^B00:00:13 >> Gail Shirazi: Good afternoon. I'm Gail Shirazi of the Israel and Judaica section at the Library of Congress. Welcome to the Library, and today's program, "Shores Beyond Shores," with author Irene Butter, and co-authors, John Bidwell and Kris Holloway. This event commemorates the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass, November 9th to 10th, 1938, a crucial event in the run-up to the Holocaust. And we have books. Irene's books will be for sale, and she'll be signing them after the event. I want to thank you, Mary Bisby-Beck [assumed spelling]. I want to thank Walter -- Professor Walter Reich, Michel Wingfield [assumed spellings], and the special events office, and our two co-authors also. And I would like to acknowledge, if they're here, some of the distinguished guests. Is Debbie Dingell, Congresswoman Dingell here? Congressman Joe Kennedy and Jim McGovern -- they said they would stop by if nothing else pulled them away, and since it is the new Congress, they may have been pulled away [laughter]. We have representatives for the Embassy of the Netherlands. Thank you for coming. Sam Adams, the former mayor of Portland, Oregon right over there, and Anthony Fowler, the deputy chair of the Federal Holocaust Remembrance Committee, right back there. A crucial way to honor the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, and ensure they are not forgotten, is to preserve historical documents and artifacts. To that end, the Library of Congress offers rich resources to the public. LC has more than 158 million items, including more than 36 million books -- ^M00:02:24 ^M00:02:30 -- and printed material in 460 languages. Across the Library's vast holdings, there are Holocaust-related material in many languages and formats. Written resources can include Ytzkor books, which are memorial volumes, personal memoirs, eyewitnesses' accounts, and scholarly works. They're all found throughout the Library. Moving image section has newsreels and films, such as these two donated by Irene today. Genealogy resources are in our local history and genealogy reading room, photographs in our prints and photographs division, maps in our geography and map division, sound recordings and sheet music in our music division. Periodicals and government documents in our serials and government publications division, oral histories from soldiers who liberated the concentration camps in our veterans' history project. We have digital resources and many, many others. There are experts in each of these divisions to assist the public, so please get a reader's card and use our extraordinary collections. Now, I would like to ask survivors, hidden children, and children and grandchildren of the Holocaust to rise and be recognized. ^M00:03:58 ^M00:04:05 Thank you. It impacts many generations, not just the generation that was in the Holocaust. Our greatest resources are our survivors and their witnesses. Their stories must be recorded and passed on. Irene, Kris, and John are doing just that. It's a privilege to have them here today. And now, a bit about Irene. Professor Butter holds a B.A. from Queens College in New York. She was one of the first women to receive a Ph.D. in economics from Duke. She is professor emeritus of health management and policy of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is founder of the Raoul Wallenberg -- and lecture series at the University of Michigan, and cofounder of Zeitouna, an Arab-Jewish women's dialogue group. Now, our presentation, and afterwards, we'll have a questions and answer period. Thank you for coming. ^M00:05:16 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:20 ^M00:05:27 >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Good afternoon. Do you hear me? Thank you all so much for coming, and thank you, Gail, for the opportunity to present our book at the Library of Congress, "Shores Beyond Shores, From Holocaust to Hope," with my wonderful co-authors, John Bidwell and Kris Holloway, who -- together, we worked on this book for a long, long time. And I'm so appreciative that our presentation is linked to the Library of Congress's commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which is a crucial event that should never be forgotten. So when we started writing this book, our primary aim was to describe the experiences of a child during the Holocaust, and to revive the voice of the child as she saw things, heard things, and felt things that were going on around her. The aim was that this should never be forgotten, but unfortunately, today, we see echoes of actions during the Holocaust all around the world, and even in our own country. So in a way, the book is a bridge from the past to the present. Now, what we'll do today is, we're going to read from the book. First Kris Bidwell -- Kris Holloway will read a section that takes place in Amsterdam about the loss of freedoms for the Jews, and then I will follow, reading a section of an event in Westerbork, which was the first concentration camp that my family and I were sent to. And then, John will read a passage of a happening in Bergen-Belsen, which was the second concentration camp that my family and myself experienced. And after our readings, we will have a closing. We'll have a session of kind of wrapping up, and that will be talking about some themes of the book, and also linkages from the past to the present, and some of what we're experiencing today. >> Kris Holloway: Great. