which includes complimentary
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Ypsilanti Marriott at Eagle Crest
1275 S. Huron St.

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(734) 487-2000
FAX: (734) 487-0773
Contact Person: John Jorgenson, general
manager

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LUGGAGE

Travelers World*

6253 Orchard Lake Road
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
(248) 855-3180
FAX (248) 855-5401
Email: bruce@travelersvvorld.corn
Website: vvvvvv.travelersworld.com
Contact Person: Bruce Welford

A vast assortment of luggage,
handbags, briefcases and travel
accessories. Broad range of computer
necessities from computer carrying
cases, foreign phone-hookup
specialization and electrical conversion.

S

onia and her brother Nate have no choice.
They survived the horrors of the Holocaust
and must bear witness.
So several times a week they speak of their ex-
periences to groups at the Holocaust Memorial Cen-
ter. Nate continues to carry his personal story into
high schools and to civic groups throughout metro
Detroit.
"Wherever it is, I'll go. Any place with ears to
listen, with mouths to ask questions....any place,
anywhere," Nate says fervently.
Sonia echoes his sentiments. "Because I'm alive
when others died, I have to do something," she says.
"This is my priority, my life."
Born in Chmielnik, Poland, Nate and Sonia
were part of an Orthodox Jewish family with sev-
Honrable Menschen
en children. Life was good until 1936, when anti-
Semitism began to rage. Violence and arrests
followed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
West Bloomfield
The family was separated, sent to labor and con-
centration camps.
Sonia and an older sister, Helen, were together
in various camps, surviving despite the forced la-
bor, scarcity of food and Sonia's battle with typhus,
a disease that causes headaches, fever and delirium.
Nate worked in several labor camps, first making
munitions and then in a potato flour factory.
Ironically, Sonia got him that potato factory
job. She and three of her sisters had been working
in the flour mill when they learned Nate was in the
adjacent camp at Buchenwald. Sonia asked the fac-
tory foreman to help reunite them.
"The foreman was an angel from heaven," Nate
says. "He was a beautiful person with a swastika on
his arm." The man later came to his aid with med-
icine and rest when Nate's left hand was burned by
Honrable Menschen
a machine.
Before liberation in May 1945, Nate survived
a death march across Germany to the Austrian bor-
der. More than 160,000 Buchenwald prisoners be-
West Bloomfield
gan the march; only 164 made it alive.
"I made a commitment to two of my best
friends: Whoever survives reveals those things that happened. We made a pact," Nate re-
calls. "They were destroyed. I am living up to my commitment as long as I live."
Nate even testified in Germany at war crimes trials, in one case being the sole survivor
to tell firsthand of a guard's atrocities. He continues to tell his story now, zeroing in on
students, who respond with tears, questions and hugs.
Sonia, who also was an active volunteer during the early resettlement of Soviet
Jews in Detroit, cleaned a closet last Passover and stumbled onto hundreds of letters
from students who had heard her story
"I read and I cried," Sonia says. "Many kids cry and hug me, they feel with me. Some-
times I can't believe it myself But I'm alive, so I do this any time I can."

L

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JNSourceBook

Keri Guten Cohen

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