Holocaust survivor visits NCHS

By Aaron Lee

Published: March 12, 2008

Worldwide, Alex Lebenstein is one of fewer than 1 million Holocaust survivors alive today. And he’s one of what the Holocaust museum in Richmond estimates is fewer than 100 survivors living in Virginia.

Lebenstein, 80, lives in Richmond and travels around Virginia. He recently spoke at Nelson County High School.

Lebenstein lived in Germany with his mother and father in November 1938 when the Nazis came to Haltern – home to roughly 36,000 people - where less than two dozen Jewish families lived.

His father fought for, and was wounded with, the German army during WWI and was convinced when the Nazis showed up that his family was safe because he was a patriot.

But as his father led him around the streets of Haltern in 1938, Lebenstein watched a Nazi officer spit in his father’s face and rip from his father’s coat the German service medals he’d put on.

“I wish that many times I would find more Americans proud of being Americans like my father was proud of being German,” Lebenstein said. But, “The moment I could feel my father’s hand perspiring I knew I was in trouble.”

Lebenstein and his family were eventually put into a ghetto in Haltern and lived there until Jan. 1942 when they were moved in a cattle car to a concentration camp in Riga, Latvia. Riga is where both of Lebenstein’s parents were murdered.

Lebenstein was liberated by the Russians in 1945, left Germany in 1947 and did not return to his hometown until 50 years later at the request of students who wanted to hear his story.

Of the Jewish families living in Haltern in 1938, Lebenstein was the only one to survive the Holocaust.

On Mar. 7, the roughly 200 NCHS students who came to hear Lebenstein speak heard only half of what is normally a two-hour talk. It was the first time school officials could remember a Holocaust survivor giving a presentation to that many NCHS students.

But in that time, Lebenstein’s overarching message encouraged students to reject hate.

“Do not respect it, don’t follow it, fight it off,” he said. “We cannot allow extremism to overcome us.”

It was a message that brought freshman Megan Robles, 14, to tears when she came up and hugged Lebenstein afterwards.

Robles’ family has Jewish roots, but she said hearing Lebenstein made the Holocaust seem real in a way that reading about it never had.

“It just touched me in a way that has not touched me like that before,” Robles said.

Note: The Shenandoah Valley Holocaust Education Week is March 6-13. For more information on events related to the week call 1-540-886-4091.