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Is this on? Great. So when we set out to write this story with Irene, a lot of people have asked about what was that like, having two co-authors working with a Holocaust survivor to write the book, and how in the world did you get to know her? And so, I wanted to say that Irene was my graduate school advisor at the University of Michigan. I did not know that she was a Holocaust survivor. She was my advisor, but I got pregnant really fast. I thought it would take a couple years. I got pregnant with my first child my first semester in grad school, and I didn't know if I could actually pull it off. The University of Michigan is a hard school. I know GW is too, got some students here [laughter]. And so, I really thought that I might not make it through, and Irene supported me. She said, "You're studying maternal and child health. Stay [laughter]. I will help you. I'll take care of Aiden [assumed spelling] during these meetings" -- my little boy. And really, without her support, I don't know if I would've made it through that time. She gave me such support, and obviously John as well. And then, she was the second person after John to hold our second son at his birth at our home in Ann Arbor 21 years ago. So we have stayed really close friends, and it has been such a privilege to have this time to work with her on the memoir. I was about five years in the writing, and just came out this past January. ^M00:10:07 So one of my -- because I feel like I connect with Irene through our children, and she has such spark and such love for children, one of my favorite parts of writing the book was really those early years of Irene's. And so, Irene was born in 1930 in Berlin. Her family fled, and they unfortunately did not flee far enough. Her father was able to get a job in Amsterdam with the American Express company, and thought that was far enough away from the Nazis, which we know now, it wasn't. And so, the scene that I want to read to you is set -- they moved to Amsterdam in 1938. This is the summer of 1941. So Irene has been there for three years. She's 11 years old, and it's a scene with her best friend, Vera, her brother, Werner -- her older brother, Werner, whose son, John, is here with us as well, and a boy named Rudy, who Irene had her first crush on. And Irene, in the book, is called Rini, which was her nickname. "With summer's start, the sun strengthened, stretching out its warm light farther into the evening. It was June, 1941, and Vera, Werner, and I stayed outside as long as possible. Along the nearby canal, we gathered on our bikes to ride along the water's edge. My metal horse and Vera's were fast friends, as they flew along at a full gallop. We grasped the looping handlebars, and steered the big wheels ahead. Go. At night, the brick paths along the canals were smooth trails. We barely felt the jiggling space between the bricks as our fat tires traveled over them. The two young families were at home, and people roamed -- the young families were at home, and people roamed leisurely in twos. We sped along, heady with the early night smells of pollen and full leaves. Werner was strongest, and could fly up the bridges and back down long before we could, up, and down, and around. My ears jumped between the sounds of birds setting in for the night, bugs waking up, water lapping at the canal walls, a far-off barrel organ, and our chains' rhythmic straining against gears. We picked up Rudy from his home. He was almost as fast as Werner, and twice as graceful. His long legs and arms moved like a dancer's. We took over a street, and rode side by side, all four of us. Evening lights slowly turned on here and there, reflections shining up from the water in shimmering light. We came upon a small park in the middle of a square with winding brick paths around small shrubs and statues. Rudy pedaled up, wound between the blackened shrubs, and disappeared. Werner came to a halt at the entrance, and held up his hand for Vera and me to stop. We backpedaled on the brakes, both of us sliding into the back of his bike with a crack. Tacked up on a tree was a sign, [foreign language], Jews forbidden. In the lower-right corner was an official police seal. 'Rudy, come back!' Werner yelled, fear edging into his voice. 'Rudy!' I called. I looked at the deserted streets, and whispered to the night to let him come back before anyone saw. He flew back around the corner just then, almost knocking into us, his eyes wide, and filled with light. Werner pointed to the sign. Rudy stopped smiling. All of our bikes, like eager steeds, strained to go on, but we turned back. Our horses had turned into just bicycles." ^M00:14:34 ^M00:14:42 >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: So I am reading a conversation between my brother, Werner, two years older than I was at that time, and he had a job in Camp Westerbork as a messenger. And he knew a lot more than I did about what was going on in the camp. "Werner had been looking for my friend Rudy, a boy from my class that I had a crush on. He and his family had been deported before our turn came, and I was hoping to find him again in Westerbork. Westerbork was a camp that was divided in half by a railway track, and every Saturday afternoon, the long cattle car train arrived. It stood there all of Saturday, all of Sunday, and all of Monday, and it was this long, long car with empty -- empty car -- empty railroad car, empty and hungry. No matter where I went during those days, whether I went to dinner, whether I went to see friends in other barracks, or I went to hang up laundry on the laundry lines, I couldn't avoid this ominous train. Now, that evening, at dinner, Werner was less talkative than usual about what he had been hearing, what was going on in the camp. His excitement about his job had faded, and his lips were tightened. And he was biting his nails. 'What is it?' I asked him, as we sat on the steps of our barracks. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'Leave me alone. Don't hassle me about your Rudy.' 'He's not my Rudy,' I said. Werner didn't make a comeback, nor did he tease me about hassling him as much as I usually did. 'Rini,' he said, picking at his cuticles, 'you know this is a transit camp, right? It is a camp that sends people to other places.' 'Yeah. Tell me something new,' I said. 'You know,' he said, 'I have been looking for Rudy high and low, as you have, but his family boarded the train a few weeks before we arrived here. He's gone. I found out yesterday.' 'Why didn't you tell me immediately?' I said. He paused. Then he said, 'Because I heard other things as well, and I wanted to check them out and make sure that they're true. Rudy left for that camp some time ago. The camp he left for is Auschwitz. Auschwitz is worse than this camp.' So I said to him, 'How could it be worse than this camp? We've been taken away from our home. Who knows who has all the stuff that we left behind? We're bored here, and doing stupid work. All the food we brought with us is gone, and the camp only has gross soup and stale bread. And we have to use bathrooms without doors.' I felt panic rising in my throat. 'Rini, you don't understand,' he said. 