Irving Roth

transcript

 Hi, and welcome to the Last Generation. I'm Maddie Kramer. In 2004, my grandma Susie passed away and I never got the chance to ask her how she survived the Holocaust. Growing up, she knew she was Hungarian and that she survived the war, but not really how that impacted her life and how her own life impacted my mom's, and even mine.

I wish I had the chance to know her more, learn her language, and really get to know her. Since 2017, I had an idea that I needed to bring families together to have the chance to talk to the grandparents and ask all the questions I couldn't. Because we are the last generation to get to know their stories for their life.

You are gonna hear an accent. 'cause I was raised in Argentina where my grandma escape after the war. This season we will listen to Holocaust survivors being asked questions by their grandkids. I hope you enjoy listening to these families having the most wonderful conversations. I loved every second of it.

I felt like they like person in the world to get to know these survivors.

This is episode one of the Last Generation podcasts. In November, 2021, I had the chance to bring together Ian GR and his grandchildren, Jamie, Aaron, Talia, and Jesse. There was laughter crying and even great grandkids listening in the background. The most amazing thing is to listen to Irving's grandkids, realizing that his own experience in the world changed their lives as well.

How each experience for each generation triggers into the next. When Irving was 14 years old, he was captured by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. Two years later, on April 11th, 1945, Aing was saved by the Americans. Sadly, Irving never saw his brother, grandparent, or cousin ever again. He reunited with his parents, Joseph and Helen, and moved to Brooklyn in 1951.

To restart his life, he became an engineer, a successful one. He got married and had two kids, four grandkids, an eight great grandkids. The best freemen of all bringing more life to this world. He dedicated his life to telling his story to younger generations and teach about antisemitism. This interview was recorded three months before he passed away.

Okay. I'm gonna start, if that's cool. Go right ahead. Let's see if this makes sense to start here. Um, how did going through the Holocaust shape your life and the way that you raised your children? Good question. What happened is that. I became very, as a result of the Holocaust and my experience in it, I was very, um, attuned to listening what people are saying, what they're proposing.

And if that idea goes to its limit, will that be good or bad for me, my children, my grandchildren, my people, my country. So it's that aspect of it to look at reality. I interpreted this to be, but what they really are proposing, so that it, it's very critical for me at this point even is listening very, very carefully and then react, say, okay, this is going to end up as a wonderful thing, so let me support it.

Or, this is going to end up being evil. Let me make sure I make a comment on it, or tell my children about it, or grandchildren and great-grandchildren. How do you feel like your, you know, your experience of the Holocaust impacted your emotions, like dealing with sadness or fear or just like any sort of intense emotions in your life?

Just 'cause like I myself are not, and not good at expressing myself emotionally. I just wonder like. How it kind of changed your dealings with emotions? Well, one of the aspects of emotions, I try to understand what's happening. It's really looking at things, what's the worst possible thing can happen if such and such goes on?

Which bothers me, what's the worst. Is it really serious? If it is serious, I need to do something about it. But if the outcome is that I will not be able to have roast beef, what I'll be able to do is chicken breast. That's not the end of the world. So it's the weigh, the emotional aspect, because everything has an emotional aspect to us.

We we're influenced by it, but my feeling is that when I usually look at what's the worst thing that can happen as a result of this. Did you think about that during the war as well? Like when you were in the camps, did you think about what the worst case is? Or did you try not to think about that? Well, there, I, I knew what the worst thing is, but by the time I was in Auschwitz as a 15 in a, as a, uh, 15-year-old, yes, I knew what the worst can happen.

But I always said before that happens is that anything I can do or influence. The probability of survival. What can I do to mitigate the worst? And I think that's, that's really what's extremely important to me. And I hope I've given that idea to my children and maybe even you guys. 'cause the worst thing that can happen, I'll miss the first two minutes of a Broadway show.

It's not the end of the world. I'll catch up to it. So it becomes that aspect of it, knowing what the. Worst possible can happen. And if I don't want it to happen, what can I do? How can I mitigate? It shouldn't happen. It's a great school of thought. Yeah, I wish I had more of that. I need a little, I need a little, I need to really think about that more.

We can completely, uh, control our emotions, but we can change it somewhat biologically thinking about what does it really mean in the real world? And the real world is that you wanna live and you wanna live well. So it's not gonna change. Basically, whether I wear a green shirt or a blue shirt won't make the difference.

So my blue shirt is at the cleaners. It doesn't really matter. Yes, it doesn't. Myrna says it does.

