Framed by symbolic billowing smoke from six glass columns etched with six million serial numbers honoring the Jews murdered in World War II, Jack Arbeiter recounted to an Arlington school group Friday in downtown Boston how his parents had saved each each other from perishing in the concentration camps.
His father — Israel Arbeiter, who passed away in October 2021 — helped found the New England Holocaust Memorial more than 25 years ago across from Boston City Hall, to honor the swell of survivors who settled in Greater Boston and to teach visitors about the atrocities fueled by antisemitism.
Jack Arbeiter, a docent at the memorial, said he’s compelled to continue sharing his late parents’ stories to ensure something like the Holocaust never happens again — “not just to Jewish people, but to anybody,” he said.
“It’s one thing to talk about facts, figures, statistics, but when I tell my family story, it becomes very personal and they understand it,” Arbeiter told MassLive Friday morning, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“I have this little fantasy (or) dream that someday, one of these young people will become somebody very important — a judge, a senator or president — and they’ll find themselves faced with some difficult decision about right and wrong, not sure what to do, and they’ll think back and they’ll say, ‘I remember that guy that talked to me at the Holocaust memorial and told me about doing right,’” Arbeiter, of Concord, continued. “And it will help them make the right decision.”
One student approached Arbeiter after his remarks, asking how she can channel the anger and pain that comes from learning about the Holocaust.
Arbeiter urged her to not be angry, warning that’s “not going to do anybody any good.” Rather, Arbeiter advised her to harness her passion, similar to how he enjoys educating young people.
Pressed how to talk to people who aren’t interested in learning about the Holocaust, Arbeiter responded, “You’re not going to be able to force feed them.”
“But you know, a lot of people who don’t want to learn don’t realize how much they want to learn until they start hearing about it,” Arbeiter said. “All I can do is tell the story. If someone doesn’t want to learn from it, I can’t force that on them. But I just think telling people helps, and they will tell other people, and you know, it just helps spread.”
Arbeiter spoke alongside Ambassador Meron Reuben, consul general of Israel to New England, and Sonja Kreibich, consul general of Germany to the New England States, who laid a commemorative wreath and lit candles together at the memorial.
The small, solemn ceremony expanded into an impromptu yet meaningful educational moment when seventh and eighth graders began exploring the site.
The diplomats encouraged the students to internalize the “First They Came” quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller at the end of the memorial, which warns of the consequences of being a bystander and not protecting one another.
“It’s also about knowing that whenever human rights in this world are being violated and things are not right, there need to be people who speak up and defend the dignity of people,” Kreibich told the students. “I’m so glad and grateful that we can do this together — it’s not a given. It’s actually a gift of history that we can stand here and celebrate also this friendship between the state of Israel and Germany.”
In an interview with MassLive, Reuben noted that International Holocaust Remembrance Day is “relatively new,” following a United Nations resolution in 2005 to honor Jan. 27, coinciding with the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Learning about the Holocaust is “so important,” Reuben said in the middle of the memorial as students strode by, as he lamented many survivors are no longer alive to share their stories directly.
“The focus is about education and teaching people that there must be a memory of man’s inhumanity to man so that A) it’s not repeated and B) that people learn the lessons from history,” Reuben said. “Massachusetts recently passed the genocide education bill — which of course includes the horrific period of the Holocaust in it — and we definitely hope that through this, the memory of the millions who were killed for no other reason but being Jewish will be there for future generations to learn, and to remember, and to make sure that it doesn’t happen again anywhere else.”
Gov. Maura Healey, who did not attend the event, acknowledged International Holocaust Remembrance Day on social media. The Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives both issued proclamations recognizing the day, as well.
“We honor the millions of lives taken during the Holocaust,” Healey said in a tweet Friday morning. “Together, it is our responsibility to lift-up the stories of victims and survivors, heed their warnings, and denounce hate and antisemitism whenever and wherever we see it.”
Arbeiter’s parents were just teenagers when World War II broke out. They met at a small town in central Poland, after being deported with their families by the Nazis.
Arbeiter’s father contracted typhoid at a concentration camp. One night in the quarantine barracks, the Nazis “started dragging everybody out one at a time and shooting them,” Arbeiter said.
But amid the confusion, Arbeiter’s father climbed out a window and hid in a ditch, before his friends rescued him.
Arbeiter’s mother, who worked in the kitchen, was later able to smuggle him hot soup and water to nurse him back to health. Separately in Auschwitz, Arbeiter’s father smuggled extra food to help her survive.
The pair were separated as the Russian army advanced, though they later reunited at a displaced persons camp in Germany. Arbeiter said his parents got married in Germany before coming to the United States and settling in Boston.
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