless we were there. tim and prisoner in the Auschwitz Anything to finish the horror, but class. Said instructor Don Eps is willing to talk about it. It’s a She provides this experience.” death camp, gave a candid talk it never came. It was just the tein, “It is very rare to get in a tremendous experience for In the end Mrs. Golden was on Wednesday, Feb. 17 for the beginning. lucky to survive. About 90 per Jewish History-Holocaust class. cent of the people who entered They, arrived at Auschwitz For two hours she described the three days later. The camp is the camps never left. She was in horrors and attrocities commited located in south Poland at the captivity for nine months whereas on the victims in the camp. border of north Germany. They most people could not survive , “The amount of absolute more than three. barely had the strength to stand menace, and without any feel when they got there. “We were To this day she still wonders ings. I don’t know what kind of walking skeletons,” Golden said. about the motives of the Nazis: people they were. I don’t know At the camp the Germans sub “I still say today, ‘Why in the how they could close their own jected the prisoners to all types of world did they have to take us all human instincts -- to be so terror. “It was to what extent a the way from there (Rhodes) - perverse. I see no reason,” person can undergo the punish Why did they have to uproot us? Golden said. ment. Dehumanization, They could have killed us where Golden was young when the psychological torment as well as we were. Even now I resent the Germans came to her home land, mental - not speaking of the con fact that we were made to suffer the island of Rhodes, off the ditions of our feelings.” so much, and ultimately without coast of Turkey. While Mussolini The Germans would try to hope. They had no right to do photo by Both Coffey was in power life for the Jews was break up and seperate families to this.” Diana Golden, death camp prisoner in the German at least tolerable. destroy any self confidence the holocaust, spoke to the Jewish History-Holocaust class After Italy surrendered, “Our prisoners might have. They Feb. 17. fate was decided. Someone came would take 400 to 500 girls to the from Greece. I don’t know who it showers at a time - the shower was, but I do know it was a man room not much bigger than a with a white shirt. He was direc master bedroom. Some got to ting traffic - he spoke Spanish, bathe, others didn’t. They were by Lisa Graham Jones, who ‘is learning to heavy wind,” she said. he spoke Greek, and he spoke made to shovel rotting potato Staff Writer_____________________ ____ The Moghaddam twins come substitute pool for snooker, also Three students from England Italian. He said, Get in line. We peelings, “The smell was so from Brighton. Firouze’h had favorable comments for asked, where are we going? He putrid, so horrible that we had are here on campus this year. described it as a coastal town and Oregon people. “The people are said, ‘You will know when you feelings to throw up.” And some Sandra Jones and sister and bigger than Portland. Firouze’h very down to earth here,” she get there. Don’t ask questions!’ ” of the work wasn’t work at all: brother Firouze’h and Ramin is majoring in business and ac said. “Texans I found rather They were. to take two bricks, Moghaddam, all came to Oregon counting while her brother is ma loud. Oregonians are nice which were as cold as blocks of originally to visit, but liked it so joring in bio-chemistry. people.” “When you are in ice, and press them close to their much they stayed. The differences in slang was Firouze’h, a recent fan of Jones, a history major from such a hell really abdomens and carry them to basketball, commented that something all three noticed quick you feel like nobody another pile. Then, the next night Liverpool, said she was taken Oregon people were friendly but ly. “In England wasted means they were to do just the opposite, back by all the open space. much taller. Ramin didn’t find tired. It’s not quite the same cares.” carrying the bricks back to the Ramin’s impression was the the people taller but did say that meaning here.” Jones said. same. “Except for the houses,” people were friendlier. He said, Ramin said that at first he had first pile. Golden’s family was taken to a he said, “the walls are thin, they They were whipped continually “I was downtown and all these trouble buying cigarrettes. “I boat where they were to travel to don’t use bricks. Everytime a people kept saying ‘hi!’ I’m going kept asking for fags at the store day and night. It was at that the city of Piraeus in Greece. “It neighbor sneezes I have to take was eight „days of horror,” she point where she nearly lost all an Anacin.” Lack of brick hous *who are these people, do I know and all they’d do is give me dirty described, “people were dying hope. “When we got in we knew ing startled Jones too. “They them?’ In England you just don’t looks.” the war was ending. But when go around saying ‘hi.’” everyday. It was a living hell.” look frail, like they’ll fall down in They were marched for a you are in such a hell - really you number of miles and many were feel like nobody cares. The best literally beaten or marched to thing I can do is die. Just let me by Cam Hussey death. Then they were loaded on die in peace.” . , But she didn’t lose hope: “I Feature Editor to trucks and taken to a Clackamas Community Col couldn ’ t die. I had two younger detention-transit camp. They lege may have a student com would live there for three days sisters with me and a cousin. If I died, my younger sisters would peting in the Deaf World Olym before again being moved. pics in New Zealand. . On the third day Golden’s probably do the same.” Gary Holt, a drafting and grandmother died. “I had mixed autoCAD major, has been in feelings. There was crying, but on “I couldn’t die. I had _____ ________ vited to try out as a wrestler for the other hand I said, ‘Grandma, two younger sisters the Deaf World Olympics, which your suffering is over. I’m glad with me and a will be held in December 1989. you are no longer suffering.’ ” Tryouts for the team will be held • Her family and other prisoners cousin.” this April. Holt has been wrestl were taken to trains and were ing for nine years. He was the Later, Golden was moved to a shoved into boxcars that still had eastern champion for the deaf camp in Germany. There she “the filth of animals” in them. and won a bronze medal at the There were as many as 90 people worked in a factory making College Open Wrestling Tourna machine guns until the end of the to a boxcar. They were only fed a ment in Canada. little soup and one slice of bread war. The food was not much bet Holt feels good about being in ter, but the living conditions each day. vited to try out. “I’m very happy were. The only water they have on Student reactions were of with myself,” he expressed. the train smells - everything is Holt feels that his chances of disbelief. Said Kris Wagenknetht, filthy - people were dying, “It is “You go through a lot of emo making the wrestling team are a complete breakdown of human tions like: incredible, this can’t be “half and half’, and stated, emotions. You want to help.. .But happening. You want to deny “It’ll be a challenge.” there is nothing to be given.” Holt grew up here in Oregon. that it was as bad as it was, or The trains would stop at night that it even happened. You either He attended Ogden Junior High and the prisoners would be exer believe it or it’s a total denial. In School his seventh grade and cised. The German soldiers * * the end you want to cry. What freshman years, (he skipped the would treat them like they would happened to the Jews happened eighth grade) and went to Oregon treat taking a dog out to relieve to the entire world. There’s no Gty High School his sophomore year. itself. getting around it.” Holt has been at CCC two There were lice everywhere, “I was amazed at what a “You could see the lice flying beautiful, compassionate woman terms. He said he enjoys school, photo by Roger Hartcock around. Huge body lice. We were she was. She had such love for “fine, nothing bothers me.” Holt scratching all over.” “In this humans and human kind that I practices with the CCC wrestling CCC drafting and auto CAD major Gary Holt will be trying kind of misery it is such a horror just impressed. I question team, but has not competed in his out in April for the Deaf World Olympics. that all that we can feel is pity for whether or not I would be filled own match yet. Clackamas Community Collegi Page 6 by Michael L. 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