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Citrus Springs Elementary School pupils hear the message of a Nazi death camp survivor: Don't hate but never forget.
By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 20, 2000
CITRUS SPRINGS -- Helmo Trzesniewski is a small, gentle, gray-haired man with a terrible tale.
He has a number tattooed on his arm with blue ink, 179626. It gives testimony to his strength and ability to survive. He was marked 64 years ago when he arrived at a German concentration camp and was forced to do hard labor.
Trzesniewski, 84, recently visited Citrus Springs Elementary School with his friend Bert Miller, 84, to talk to Wanda Copple's and Mandy LaJeunesse's third-grade classes.
For two weeks the students had been studying about World War II, the Holocaust, school shootings, hatred, peace, tolerance and Poland. Trzesniewski was born in Przyrow, Poland.
He goes to schools for two reasons. He said some people don't believe there was a Holocaust -- and he knows there was -- and he wants to keep the memory alive so that people will stop killing other people.
Although he is Jewish, he pointed out that many Poles, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were killed during that time.
Trzesniewski's visit provided an opportunity for the students to ask questions of someone who had experienced genocide first hand, the kind of hate found in Nazi concentration camps.
And ask questions they did.
"What was the worst part of being there that you remember?"
"Starvation, hard work," Trzesniewski said.
"Did you have any scars besides that number?"
"Yes, I have a few."
"Do you have, like, bad dreams?"
"In the beginning I did. Now I try not to."
"Did the Nazis show you any kindness?"
"Once in a while you found one German who was nicer than the others."
"Did you see Hitler?"
"No."
"Did you watch Schindler's List?"
"No, I saw the movie before it was made," Trzesniewski said. He lived it.
"Did you see any of your friends die there?"
"Yes."
"Do you have hate in your heart?"
"No, I don't. But I don't forget."
Trzesniewski spent four years in four labor camps, Markstadt, Blechamer, Grosrosen and Buchenwald, digging ditches, going hungry, losing weight, watching the killing.
"It was very bad. In the winter we were praying it was summer. In the summer we were praying it was winter," he said.
"Did you cry for many, many hours because your friends were hurt?"
"Nobody cried. It didn't help."
"Did the food taste good?"
"Yes. Everything tastes good when you're hungry."
Trzesniewski came to the United States from Poland in 1950. He met his wife, Ady, also a concentration camp survivor, in this country. He worked as a tailor in Queens, New York. They have no children.
Teacher Wanda Copple asked Trzesniewski if he had any advice for people today. He did.
"Not to hate. That's the main thing," he told her. "Not to hate."