Don't be a bystander

Salomon Wainberg, 67, is Holocaust survivor from Poland who lives in Lutz.

He was 31/2 when the war started. He and his family spent two years in the Zelechow ghetto, and for another year and a half, they hid in an attic, then a cellar. The last two months of their ordeal, "We just wandered from place to place trying to elude the enemy." Wainberg's eldest sister was killed six weeks before liberation.

Wainberg says that in his hometown, there were 15,000 Jews in 1942 "before the liquidation." After liberation, only 53 had survived, and just three children: his brother, sister and himself.

His message: "What moves me is that I believe that we should not let future generations forget what happened. Because if we want to learn a lesson, we have to remember history. And it's important not to be bystanders. When I was a docent at the museum, I would tell kids, "Don't stand by. When you see something is wrong, speak up."'

Jeannetta and Jack Mouncey are not Jewish, but the Sarasota residents speak often at the Florida Holocaust Museum about their experiences.

Jeannetta, 59, had not been born whenthe war broke out in the Netherlands in 1940. Her father, Abraham den Decker, was serving in the Dutch army when Germany invaded. He married Jeannetta's mother two years into the occupation.

Her father, however, was considered a prisoner of war by the Nazis, who ordered him to report to a labor camp. He went into hiding, but was caught and sent to Germany on a boxcar. Jeannetta was born on Feb. 1, 1944, while her father was a prisoner.

For a time, her mother lived with Jeannetta alone, in constant fear of the German troops. She eventually went with the baby to live with her parents. Food was scarce, many died of starvation and the cold. To survive, Jeannetta's grandmother and aunt walked 60 miles over two weeks to bring back produce and smoked fish from the countryside.

After the war, the family had no idea whether the father was alive. Then, one day he showed up at the door: gaunt, disheveled, a shadow of the man he had been. He had walked for six weeks back to the Netherlands.

Jeannetta was often frightened of him. He landed work in construction, but suffered from post-traumatic stress. "I have no memories of a happy childhood," she says. "Life was basically surviving."

Her father died after years of suffering. Jeannetta has felt a lingering sadness all her life: for the normal childhood she never had, for the death of millions of Jews and non-Jews at Nazi hands.

Jack, 73, was abruptly separated from his parents as a 9-year-old in England. On Sept. 1, 1939, he and many classmates were taken out of school, given bag lunches and gas masks, and led to a train station. They had not been told my their parents of what was to come: placement in foster homes safely away from London as war with Germany loomed.

He was confused and terrified. "In those days, it was children should be seen, not heard," he says. Known as "evacuees," he and others were moved from one foster home to the next as war was declared. Four weeks passed before he returned home. When Germany finally attacked, bombings and fires destroyed many buildings around Jack, including his family's vacant home.

Once, at age 10, a bomb dropped 20 feet away from him, but didn't explode right away. Jack was spared, though others nearby were not. Despite many dangers and hardships, he and his parents remained unharmed during the war.

He and Jeannetta married six years ago.

Their message: "History repeats itself unless we learn from it."

Past 14 Days March 16, 2008 March 15, 2008 March 14, 2008 March 13, 2008 March 12, 2008 March 11, 2008 March 10, 2008 March 9, 2008 March 8, 2008 March 7, 2008 March 6, 2008 March 5, 2008 March 4, 2008 March 3, 2008 Search further back

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.