Walter Ziffer gave a first-hand account of his ordeal in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and life before and after being freed during a March 20 talk at UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union.

Before a standing-room-only turnout of 225 people, including many students, area resident Ziffer presented a keynote address titled “How the Holocaust Shaped My Life.” His talk was in conjunction to a Holocaust art exhibit for March titled “Parallel Journeys: WWII and the Holocaust.”

The program began with local young people reading poems written by the children who lived in a WWII concentration camp.

A native of Cieszyn, Czech Republic, Ziffer was deported at the age of 14 and imprisoned in different Nazi concentration camps, performing slave labor in a variety of weapons factories. He was liberated in 1945.

Rick Chess, head of center for Jewish Studies at UNCA, gave a brief introduction of Ziffer. “We’re extraordinarily lucky that Walter Ziffer has been living among us these many years… Walter is a brilliant scholar and an extraordinary teacher… Above all, I see Walter as a man who is courageous and wise.”

Following a song played on a fiddle, Ziffer began by saying, “Good evening my friends. Overflow crowd. I’m deeply touched.

He expressed his special thanks to Debbie Miles, head of UNCA’s Center for Diversity Education, and Rick Chess, head of UNCA’s Center for Jewish Studies.

“Both have made enormous contributions to our town and, I think, far beyond,”

"I was asked to give this talk in relation to these three exhibitions,” Ziffer noted. (One exhibit was at UNCA and the two others at the art museum in Asheville.)

He spoke briefly “about the song played by our fiddler on the roof,” prompting laughter from the audience. “He came down from the roof to play for us today. He said it was a Yiddish song.

“Back to the exhibit — all three … deal with remembrances… of people of that terribly hellish time. When six million Jewish people — 1933-45 — were murdered. … About 1-1/2 million children were among these 6 million.”

Ziffer said it revealed “human barbarity, fiendishness… The depths of depravity that humans — having the same DNA as you and I — can descend. Well, that should be food for thought for you and I.”

He added that, “as the Holocaust recedes in time, its memories recede…. (People forget) the enormous human losses and how those losses occurred.”

While movies have been made about the holocaust — “some good. Some not so good. I remember particularly the movie ‘Paper Clips.’”

As a Holocaust survivor, through the years, Ziffer said, “I’ve talked to many people, in all stations of life, …. In one school, it was plastered with 8-1/2 by 11 sheets, each with 400 names. The school wasn’t large enough to illustrate the 6 million number, believe it or not... So this was not very pleasant.”

After a pause, he asserted, “What I want to do tonight is something that’s not very academic…. I’m here, even though I’d like to forget this very unpleasant chapter of my life, which robbed me of my youth… and that will live in infamy. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t ever forget.”

While the nightmare occurred 60 or 70 years ago, Ziffer said the sadness of what occurred remains within him and “the anger has literally increased. 

“At night, those memories come back to we Holocaust survivors… Those toxic deposits have stayed with us through the decades. Each of us has toxic pictures and texts that continue” to stay throughout one’s life.

For example, he cited “the toxic just from last week. You may have watched TV, as Gail, my wife, did... We saw the new pope. He seems to be a good and modest person dedicated to helping the poor. But the hysteria and frenzy around him” was cause for concern to Ziffer.

Ziffer told of his family, before World War II, watching the same delirium happening, upon the visit of Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels to their town. “We stood at the window (of his uncle’s apartment) and looked out. As the people left the square, people looked up at our windows and said to Ziffer and family, “‘You Jews, get away from the windows.’ Then they smashed the windows.”

He said he remembered (Pope) Francis being part of the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in the Inquisition, “where many were murdered. Then,…….Latin America, leaving about 1 million dead behind them … in the name of the church.”

Ziffer then asked the audience, “You see how I see things? The toxin makes you kind of miserable.

He said he recalls childhood memories sometimes. “I remember playing with my cousins. They were all murdered. He noted that some were shot to death, while others took cyanide pills or died from overwork, 

He had an uncle who had all of his teeth capped with gold — a thought that leads him to remember seeing pictures of boxes of gold — taken from Jews’ teeth.

“Am I sick? I don’t think so,” Ziffer said.

“I remember my stay at a concentration camp at Smiddleberg. I was bending rebar in various shapes used to reinforce concrete for bunkers. I was promoted to this job after a really good-looking guy smashed his thigh on the machine.” While he regretted the man’s misfortune, Ziffer said, “I was happy to get that job, as the machine could do more work than my rapidly diminishing body.”

In a particularly poignant memory, Ziffer noted, “Our shoes had woods soles and cloth tops. When it rained, …. misery.” He said he “remembered way the German foreman would walk through deep puddles of water with rubber boots without getting his feet wet.

“My feet were soaked and cold all the time. I was miserable day and night. I dreamed of rubber boots…. What delight to have rubber boots…. Upon coming to America, it was great to buy my first set of rubber boots.

