Holocaust 'must never happen again', survivor tells students
A HOLOCAUST must never be allowed to happen again, a Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivor has told schoolchildren.
Rudi Oppenheimer, 82, pictured, survived one of the most notorious centres of the Third Reich and now gives talks to students and otherthe general public about his experiences growing up as a Jew in occupied Europe, before he was deported to the concentration camp.
Although his life now revolves around recounting one the darkest chapters in human history, it is, he said, not a task he finds too difficult and it is one of the highest importance.
'I don't find it very difficult to talk about it, I have given the talk nearly 1,500 times. I just find it very sad and difficult to talk about my parents, because often in the Q&A sessions they ask detailed questions about them and that is difficult.'
Mr Oppenheimer's mother died in the camp in January 1945, followed two months later by his father.
His sister was born in Britain and so the family were 'exchange Jews' – whereby they could be exchanged for captured Germans and were not subject to the most severe restrictions placed upon the Jewish community – but nevertheless suffered appalling treatment at the hands of the genocidal Nazi party. At the time he was unaware of the most heinous treatment taking place against fellow Jews, he said.
