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THE UNBEATABLE DEALER

28111 Telegraph Rd. & 1-696

Across from Tel-12 Mall

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Survivor, Ex-Nazi Lecture
Together On Holocaust

(313) 355-1000
(313) 355-6414

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PASSOVNI

To All Our
Friends, Customers & Re atives

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28111 Telegraph and 12 Mile
at 1-696

355-1000

CHEVROLET

12

Friday, April 10, 1987

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

*pies WI, title, destiatiee
•*plus tax, title, ilestiutia, cab a
tin rebate isclabd 8 beam cask i
club!.
"*Ialedes Celebrity, Caw, Nen
Spectral effective April 1, 1%1 tin
30, 1901. Dula will prahle a task i
tin of $1000 ci All Celebrity ad
$750 ee lien, NI $500 is Spectres
le tie retail calmer wile pordases
takes alixery of a eligible reticle
the Program Period.

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Is it proper for a Jewish
survivor of the Auschwitz
concentration camp - and a
former fanatic believer in
Adolph Hitler to share a
podium on the national lec-
ture circuit?
To Helen Waterford, the
survivor, and Alfons Heck,
the onetime Hitler Youth
movement leader, it is not
only proper, but it is vitally
important.
He worshipped Adolph Hit-
ler; she knew Anne Frank.
Now they share a common
goal, as Helen Waterford told
a largely student crowd at
Oakland University recently,
"That young people will
know, from the mouths of
witnesses that what is said to
have happened did happen
... If we all carry our strong
feelings of hate, we destroy
ourselves and our life is not
worth living."
Heck and Waterford ad-
dressed an audience of over
250 at a forum arranged by
the university's Student Life
Lecture Board.
In August 1944, with Al-
lied troops in Paris, 16-year
old Heck was ordered to lead
3,000 boys in constructing
part of an anti-tank barrier
in Luxembourg known as the
Siegfried Line.
Like most Germans of his
generation, Heck is not eager
to speak of his experiences,
but believes that the "most
shameful part of German his-
tory" must be shared.
Born in 1928, by 1938
Heck had joined the Hitler
Youth. By that time, he had
already undergone a vast
amount of indoctrination in
the German Rhineland's pub-
lic education system. He did
not know the Hitler's prom-
ises of glory for the once
downtrodden German people
were coupled with the
planned extermination of the
Jews.
As a Hitler Youth
Bannfuhrer (brigadier gen-
eral), Heck was summoned to
a high-level meeting. There
he saw Adolph Hitler. Heck
said he felt like he was
standing face to face with
God. He recalls that Hitler
was absolutely mesmerizing
with his tone of voice and his
facial expressions.
In March 1945, Heck was
captured by the U.S. 76th in-
fantry. He introduced himself
as a second lieutenant of the
German Luftwaffe and sub-
sequently became a prisoner
of war. The French occupa-
tion officials sentenced him to
one month of hard labor for
his Hitler Youth career.
Helen Waterford and her
husband were deported to
Auschwitz after years of hid-

ing in Amsterdam. Her war-
time story ended in May 1945
with the Russian liberation of
the camp in Czechoslavakia
to which she had been sent
from Auschwitz. She had
survived 12-hour work days,
starvation and Dr. Josef
Mengele's selections. She re-
turned to Amsterdam to find
her daughter. They came to
America in 1947. In 1958,
Waterford remarried.
Heck recalls Rudolph Hes-
se's testimony at the Nurem-
berg trials as the lesson he
needed to enable his condem-

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Seeing Hitler, he
felt face to face
with God.

nation of Nazi ideology and
activities. He says he knew
then that he had done some-
thing wrong; that Nazi Ger-
many had been evil.
Having left Germany in
1951, Heck and his
Canadian-born wife entered
the United States in 1963. He
became a U.S. citizen in 1969
- with full disclosure of his
past.
He speaks of "what must
be thousands of Hitler Youth
members now living in the
U.S. who deny their past.
Those Germans in my age
group who came here after
the war had to have been
Hitler Youth — membership
was compulsory after 1939."
In 1978, Alfons Heck pub-
lished an article mentioning
his past and saying, "I do not
understand how an American
can choose to become a Nazi.
He has to be a nut." Helen
Waterford, who had begun to
lecture about her experiences
as a survivor, sought him
out. After all, "I wanted to
know, who is this man who
would publicly admit to such
things?"
Heck's determination to
tell his story — reliving a
horrible past each time —
has not diminished, since
1980 when he and Helen
Waterford began their "Hit-
lerism and the Holocaust"
program. One of their mes-
sages is that "those who have
changed should find forgive-
ness. War criminals should
be tried, but not killed."
Waterford says she would
find no satisfaction in the
death of those who were evil
and she is against the death
penalty. Both believe there
must be a distinction between
the war criminals — those
who perpetrated deliberate
atrocities — and the Hitler
Youth and German military
who fought a war of national
pride.

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