Nesse Godin will share her memories from the Holocaust tonight at Baker University Center Theatre.
Godin, 82, survived the Stutthof concentration camp in Lithuania and is now president of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington. In 1998, she was the recipient of the Elie Wiesel Holocaust Remembrance Medal.
The Office of Multicultural Programs, Hillel and the Black Student Cultural Programming Board are sponsoring this event, and admission is free. It cost between $2,000 and $3,000 to bring Godin to campus, said Winsome Chunnu, assistant director of the Multicultural Center.
The Post's Elizabeth Dickson spoke to Godin about her memories, returning to the concentration camp and the future.
The Post: How are you able to keep going through your daily life still having all of those memories from those experiences?
Godin: Well, I tell you, when I was liberated I was 17 years old. I weighed 69 pounds. I was very ill, and I was a miserable kid. Can you imagine from 13 to 17 to live through such terrible things and be separated from your family? I was so angry, and when I was reunited with my mother, she said, 'My child, Hitler wants you angry; you are entitled to a life. You can enjoy all the best the life can offer you, and let the best of yourself give back to life.' She taught me really to appreciate what I have and not to dwell on those things. Yes, remember, but not just remember the killings, but remember those that didn't make it. Leave a message so this would never have to happen to other human beings.
Post: Have you gone back to the concentration camp?
Godin: Well, why would I go back? When I ask people that, they say, 'Go, you will find closure.' Now I went back in 1998, and I was looking for closure ... I went to Auschwitz where my father was gassed and bodies burned, and Lithuania. And I went to the different concentration camps. And I came to where I was in Stutthof, and there was a little museum. And I stood and said, 'Hitler, you are dead and I am alive.' And at that time people thought I went crazy. They wanted to get the guards, and I said, 'No, no. I needed to do that ...'
Post: Do you still feel that there are people who are capable of doing something like another Holocaust in this world?
Godin: It isn't what I think. Every day you open the newspaper and see children killed in schools. All kinds of people - white supremacy groups, the Klan - they are still in existence. Look at websites about hate groups ... I always say I have a problem; the problem is with freedom of speech. It is very nice to have freedom of speech, but not freedom of speech with intent to kill. Sure, if we allow it, it can happen ... .
3 Culture
Elizabeth Dickson
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