There you go. I agree with you though. I think that's why you're a survivor, because you're able to see what's important and what's not and how to keep living even when they're really tough decisions. Yeah. Not everyone could be a survivor. Let's be serious. Like you're in a remarkable person, that you were able to survive what you survived and be the way you are and not be negative or hateful or venge like.

Kinda leads me to some of my other questions, but we'll get there. But I mean, it's just like so many people going through that, even if they did survive or didn't like, you have to have something really special to survive and come out of it wanting to teach and like make the world a better place and still raise your kids.

Jewish and all of that. And that's just amazing 'cause there are a lot of people that just like couldn't talk about it and you know, kind of denounced who they were because they didn't feel good about themselves after what they went through. And it's just really, really incredible that you were so, like, we should all aspire to be like you.

It's pretty, it's just amazing. And I wish, like I was more like that every day, so I just, I just wanted to put that in. Next question. Yeah. Well, let's see. That's an interesting thing that she just brought up in terms of like Judaism and how much a part of your life it's become, or it is, and your family, and obviously like your two children raise their kids differently when it came to Judaism.

Granted, our parents have clearly gotten more religious as they've gotten older. Um, but that's what happens to most of us. It seems. Yeah. But, um, I wonder just in terms of like your decision process with Bubby and just deciding how much Judaism you wanted in your kids' life, and if the Holocausts had any impact on that at all, just like, did you wanna continue with this was, it's super important.

Well, one of the, um, aspects of my experience is the identity. Who I am, the world. When I was young during that period of time, wanted to change me from a human being to a cockroach, to a non-existent human. And that's something which I really fought against. And I suppose part of my survival has to do with just that, that I don't want to be controlled by somebody else.

And so to be, to be who I am, I grew up in a Jewish family. Judaism in my family as I was growing up, uh, was an important part of life. I mean, Friday night and Saturday morning, I went to synagogue with my father or grandfather for that matter. Although going with my grandfather was a much more fun.

Because with my father, I had to sit next to him and pray. My grandfather would say, you can go outside and, you know, meet your friends and play much easier going, but Judaism was part of my life. A a Friday night deep minute dinner, a a Passover Seder. Those were important events in my life, and that part of what I am is I'm a Jew, I'm a human being, uh, and therefore.

It's extremely important to me to remain what I am because I think as an individual and as a group, we each can, can and should contribute to society and to humanity. I think I find that the fundamentals of Judaism really are the basis, what they call ideally the western civilization. The Judeo-Christian civilization, uh, because after all, if you look at particularly the first five books of Moses, uh, they have something very important to say.

For instance, 36 times in those five volume, it says, you shall not oppress, oppress the stranger. You shall love your neighbors yourself. You shall not steal, you shall not murder. Those are fundamental things to our society. You shall not lie. Those are fundamentals to our society, and I think it's important to keep those things.

And in a sense, I feel that this was given to the Jewish people or they created it 2000 years ago, 3,500 years ago, and it still applies today, which is to me amazing. The same concept and ideals that were talked about two 3000 years ago should still be valid. Now, it, it's not a question of, uh, political correctness.

It's fundamental. And I think as long as you live up to those, uh, particular foundations and fundamentals of humanity and moderation in many ways, and understanding the other and listening to the other, I think it create a better society. I do have a question on kind of on that religion topic, so it is interesting that that was kind of your takeaway from the Holocaust.

I feel like I, I don't know, honestly. I mean, you've spoken to many more survivors than I have, but it's very easy kind of for me to picture. Someone having the experience that you had and coming out the other side saying like, kind of blaming God and religion for that and kind of having it push them in the other direction.

So it's kind of interesting to me. I, I mean, is there something that you feel like kind of brought you closer specifically, or, I think in, in John the, the, let me say this, when you blame God means that you accept the existence of a God, whoever she may be. So you accept that if you accept that. The question is how did he allow to this to happen?

The answer is philosophically, at least to me, nature was established by somebody by the Big Bang or by God or whatever you want to do. We live in a natural world and the question is what becomes, you know, we look for miracles. But they cannot go outside of nature. And so this the miracle that I survived, it's even a bigger miracle than my parents survived.

No, it was in what actually did happen? Well, for my parents, it meant that someone in Budapest was willing to take them into her house and protect them. A Christian woman, that's miraculous because the number of people who did that, although some did, there are. 25, 20 6,000 righteous Gentiles remembered at the, at the, so the, the, the issue of, uh, being close to God or really the issue is how do you behave to another human being?

Uh, because even in the Torah says, life is not in heaven, life is on earth. We don't know what's going to be there, if anything. On Earth. We know and we know that our actions with respect to each other result in good and bad. And so my feel, my feeling is that the particular way I look at it, that I look at my particular set of beliefs are positive.

