Jacqueline Grossman, a child survivor of the Holocaust, shared her harrowing experience of survival with the college community on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Lean Lecture Hall. Author of “Chased by Demons: How I Survived Hitler’s Madness in My Native France”, Grossman described and reflected on her escape from the Nazi invasion of France and the traumatic effects it has had upon her life.
“You see mine was not nearly a story of physical survival.† I was not in the camps.† I was not tortured,” said Grossman.† “Mine was a story of psychological survival that went well beyond period dramas.† It has followed me all my life.”
Grossman grew up with her parents, whom she referred to as Maman and Papa, and her two younger sisters, Eveline and Pauelette, in the 1930s and early 1940s in Paris.† On June 14, 1940, German troops invaded Paris, forcing Grossman and her family to flee the city.† Grossman described her exile in great detail, which included the uncomfortable trip by train in cattle cars and hiking across the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain on Christmas Eve.† Upon reaching Portugal almost three years later, Grossman and her two sisters were forced to leave their parents and board a ship en route to Philadelphia.
“April was host to the most painful and saddest days of my childhood because 67 years ago, on April 17, 1943, my sisters and I were forced to leave our parents behind and leave Europe,” said Grossman, now 78.
Once in the United States, Grossman was separated from her sisters and adopted by a family in Cleveland with whom she became very close.† Children in her neighborhood, however, were of little comfort to Grossman, who ridiculed her for her foreign and Jewish heritage.
“In order to survive this additional torment, I forced myself to lose my accent as quickly as I could and I kept my background to myself,” said Grossman solemnly.
Over the next several decades, Grossman was reluctant to tell anyone her story.† In fact, she did not publicly speak of her history until 1988.† Grossman credits the art of sculpting as an outlet that allowed her to understand and release the turmoil of her past.† Her seven-piece expressionistic stone series is entitled “Holocaust Echoes” and was the major foundation for Demons, with each piece representing a particular aspect of her turbulent childhood.
Audience members were enthralled by Grossman’s recollections and found it refreshing to hear a first-hand account of the Holocaust in person.
“Because of the success of movies like “Schindler’s List,” people are almost over-familiar with the story to the point where I think the real horror of the event sometimes gets lost,” said Joan Friedman, assistant professor of history and religious studies.† “And here we heard a story that was very different from something like “Schindler’s List”.† But because we actually got to meet this individual and hear her story, I think it is almost more powerful than seeing a film like that or a documentary.”
Students, representing a much younger generation, also felt honored to have heard from a survivor of one of the most significant crises to shape human history.
“For someone like that who actually experienced the Holocaust to come to us and tell us what it was like, I think is really powerful and really useful for people of our generation to understand,” said Jackson Ellis ’10.
Grossman believes that by passing along her story and enlightening younger generations about the Holocaust, individuals can better aid today’s children who have been affected by the tragedy of war.
“I think it is important to really feel what it is like to be a child in wartime,” said Grossman.† “And to consider what they individually could do, as individuals reading about that, to help some other child somewhere who may have gone through a trauma in their life that has not been resolved psychologically.”
April 13 is Yom HaShoah, which is Hebrew for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Tuesday marked the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.