Personal account keeps memory of atrocities from fading

Story ran in the Monday local & state section front

The Holocaust can never ever be forgotten.

That's the message Lisl Bogart, 82, wanted to pass along to the audience during a Yom Hashoah Holocaust Memorial Service on Sunday afternoon.

The Delray resident visited Temple Shalom in Naples to speak about her experiences before, during and after the tragedy that claimed the lives of 6 million Jewish and 5 million others.

She was the only survivor out of 43 family members.

"Survivors are here to tell and teach what prejudice and hatred can do," said Bogart, during her speech that came just days after the May 1 Holocaust Remembrance Day. "We ask young people to remember the 6 million who perished and not let it happen again."

Bogart was 13 when the Germans invaded her hometown of Prague. Her family was eventually put into a cattle car and taken to Terezin in Czechoslovakia. It was the last time she would see them.

"I was on that cattle car with my parents and brother and I was pushed off ... ," said Bogart about the transport that contained 5,000 Czechoslovakian Jewish who were sent to be killed March 7, 1936 — the anniversary of Hitler's move on Czechoslovakian President Edvard Benes' territory. "I later found out that there were 5,004 on the list and I was one of four taken off."

Bogart does not know why she was spared.

She remained in a concentration camp until it was freed by Russian forces May 7, 1945. She didn't know until weeks later because she suffered a bad case of typhoid fever at age 18.

Bogart moved to the United States a year later. She married and had two children who would make her a grandmother of five and great-grandmother of one.

"I speak to let children know not to stand by and watch prejudice or hatred," Bogart said. "The whole world was silent ... nobody came to our help and I don't want that to happen ever again."

Bogart has made it her mission to keep the message of remembrance alive as a speaker and member of the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center of Florida Atlantic University.

The non-sectarian, non-profit center uses the lessons of the Holocaust to teach today's youth about racial hatred, bigotry, and indifference. They also create permanent records of survivors' eyewitness accounts.

"Her message was so special and important because she is right that everybody goes on with their lives and it's easy to forget," said Mary Ellen Dutcher, 60, of Naples.

Ruth Dorfman, 63, of Naples, was born just after the Holocaust and said speeches like Bogart's put a face to the event.

"My knowledge of what happened was very second hand from hearing adults speak in whispers," said Dorfman, adding that she has been asking about it since she read "The Diary of Anne Frank" as a child. "I never want to see discrimination and what she is doing ... I admire her courage to speak about it."

Temple Shalom Rabbi Baht Weiss said the time to hear from survivors is running out as they get well into their 80s. Their stories are dying with them.

"We are losing that first account and it's important that as time goes by ... we don't forget," Baht said. "We are seeing this in Darfur, Kenya ... stories like this aren't forgotten, they go on."