You have to treat all your kids the same way. Now you sound like bubby. What's that? Now you sound like bubby. That's right, and I think that's critical because you realize that when you do something, which tends to put bias into behavior, it can cause damage to other people. So one needs to be careful. You need to be careful how you say it and what you say.

That's why as you write, as you write, for Bobby it was the oldest favorite grandchild, then the next favorite grandchild, and then. The youngest favorite is grandchild, so that's, that's really a, a very powerful message. I agree. I love being the youngest favorite granddaughter. I love being the oldest favorite granddaughter, smack in the middle of I can be the favorite grandson.

You really got really golden in there.

Go ahead. Did you ever feel like a victim? Or how did you push yourself to not feel like a victim after going through what you went through? And like, I'm also because like you, you know, it wasn't like that. You know, everyone in your family survived. Like, we know you lost your brother. Like I. If something happened to my sister, I would a hundred percent feel like a victim, like I, that this happened again.

Unfortunately, that's just the way I would feel, and I know like it's something I would have to work on, but I don't know how, and maybe you did at first and I just don't know how you were able to kind of get past feeling like a victim and just be like a better, you know, like I, I, I would love for you to like talk about that process and like what you felt in, in a way, I look at it like a ball game.

You have a ball game and you're on one team and somebody else in the other team and you lose a ball game, right? But that's the only, that's not the only ball game that you will ever play that ball game. You didn't do too well. But the next time you can win justice may actually will take place. And that's the way I see it.

And there's another piece which I said, but I hope you understand it the way I'm trying to explain it. There are people who have, who do bad things to other people. Sometimes it's a boss, sometimes who knows, A friend betrays you, all that stuff, but you wanna play the game. You wanna live, you wanna continue to live.

And my living, am I loving and creating, in a sense, is revenge in a way, the ultimate revenge. There are people who wanted me to become a vermin who looked at me as vermin. I didn't think of myself as such, and they treated me as such, but fortunately I survived, and I'm not a ver, I am not a victim. Yes, at one point I had no power to do anything about anything.

Every decision that I made. Make all of life was totally controlled. But let, lemme give you a particular moment. 'cause somebody asked me once on Yom Kippur, what did you do in Auschwitz? And the answer is, I fasted that the kind of nutty idea you were living on some black liquid called coffee and some soup and a piece of bread and you fast it.

Well, that's a decision I could still make. That's the only decision I could really make. And because I'm a Jew and because this is part of my heritage, I'm going to do it and I can control that. So I want to be in control of my own destiny. And in order to do that, you have to pick yourself up after the ball game and go home.

Cry as you into your beer for a while, but then you have to get up and continue. You get up and do it. There's, there's no point. Uh, things happen and you live with them, but you try to change it for the next time. So I look at my life from the very beginning when I was a little boy and lived in a wonderful country with parents and grandparents and all that stuff, and that was great.

And I look today and I have my great grandchildren, six of them all. Wonderful, beautiful Bri course. Brilliant. We understand, uh, and, and so it's a lot to be thankful for in a way it's revenge against evil. If you want to learn more about Irving's story, you can read his book. Bondy brother, a story of love, loss, betrayal, and liberation.

What are your hopes and wishes for your children or your children's children and their children? Well, first and foremost, I hope that my great-grandchildren have the same opportunities that I have first, and that they can live in freedom and harmony with their environment, with their fellow human beings.

That they set for themselves goals, which are attainable and achievable, and every time you set a new goal, I hope they achieve it, but I hope they don't stop there. There's always the next goal, and I hope that never will they have to live in a dictatorship, that they'll be able to live in harmony with their fellow human being and with the environment, the objective is to have a better life, an easier life, and more comfortable and more joyous life.

Children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. And may that come soon. And in the meantime, I'll do everything I can hopefully together soon. Absolutely. Only together can we succeed. I just wanna like. When, 'cause you didn't always talk about the Holocaust, and this might be a long, long, long-winded, but when did you start talking about it and like what made you feel suddenly comfortable or feel like you had to start or like maybe that you had to start talking about it to your family and to anyone really.

Okay. It might be long. I'll tell you that there are two moments really of that. Really three moments, uh, because when I came to the United States, uh, uncle Harry, and most of you never met Uncle Harry. Um, he was a wonderful man, but he did not know much about he, I don't think he knew much about psychology.

Uh, when I got here, he says, what happened in Europe? What happened to you? Let a sink into the ocean. Let's forget the whole thing. Amen. Well. He wanted me to startle over again and all that. And then I started school and the first time that I really spoke about it to anyone was in school, 'cause somebody decided to write an article on the Holocaust when I was in high school.

