After speaking about his family’s experience in Nazi Germany, Ralph Rehbock urged about 25 people in Harris Hall Room 122 on Thursday night to pass on stories of the Holocaust so people cannot forget or deny it.
“We’ve got a responsibility to carry the story forward because we never, ever, ever want what happened between 1933 to 1945 to ever happen again,” Rehbock said.
Students Helping to Organize Awareness of the Holocaust brought Rehbock to campus to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass. On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazis burned 237 synagogues, destroyed thousands of Jewish-owned shops and killed 91 Jews in Germany, Rehbock said.
On that day, a 4-year-old Rehbock and his parents were in a Berlin hotel, waiting to leave for the United States.
“We came down the next morning and there was a sign that said, ‘No Jews allowed,'” he said.
Rehbock and his family went to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin the next day to complete the paperwork for their move to the United States. But they did not finish it that day and when they returned to the embassy the next day, it was closed for Armistice Day.
“It was locked, it was closed,” Rehbock said. “(A guard) went and found the ambassador to Germany. (The ambassador) came to the embassy and opened the gate and finished the paperwork.”
Rehbock’s uncle, who lived in Chicago, had signed an affidavit of support so the family could move to the United States, pledging to support the family if necessary so they would not become dependent on the government, Rehbock said.
Many years later, he said, his uncle told him: “Ralph, if I only would have known what was happening or what was going to happen, I would have signed for thousands. I signed for you because your family asked for it.”
But if it weren’t for the kindness of a stranger at a train station, he and his mother might have ended up at a concentration camp instead of in the United States, Rehbock said.
“This total stranger said to my mother: ‘Take your child and when I give a signal, take your little boy and run after me,'” Rehbock said. “If we had not followed that stranger, we may have been put on one of those railroad cars like in the movies and taken to a concentration camp.”
Although Rehbock grew up in Chicago, and graduated from Northwestern in 1957, he said he considers himself a Holocaust survivor. In 1996, he decided to become a speaker for the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois, based in Skokie.
“You guys have the challenge of the evening — the challenge of a lifetime,” Rehbock said after telling his story. “It’s truly what happened. You know about the deniers on this very campus.”
In its 11-year existence, SHOAH, which currently has seven members, has been following Rehbock’s message.
“If we make people remember what happened, the deniers will lose their power,” said Yoel Meranda, a McCormick sophomore and treasurer of the group. “It’s really important for (the group) to show some people really care about it.”
