As a 19-year-old Jewish man hiding in the heart of Nazi Germany in 1942, it was anger, not hope that kept Holocaust survivor Bert Lewyn alive.
"I lost hope many times, but I just wanted to cheat the hangmen there," Lewyn said in a phone interview. "I was mad as hell because they took away my parents."
Lewyn will recount his tales of survival in Berlin to the ASU community on Monday and Tuesday as a part of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, on Sunday. He will speak at 7 p.m. Monday in the ASU College of Law's Great Hall and at 1:40 p.m. Tuesday in the Memorial Union's Pima Room.
ASU religious studies and humanities professor Michael Rubinoff has been working since November to bring Lewyn here from Atlanta, Ga.
"[Holocaust survivors] want to get the word out because they want to let people know this happened," he said. "He lived through the entire Third Reich, right there in the belly of the beast. He should have died."
Aside from lectures, Lewyn educates others about the Holocaust in his memoirs, "On the Run in Nazi Berlin."
Born in Berlin in 1923, Lewyn witnessed the quick removal of German-Jewish rights and the eventual removal of all Jews from Berlin.
In 1942 the Gestapo forced him to work as a slave laborer.
His parents were deported to Trawniki concentration camp in Poland.
Nazi's eventually killed his parents and 30 other relatives, he said.
Lewyn managed to survive as a U-boat, a term used to describe Jews illegally living in Berlin. The Gestapo captured Lewyn twice more, but he escaped each time.
At the ASU lectures, Lewyn will discuss more details of his three captures by the Gestapo and his eventual escape to the United States.
"It's imperative to [tell the story] ... If guys like myself don't do that, who will?" asked Lewyn.
ASU broadcasting sophomore Jennifer Jambor said she feels younger generations are forgetting the Holocaust.
"They definitely are forgetting and it's so important not to forget," she said. "I'm the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors, so it really hits home for me."
Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel of Chabad Jewish Student Center at ASU said Yom Hashoah reminds Jews and non-Jews of the past.
"This day is meant to remember the atrocities that happened, to make sure that we never forget it and make sure it never happens again," he said.
For more information on the remembrance day, visit http://www.asu.edu/irc/progserv/yomhashoah.html.
Reach the reporter at jacqueline.shoyeb@asu.edu.
