Like any child, Morris Parzen went to school and played with friends in his hometown of Lodz, Poland. But, by 1939, the eight-year-old began to hear words like “war” and “occupation,” and his carefree childhood began to erode.
In a telephone interview from his Milwaukee home, Parzen said, “I didn’t understand what was happening, but I did sense that my parents were worried. At that time, I don’t think the Jews recognized that the Holocaust was coming because they knew the Germans from World War I. They didn’t believe or anticipate the nearing horrors.”
His family was able to remain in their home because it was located within what became the Lodz Ghetto. “Even as I saw life changing, I felt protected by my parents. As any youngster, I trusted them and I wasn’t scared,” he said.
Parzen’s story closely parallel’s “Daniel’s Story,” an exhibit created by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. It is based on experiences of children like Parzen who lived during the Holocaust between 1933-1945.
Now through Oct. 21, Milwaukeeans will be able to view the award-wining exhibit entitled “Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story” at the Milwaukee Public Museum.
As a special feature, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation will sponsor a community event at the museum on Sunday, April 21 featuring Robert Glimcher, a national philanthropist and one of the funders of the exhibit in Washington. He will speak at 6:30 p.m. during a light supper.
Marci Taxman, event co-chair with her husband Gary, and Sally and Jeffrey Cooper, added, “Visitors may view the exhibit either before or after his talk, from 5:30-6:30 p.m. or from 7:30-8:30 p.m.” Cost is $18 for adults, $10 for children ages 8-12. Babysitting will be available for children ages 3-8.
Glimcher, a retail real estate developer in Pittsburgh, is involved in many charitable organizations, including the Holocaust Museum in Washington.
Doubled fears
“Daniel’s Story” is based on actual records and diary accounts of many children who recorded their impressions of life during the Holocaust. “Daniel,” a composite character, explains the Holocaust in a way children can understand.
The story covers the happy times of his youth, life in Nazi-occupied Germany, life in a concentration camp and life after liberation in 1945. The exhibition has attracted more than 700,000 visitors since it began traveling in 1990.
Enduring “horrible living conditions, seeing people dying of malnutrition and being trapped within the ghetto by barbed wire and German soldiers, I am one of the lucky ones,” said Parzen. “I survived.”
Like Parzen, Milwaukeean Martha Osvat also survived. She was born in Transylvania, which later became the Hungarian part of Romania.
She recalled that at dancing school, “suddenly one day the boys would no longer dance with me and called me a ‘Jew.’ Suddenly, we were living in two different worlds.”
HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) settled Osvat and her family in Milwaukee in 1962 after 14 years on a waiting list. “I am very grateful to be here,” she said.
Despite what she called “a happy ending,” Osvat witnessed people being killed and tortured and others “disappearing.” She heard trains in the night and said she “knew the shadow was coming closer. As a child of 11 or 12, I understood very well what was going on. For children the fears were double because we wondered what would happen to us if something happened to our parents.”
In 1944, her family spent a few months in a Hungarian ghetto before being sent to Auschwitz. “Somehow, my mother and I were selected to work at the Volkswagen factory and we survived.”
Because of his red hair and fair complexion, Parzen believes he was ordered into one line at Auschwitz while his parents and sisters were led to the gas chamber.
“Lodz was one of the last ghettos to be dissolved in 1944. I was 13 when we were ordered to report to the railroad station and herded into cattle cars for Auschwitz. I worked as a cement mason until the liberation. I was 14 years old at the time and don’t know of any other survivors who were my age,” he recalled.
After Parzen’s liberation, he spent three years in a hospital in Austria, where he was treated for tuberculosis. In 1950, he was sent, alone, to Milwaukee, also by HIAS.
Parzen said his parents thought about leaving Poland, “but then changed their mind.” Osvat’s father, an industrialist, had Swiss partners who told him they would help him. “Unfortunately, he trusted them,” said his daughter, only to die at Auschwitz.
At the ghetto and later at the camp, Osvat said she found most of the youths “instinctively” tried to help others. “We tried to keep morale up — by being giving, supportive and upbeat, and not letting the older people despair. I was a dancer and entertained.
“My brother, who was three years older, taught me that the only thing you own forever is what you give away. I’ve always remembered that. And, I remember, too, that he was tortured and killed.”
‘Please touch’
“Daniel’s Story” uses walk-through environments and “please-touch” components to tell of one boy’s separation from his family and his ultimate survival. Tactile environments, including changing floor surfaces, tree branches and barbed wire, create an overall sensory experience.
“Visitors step into Daniel’s life to experience what it must have been like to have their lives change so radically, so quickly. The exhibition isn’t a scholarly dissertation, but affects people on an emotional level,” said Sally Cooper.
Visitors can touch Daniel’s possessions, look under his bed and open a cookie jar in the kitchen in his home in Germany, sit on his bed in the Lodz Ghetto and peer through the barbed wire at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Although the exhibit has general appeal to audiences of all ages and uses no graphic imagery, it is recommended for children age 8 and older.
Roger W. Bowen, Milwaukee Public Museum president, said “‘Daniel’s Story’ is a Holocaust narrative unlike any other. The heartfelt words of a child witnessing such human tragedy is a poignant reminder that the Holocaust should never be forgotten. The Museum is proud to bring ‘Daniel’s Story’ to Milwaukee.”
The museum is holding a variety of educational programs in conjunction with the exhibit, including lectures, family programs, teacher workshops and school programs. More than 35,000 schoolchildren are expected to visit the exhibit from April-June. Also, a free Holocaust Film Festival is scheduled to begin on Saturday, April 27 with “The Island of the Bird.” For a complete program guide, call the museum, 414-278-2728 or visit www.mpm.edu.
Reservations are required for viewing by the general public and can be made by calling the museum. The exhibit is free to members or with regular museum admission. Otherwise tickets are $6.75 for adults; $5.25 for seniors; $4.25 for children. Residents of Milwaukee County may visit the museum for free on Mondays. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Installation of the exhibit and related programs are made possible through gifts from the Milton and Lillian Peck Foundation, the Jewish Community Foundation (MJF’s endowment development program) and the Gerald and Louise Stein Family Foundation. Additional support was provided by Gerald and Rosalie Kahn and Herbert H. Kohl Charities, among others. Educational programming was developed in collaboration with the Holocaust Education and Resource Center of the Coalition for Jewish Learning, MJF’s education program.
To RSVP to MJF’s April 21 event, call Betty Lieberman at 414-390-5732, by Tuesday, April 16.
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