Page 69 - ThePhoenix1985-86

March 13, 1986IWestem Maryland CoUege/Page 7 Leroy Conaway, Mayor of Westminster; Wil- liam Lauterbach, county commissioner; Dr. Robert H. Chambers; Jim Humphries; and Jeff Griffith, county commissioner, attend the reception following the ground breaking cere- mony for the new College Inn and Confer- ence Center on Tuesday. . Survivors tell of life In Hitler's Germany by PIItrIck Dall Soon after her first marriage executed as a spy. Heck was in 1933, Waterford and her captured and held by the husband tried to get out of French, finally being tried and Not even Oscar Madison Germany together, but found acquitted of war crimes. He and Felix Unger are as odd a it was virtually impossible, was "de-Nazified" and sen- couple as Helen Waterford despite the open willingness tenced to serve one month at and Alfons Heck. A German of Hitler to let Jews leave hard labor for his part in the Jew, she is a survivor of the Germany. Then in 1934 her German war effort. Auschwitz death camp. He husband received a job offer In all his years of service to was a high ranking member in Amsterdam and they were the Hitler Youth and the Ger- of the elite Hitler Youth during able to leave. They lived in man military Heck claims World War II. Forty years ago Holland until 1942, when the never to have known of the they would have been ene- Germans occupied the Low extermination camps. This, he mies, but as they themselves Countries and started relocat- says was true for the majority said, they are now the best of ing the Jews eastward to of the German population friends. As it is, this "odd Poland. To avoid capture, The public was routinely told couple" travels the country Waterford and her husband that the Jews were being sent year 'found telling those who went into hiding. They were to the east to work in facto- will listen of their experiences forced to leave their young ries. Since most of the exter- during the time they call "Hit- daughter with total strangers, mination camps were in lerism and the Holocaust." because as fugitives, they Poland, not Germany, much Waterford was born just be- could not accommodate a of the atrocity there was hid- fore World War I and only child. Meanwhile, their daugh- den from the ordinary citizen. remembers the very end of ter safe with fellow resisters, Germans did know about the the war in 1918. However, the young couple lived in the dressed young officer," Josef German," he said, and the concentration camps, in Ger- she .vividly recalls the harsh- attics of several different Mengele. She remained at notion of German defeat was many, built to house political ness of the Treaty of Ver- homes in Amsterdam, moving Auschwitz for two months be- unthinkable. Through his per- prisoners, enemies of the sanies. and its devastating constantly, often because the fore being taken to work in an sonal love for one man and state, and undesirables such effects on the German econ- family with which they were armaments factory in the unreserved belief in the cause as homosexuals. These omy and psyche. Historians staying could no longer toler- mountains of Czechoslavakia. of Nazism, Heck rapidly camps were, in fact, held up agree that the Allied demands ate the threat to their own Waterford stayed here until climbed the ladder of suc- by the Nazi government as a for reparation payments, and lives if they were caught har- the war was over and she cess in Hitler's Germany. At threat to opposition. Heck did restrictions on the German boring Jews. was freed in August of 1945 the age of 16 he was the not find out about the reality economy and military greatly On the day Paris was liber- Filthy and malnourished, she youngest regional corn- of the "Final Solution" until < contributed to the phenome- ated by the advancing Allied walked or begged rides back mander in the Hitler Youth. He one of his fellow officers men- nal rise of Germany's "sav- armies, Waterlord and her to Amsterdam to find her personally commanded 3000 tioned it off-handedly. Heck ior," Adolf Hitler. husband were arrested by the daughter, whom she had not of his peers in a construction didn't believe his friend and As a Jew in the Germany of Gestapo. They were told they seen in over three years. She unit fortifying the Western came very close to turning the 1930's, one came to know were to be shipped east. admitted that the only way Front in Luxembourg. him into the Gestapo. a sort of slavery, as Hitler Unbeknownst to them, al- she was able to make it In the lasl years of the war, Alfons Heck's attitudes taught the German people to ready three million Jews had through the hell of slavery Germany was racked by about Adolf Hitler did not hate and persecute the Jews. been killed in the extermina- was with thoughts of her heavy losses on all fronts change until after the war had As Waterford emphasized, tion camps in Poland, along daughter and of the day she and, desperate for manpower, ended. Finalty he accepted "You've got to be taught to with millions of Gentiles who would see her once again. depended heavily on the ef- the evidence given at Nurem- hate before it's too late." This were executed for crimes Alfons Heck had just started forts of the Hiller Youth to burg in 1947. is why Hitler concentrated on against the state. Waterford grade school the year Helen prop up a mortally wounded While Heck points to the holding the loyalty of the told of her grueling three day Waterford was married. Here Third Reich. During the final fact that "there have fang youngest Germans, those he long train ride in a crowded, he was taught the Nazi ideals, months of the war Heck was been and will always be gen- called the future of Germany stinking cattle car jammed and here he first was ex- promoted to 2nd Lt. in the ocides," Waterford feels that He gave them himself and with other men, women and posed to Hitler Youth and the Luftwaffe "if no prejudice existed then they made him a demi-god children on their way to no- hypnotic presence Adolf Hit- When the American troops there would not have been a with their Iantical adoration. where - a place they would ler. It was mandatory for all took over his village he was Holocaust." But both believe However, for men and women learn to call Auschwitz. They German youths to be involved on a three day furlough from that it is their responsibility, like Waterford, not even insti- were separated almost imme- in Hitler Youth from the age of his unit. He did not identify among the dwindling number tutional hatred and abandon- diately and Helen Waterford ten. Twice each week classes himself to the occupying force that know the truth first hand, ment could shake the love never saw her husband were directed to the instruc- as he had learned that Hitler to educate and encourage they had for their country. She again. She would later learn tion of the superiority of the Youth leaders were being discussion about and under- still loves her country just as that the difference in their Aryan race Heck una- hunted and either killed or standing of what happened to she did in the 1940's, says fates had been the slight. bashedly labeled this as the castrated. For hiding his their beloved homeland. Waterford, even if her country almost indiscernible flick of happiest time of his life. "It identity he took the additional They believe it can happen did not want her for a time. the riding crop of a "smartly was a glorious time to be a risk of being caught and again.