While working at one of the camps, he said, “I got this new blueprint. I wanted it to be known that this blueprint was not right. So I explained that it was wrong, in perfect German.”

 In response, his German guard responded, “You are not a Jew. Why are you here?”

“I said, ‘I am a Jew. That’s why I’m here.”

“He said, ‘That cannot be true. Jews cannot speak German.’”

At that point, Ziffer said, “There are lots of people in this country who know how to massage truth. As we found out in the recent election.” He resisted the temptation.

“I became a teacher because I don’t think there’s anything more important than teaching people from kindergarten and up. How can I forget?”

In speaking of his pre-war prosperous Jewish roots, Ziffer said, “We had a gentile live-in cook in our apartment. My sister and I attended religious school, which was pure boredom.”

He stressed that his family “only occasionally attended synagogue,” mainly on big occasions. “We did not observe Sabbath. We spoke German and Czech, but not Yiddish. Nonetheless, we were considered Jewish.”

In the various concentration camps, Ziffer met orthodox Jews, many of whom rejected him. “Now this rejection deeply hurt me. They never even acknowledged my Jewishness. To this day, I carry with me a strong anti-separatist” viewpoint. “I also have a deep distrust of people in uniforms.

“As they annexed us, my brothers and sisters came across the bridge as conquerors of us Czech Jews.  I think about now how my brothers and sisters came across the bridge, wearing black religious robes,… came over to take us over, as if we’d been enemies.”

Traveling in Europe, Ziffer said, meant “crossing many borders…. Although I had nothing to declare (at these border crossings), my heart would start beating fast… I felt very insecure.

“And we were liberated in 1945 by Soviet soldiers. But these very liberators showed (their true character) soon enough…. by raping the women… So I’m stuck with this concern about uniformed people.”

When he was arrested, he went to a triage camp, it was a five-story building packed with Jewish humanity. All miserable. I was 14 years old. I was scared to death. … I was separated from my nuclear family” for the first time.

“My family came to visit me, I felt jubilant. Perhaps they’d be able to free me? But I saw from their expressions that things were bad. I wrote a note, begging my father to do everything he could to free me. He looked at me, as if he’d tried everything and to no avail. They bade me goodbye.

“So this moment explains why I feel sad when my children leave. Even when my wife drives off” to run errands.

“In the first concentration camp, we had to undress. We were completely nude. We were headed into the showers. We were made to dress in blue-striped uniforms. We all looked the same. On my jacket was the number 64,757. What did that mean? I am now an object. My humanity as a person was taken away.

“That brings me to my recurring nightmares. I get lost in a city. I wander in and out of buildings. I ask people for help… The people I approach listen to me, but then they leave ... I reach for my billfold and find it’s not there and all of my identifying papers are gone.

“Always lost. Totally helpless. Totally vulnerable. My wife awakes and hears the panicking sound coming from my side of the bed. To this day, I hate wearing a name tag.”

He noted evenly that his grandson tattooed Ziffer’s number on his forearm as, he said, a sign of respect.

“Now on the lighter side, I insist on having plenty of food in our refrigerator. This annoys my wife…. Well, the all-prevailing theme in the camps was getting food.

“How I survived on 10-12  ounces of bread per day, black coffee and (a concoction) with potato peels floating on top for three and a half years? So I (now) insist on having lots of food in the fridge.”

With a laugh, he said his wife sometimes would complain about him packing the refrigerator so tight with food.

“I keep saying the Holocaust must never happen again. There are no ends to the methods that we humans plunge one another into misery.

“The question of God… The God that many of us pray to publicly and privately seemingly allowed all of these terrible things to happen to this 6 million people, of which 1.5 million were children.

“Also, other calamities…. We Jews call this “‘ather of mercy” and other such names… and the same with’Christians.

That (question about God) has been hanging over my head and still hangs over my head. My father would have given his own life to save me and my sister….

“This absence of God is a true conundrum… I have no answer… Well, maybe I do have an answer, but it’s not for this talk tonight.”

Ziffer then referenced the great sage rabbi, who said, “Remembrance is key to redemption.

“But I added that ‘Remembrance alone is not enough.’ I think education is the key to a better world. 

“I’m proud to be at this university tonight… as well as at the institution where I teach, Mars Hill College, because this is where the key to redemption lies. It’s here where hope is born every day.

“It’s filled with holiness of soul and heart.”

After a pause during which he gazed out at the audience, Ziffer quipped, “Well, I’ve depressed you,” triggering laughter from the crowd. “So I’m going to ‘un-depress’ you now.” He added that “there is a Jewish tradition that you do not leave a scripture reading on a sad note. “

Ziffer asserted that, to resolve the overpacked refrigerator conflict with his wife, To resolve the situation, he went to Sears and bought a huge refrigerator with lots of capacity.

“I’m happy to report to you tonight that my wife is happy with this simple solution. I only wish that all problems were so easy” to resolve.

Ziffer concluded his address and got a sustained standing ovation. He then fielded questions a number of questions from the audience, after which the program ended.