Sarah Moses Event Story
A voice from the inside of WWII
Every year, Colorado State University holds a Holocaust Awareness week and hosts a holocaust survivor to be a speaker as the week's main event.
February 24 - March 3, 2023 was Holocaust awareness week at the University and the main event for the week took place on Wednesday, March 1st in the university's main ballroom.
Sara Moses, the speaker for the main event gave an insight as to what her life was like as a small Jewish girl in 1939 Poland.
The start of the biggest genocide of our time, an ideological war that lead to the imprisonment and murder of over 11 million people from many different backgrounds began withthe invasion of Pitrków.
“They ordered us to give up our homes to the non Jewish people, and move to the worst part of town. This became the jewish ghetto; the first in Europe, the jewish ghetto of Piotrków” Moses said as she started off her speech, explaining the helplessness they felt as the Nazis invaded their city.
When Nazis invaded the city, Ms Moses was hidden by her neighbor Mrs. Guralova until the draft of Jewish people was over. “Some years later, I found out from a famous writer of the holocaust. that my mother, a young innocent woman, was murdered in the gas chamber in the death camp of Treblinka”
After being smuggled, Ms Moses was once again sent away from her father this time, as they both had been put on different cattle trains and sent to different camps. Ms.moses and her Aunt ending up at Ravensbrück. Her remembering the uncomfortableness of her bunk bed and the hunger that she felt as the two earliest memories of her time in the camp.
The silence never broke in the room as people were mesmerized by the history that was present in the same room, as everyone was there for her.
As a little girl in Nazi Germany, “the scariest thing was the unpredictable actions of the Nazis. You never knew what they would do to you and that was the scariest thing” Mrs. Moses said “But one day, a female Nazi guard kept looking in our direction, she came over looking at my face and said she couldn’t believe how much I looked like her German daughter”
Ms. Moses believed this touched the guards heart as she said that from time to time that same Nazi guard would give her some of her quality food. Ultimately believing that this kind gesture gave her motivation to continue fighting for her freedom.
Ms. Moses had spent nearly her whole childhood in death camps, going from Ravensbrück to Bergen-Belsen and having to work for her survival at such a young age. She was a prisoner for years, and liberated five days after her seventh birthday.
Her story broke the room as no one today could even imagine what that must be like, your life taken away from you for what other people think about you. Silence swept everyone as the only voice present was that of Ms Moses. She is a symbol of peace as she has forgiven the Nazis for their actions, and for the growing world we Sara ended her speech with a message that a slot of people could learn from.
“Ms. Moses, why is it important for you to be here and tell your story”
“Because If you don’t understand your past and your history, you’re bound to repeat it. We just need to love everyone, and only then will we have peace”