And it's an interesting article because I remember what came out, but the interview was what came outta it. The next time really was when your fathers were about seven, eight years old, was summertime. And they saw something particular peculiar in a way. They saw a tattoo on my arm and I began to explain that when they were five years old, I told them it was your, your mother's telephone number.

As they became 10 years old, they realized it's not because the wrong number of numbers. So I began telling him a little bits and pieces and as a result of it, as you know, uh, when you went to school, you bring things from home to school. You have show and tell. And they told in the classroom about some of the stuff that happened to me.

The teacher didn't quite believe all of it, so she called me. I told her yes, and I was invited to come to speak. And so her's, elementary school, middle school, and high school students I spoke to one teacher, told another teacher once they told the mother. School and so slowly began to evolve that. I spoke to schools about 40 years ago, 35 years ago.

Bob and I were in a, at a dinner with one of our friends, and at the dinner was their new son-in-law who happened to have been a rabbi at, uh, temple Sinai in, and we talked. He said to me, wow. You know how you, you, you were there. Yeah. He says, would you come and speak in my congregation? So my first talk to general public was about 35, 40 years ago, and the rest is history.

Yeah. I had to ask that question. I don't think I ever knew any of that, and that's pretty amazing. Well, as I said, Mary wants to make sure that you understand that when I started speaking to your parents, your fathers, uh, because they wanted to know what that number is on my arm. And so I slowly began to give them enough information for them to begin to understand and feel.

Uh, but, uh, with Bobby's understanding of psychology, uh, I limited to. Things they could absorb and not give them nightmares. And I still do that. Uh, when I speak to, uh, fifth graders, it's not quite the same as when I speak to, uh, adults. It's the same story, but you try to do it differently from educational perspective.

And as you well know, Bobby was a very. In person who also knew a lot about psychology and certainly about early childhood. So I learned that's because she used early childhood ideas on me. But our whole 60 years that we were together. What do you think drove Jews to be so motivated to be successful?

Value education like? It might have started before the Holocaust, but having gone through the Holocaust, not having opportunity, having, you know, after the Holocaust ended and what made Jews like persevere. Like why are we so motivated to like do so much and do so well after? I mean, you know, part of it might be because of what happened, but you know.

It just interesting to think about. Well, I guess because we think of ourselves as, and this is again, theologically in a way, I, I look upon humans as partners to creation, a partners to God the worth. The earth was here for a few million years and then appears, man, that's me. You and man has a very, uh, interesting ability that is to speak.

To influence others, but at the same time, we are told to live in harmony. Now, one of the things we need to do is develop a vaccine because we are now in a position, the whole world where there's something in nature through some mutation has attacked us. So our job is to live on this globe by inventing, by making things easier.

Today we have about seven and a half billion people living on this earth, yet when there were less than a billion. The Earth was able to supply the food and nourishment and transportation for all of them. And lo and behold, with seven and a half billion, we still can't do it, but we can do it because we can create, because technology has helped us and, and so I see that as a marvelous thing.

Today we're on Zoom, right? When I started in engineering, the idea of Zoom. Wasn't was like science fiction. So individual people contributed a lot. The way we function today, there was in the 1850s, there was a man by the name of Hertz who figured out how you can put intelligence on a radio frequency carrier.

That's how come we can do what we are doing. Drew in Germany who showed that you can put on a carrier on a radio frequency signal, not just saying dots and dashes, which preceded that. So, but you can do more than that. That's what drives me. I find it very exciting. Even at my age, I find things exciting.

That's good, that's great and above all to see and feel with my great-grandchildren. You know that I existed, that their grandchildren will know I existed. That's exciting. I once told, uh, you know, uncle Xavier, I told him once. When, when, uh, his son was born? No, when his grandson, grandson was born or granddaughter.

I remember which one was first, I think grandson. I said, you have achieved a milestone in your life. I said, what is that? A, you'll remain alive, not physically, but things you've done, things you give to your children and grandchildren. You'll continue from generation to generation. So in a sense, morally, intellectually, soul wise.

Continue to exist, which I think is exciting. So on that note, guys, a wonderful evening and we'll now see I can get something to eat. Have a good time. The last Generation Podcast is created by Mad Kramer and edited and produced by Pickle Music. I want to thank Diana Kramer to help us find these remarkable survivors and our families.

Stay tuned for the next episode to hear the remarkable story of Simon Grobowski, that he said that music saved his lives during the Holocaust. This is the last generation podcast, a podcast for the oldest and wisest to tell stories that live on.