Local Holocaust survivor shares experiences

Upon first glance at Albert Linder, one would see an ordinary man in his 70s, a man retired from IBM who lives in Stamford and has a faint accent. But Linder is no ordinary man.

Linder, a Holocaust survivor, spoke at UConn on Friday as part of Yom Hashoah, which is the Holocaust Day of Remembrance.

Linder was born in Chernowitz, Romania in 1936. In 1941, Linder and his family were sent to a Jewish ghetto, where 72,000 people were crammed into a space that was meant to accommodate a maximum of a couple thousand people.

After three months in this ghetto, the Linder family boarded trains and was taken to the Bershad Concentration Camp in Ukraine. This was a slave-labor camp where about 6,100 Jews were held. Here, Linder's paternal grandparents and 18-month sister died, among many others, from typhus. Others died from disease, starvation and gunfire.

The Russians liberated Linder and his parents in 1944 after more than three years. They returned to Chernowitz to find that all their belongings were gone. They later found out that a German officer had lived in their apartment during the war. When the Russians invaded, the officer evacuated and took the family's possessions with him.

They ended up in a refugee camp in Italy in 1945 along with 2,600 other Holocaust survivors. They tried to immigrate to Palestine, but were unable to because of the British blockade. In 1949, the Linder family moved to the United States, where Albert Linder had aunts and uncles.

About seven years ago, Linder returned to Chernowitz with his daughter, at her suggestion.

"Initially, I dreaded it, but when I realized she [his daughter] was determined, I went. When it was over, I was glad I did," Linder said. "It was a liberating experience to go back, to see where and what happened. I didn't want to face it before."

Linder said that returning to visit Romania helped him break his silence and speak about his experiences.

Eric Weinstein, an 8th-semester Political Science major and the human rights intern at Hillel, was the one who asked Linder to be the 2010 Yom Hashoah guest speaker.

"I thought it was very interesting. The stereotype is that Holocaust survivors will only talk about concentration camps," Weinstein said. "He took you through the whole story – his family, before, after. It was a different perspective and it made for an interesting presentation."

Ally Kruzansky, a 4th-semester communications disorders major, also found the presentation interesting.

"It was informative and powerful. It made you look outside the UConn bubble," Kruzansky said. "There are so many different stories from the Holocaust. Every time I hear one, it's from a different perspective and evokes different emotions. I came to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and never forget."

Although Yom Hashoah is a day of remembrance for the Holocaust, other genocides were also discussed, especially the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

"History has a habit of repeating. If people don't know about the past, they are condemned to relive it. To avoid having to live what I lived through, I want to talk about it," Linder said. "We're the last generation that will see Holocaust survivors speak firsthand and that's a really important thing."