Holocaust Luncheon

  • Published
  • By Airman Adawn Kelsey
  • 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Walking into the Sheppard Club a solemn, heartrending atmosphere met almost 300 attendees to the Holocaust luncheon April 23. Guests entered a room walking through a wooden wall with a passage way that lead into a room of disquieting displays linked together by simulated barbed wire. 

While viewing the displays, guests were confronted by hundreds of paper cut-out foot prints representing the difficulty the victims of the Holocaust had, when trying not to step on each other's feet as they were crammed into rooms. 

There was taped outline of a box about 2 feet by 2 feet representing the amount of space three people would have to stand in up to a five days period with no food and no water. 

Near the end of the displays, there was a pile of shoes that the Sheppard community had donated representing just a portion of the giant wall of shoes that had been collected from the 6 million people who had lost their lives. The shoes will now be given to Wichita Falls families that need them. 

Guest speaker Mr. Paul Kessler from the Dallas Holocaust Museum spoke about his experience with the holocaust and how it affected him and his family. 

"My story is only one of many, and it was not only the Jews that share my story. It was gypsies, farmers, the poor, and so many others that were discriminated against," Mr. Kessler said. 

Mr. Kessler began his story telling the audience about the beginning of the Holocaust. His father was taken never to be seen again when he was 3 years old. He remembered hiding under the bed; feeling scared and he knew people were coming for him. 

He and his mother then fled and were taken in by a peasant family that had dug a hole in their back yard and covered it with leaves and branches and manure. He said that they hid there for nearly a year while they used storytelling and counting to pass the time. 

"By the time that we were finally freed from our hole I could definitely count to at least 10,000 ," Mr. Kessler said. 

He and his mother immigrated to America to his surprise "the streets weren't paved with gold" said Kessler. 

"We began our new life, and we did not speak about what had happened. We learned this new language and I started school in this new place," Mr. Kessler said. 

Kessler said that he has a hard time remembering everything that happened. He said that he thought that he would never feel fear like that again. 

"I never imagined that in my life time I would fear this thing again. I thought would never have feel that fear again. Never again, came again on 9/11," Mr. Kessler said. 

Mr. Kessler spoke strongly about military and how he appreciated what they do. 

"I look around and I see many of you in uniform. Today I ask myself, would I have that same courage to go out there and save another's life, a complete stranger, to have the courage to go against human nature and risk my life for a stranger. And you have that job." 

After his speech he was presented with a 500 dollar donation to the Dallas Holocaust Museum by Capt. Victor Holmes, an instructor at the 383rd Training Squadron. 

The luncheon concluded with words from Col. David Norsworthy, vice commander of the 82nd Training Wing. He touched again on the importance of stopping acts of terrorism.
 
"I encourage each of you to look to the right and to the left in this very room. Within each uniformed man and woman you see here, you are seeing the outward sign of the courage of our country and the dedication to preventing this from ever happening again," Col. Norsworthy said.