Our Duty to Remember

By Rachael Powles '22, April 15, 2021

Holocaust survivor Steven Hess shares his story with the Ithaca College community

Steven Hess presenting his story on Zoom

Steven Hess shared his personal story of surviving the Holocaust.

Content Warning: This article contains descriptions of the violent atrocities of the Holocaust.

To commemorate Yom HaShoah, the annual day of Holocaust remembrance in the Jewish community, IC Hillel hosted Holocaust survivor Steven Hess for an open Q&A session on April 6. A renowned speaker and scholar, Hess shared his memories of the two years he spent in Nazi concentration camps and spoke about the future of Jewish voices in the United States.

Born to a successful family in Germany, Hess and his twin sister Marian were 5 years old when their family was deported to the Westerbork transport camp, and later to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Although his parents had emigrated to Holland after the rise of the Nazi Party in 1939, the family could not escape scrutiny. Hess’s earliest memories are of the widespread death, sickness and starvation that he saw daily, but for years he had no context of the events around him.

“The Holocaust was unpredictable in its scale, magnitude and consequences. At the time you could not imagine it.”

Steven Hess

“The Holocaust had to be invented,” he said. “It was beyond the imagination. When you ask yourself ‘why didn’t the Jews fight back,’ keep in mind that you cannot look beyond the horizon. None of us know what’s going to happen tomorrow. The Holocaust was unpredictable in its scale, magnitude and consequences. At the time you could not imagine it.”

As he showed images of the camps where he and his family were imprisoned for over two years, he recognized that his story is just one of millions, and that he and his family could have easily been victims instead of survivors.

“The only explanation was one of luck,” Hess said. “But we all know that luck was not easily distributed. It’s better to be rich than to be poor, it’s better to be young than to be old, it was useful to understand German. But those things made a difference of who survived and who did not. It was simply luck. My parents were young, healthy, educated, fluent in several languages. My mother was particularly beautiful, and it saved our lives.”

It is estimated that 50,000 people, most of them Jewish people, died in Bergen-Belsen during its two years of operation. Hess, his sister and both of his parents managed to stay together through their time in the camp. They were freed when English soldiers discovered and liberated the camp in April of 1945 and were able to emigrate to the United States.

“It is human nature to forget, to become complacent, to push away the things that are most difficult to think about, and is there anything more difficult to think about than the Holocaust? And yet, if we don’t face it, if we don’t commit to remembering it, our human nature can allow us to become complacent to the point where it could happen again.”

Lauren Goldberg, executive director of Hillel at Ithaca College

Hess went on to graduate from Columbia College before serving four years in the United States Navy and then starting a photography equipment manufacturing business. He later became a scholar of the Holocaust and has made it his life’s work to educate younger generations both to honor his family’s story of survival and fill in the gaps in education as anti-Semitism continues to exist across the world.

“At the time, the Holocaust was beyond imagination, but it no longer is. It is very real. Anti-Semitism is always there, it just changes in intensity throughout history,” he said.

This is Hess’s fourth time speaking with IC students. Lauren Goldberg, executive director of Hillel at Ithaca College, believes that his perspective is invaluable.

“It’s hard to explain what it means to our campus to have this relationship with Steven where he is able to share parts of his story with an incredible vulnerability. It’s such a gift for anybody who is able to come and listen to him, we are so blessed. He is a part of our community now.”

Lauren Goldberg

“There’s a recognition in the Jewish calendar that we have to recommit ourselves to these things every year,” she said. “It is human nature to forget, to become complacent, to push away the things that are most difficult to think about, and is there anything more difficult to think about than the Holocaust? And yet, if we don’t face it, if we don’t commit to remembering it, our human nature can allow us to become complacent to the point where it could happen again. I think that while we have the survivors here to do it, we will keep doing this, and we will do it even when we don’t have our survivors with us anymore.”

Goldberg added that she is grateful for the relationship IC Hillel has been able to form with Hess over the years.

“It’s hard to explain what it means to our campus to have this relationship with Steven where he is able to share parts of his story with an incredible vulnerability,” she said. “It’s such a gift for anybody who is able to come and listen to him, we are so blessed. He is a part of our community now.”