'I understand. I understand that you didn't tell me about Rudy when you found out that he had left.' 'They don't just bore you, or even starve you at Auschwitz,' said Werner. 'They kill you. I had to hear it a lot of times before I believed it. They kill people at camps like Auschwitz. They kill Jews like us, and like Rudy.' His voice rose, and he choked on his last words." >> John Bidwell: The family had been in Westerbork for about 10 months before they were finally deported to Bergen-Belsen, and this scene is late spring 1944. They've been in Bergen-Belsen for about four months, and there's been an influx of prisoners at that time. The Nazis were just beginning to really lose the war, and rather than liberate prisoners, they would be sending them to other camps. Many of them ended up going to Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen, at this point, was swelling in size with the number of prisoners, and there were harsher conditions. It was more cramped, and there was less food. ^M00:20:22 And that's where we pick up at this scene. "At first, hunger was a pesky neighbor, sometimes noisy at night, interrupting sleep. Then, it was a nagging visitor who came rapping on the door more and more. Finally, it had the keys. Hunger marched in, and hunger settled down. As the spring months dragged on, and the cold raced across the camp through every crevice, under every blanket, hunger went from a distant stranger, to an annoying acquaintance, to a constant companion. There was no place to escape, no room to retire to. It became an ever-present day-after-day rumbling. As mothers, fathers, and relatives started returning from work in the late afternoons, I left my job watching kids to get our daily rations. I waited in the long line with other kids and some adults. With food becoming increasingly scarce, adults started pushing kids out of the way to get ahead. I watched carefully. It always paid to be attentive when it came to food. If needed, I would be more commanding, and ask the servers for more vegetables, and I always measured the size of the hunk of bread. Again, I would protest if needed. I wasn't loud, but I was quick. Then I returned to our bunks, and I waited. I put my -- I sat on my bunk, arms around our pail of food, pulling what warmth I could, and inhaling the smell. Hunger sat beside me, whispering in my ear, 'Eat it all. It would be so easy.' It wasn't much, and for the first time in almost a year, I would be able to sleep with a full stomach. I slid my finger around the inside edge of the pail, feeling the moisture build to drops. When nobody was looking, I put a shaking finger to my tongue. My senses bounced between the all-absorbing taste, and listening for my family's approaching footfalls, my mother's delicate gait and my father's longer shuffle. The barracks darkened with the evening. The food cooled. Every minutes, I collected drops of soup, telling myself it would've evaporated anyhow. I couldn't wait anymore. With careful measure, I took my portion of food, and I devoured it. But instead of feeling better, I found myself more ravenous. I dipped my spoon with my shaking hand into the pail, and a few more times, and I picked off and ate the uneven bread ends. As the food hit my lips, my body wanted to slurp down every last drop, and chew down every last crumb. I kept thinking I heard my family, only to realize I was wrong. Then there was no mistake. I was terrified that they would say something about the portions, or read my guilt, but I was also relieved that I was free of further temptation. They said nothing. Poppy sat. My father took off his worn-out shoes, lay down, and closed his eyes. I looked over at my mother, who stayed upright, but leaned her head against the frame of the bunk. 'Okay, Rini, do you have anything hearty for us?' My father asked after a few minutes. In the past, he might've added something like he was starving. 'Of course,' I said, and took the brown pot from under my blanket. 'Have you seen your brother?' My mother asked. I shook my head. She took a deep breath, looking around. Poppy, my father, moved to her side, resting his hand on her bony leg. They both looked at me and nodded. They refused to eat until I did. 'I -- I already had mine,' I said. 'Do you need more?' Poppy asked. 'No, I'm fine.' 'Take more, Rini,' my mother said. 'I'm not hungry. I'm fine. My belly doesn't feel well today,' I lied, and then seeing their concern, added, 'but it's not that bad -- my belly, I mean.' And so they passed the brown pot and the bread, saving more than Werner's share for him." ^M00:25:00 ^M00:25:07 >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Well, now to some themes and closing of our presentation. I want to first talk about something positive, and that refers to the opportunities we had when we immigrated to the United States in 1945 and 1946. My brother -- my mother, my brother, and I were separated, and so we -- I came first. I was -- I spent one year in a refugee camp in Algiers, in Phillipville, and I was not allowed to be reunited with my mother and brother, who were in Switzerland. They had been hospitalized immediately when we arrived there, after a prisoner exchange that took place between people from Bergen-Belsen who had passports of South and Central American countries and German citizens who were in internment camps in the United States. So when we arrived here as a family, we were penniless, because the Nazis had taken everything away that we had. We were homeless, naturally. We didn't have a home, and we were stateless. And I think this is a feature that is not often mentioned, and not well understood. But in 1935, Hitler deprived all German Jews of citizenship, and that's what statelessness means, that it is a person who doesn't have citizenship in any country, and therefore has no right to be admitted to any country. So on the other hand, every country can refuse to admit people who are stateless. And I recently read that there are 20 million stateless refugees in the world today. What's going to happen to them? Despite the fact -- well, I would just say that when I came to America, one of the first actions I took is to apply for citizenship. And at that time, it took five years. First you had to apply for first papers, and two years later, you applied for second papers. Then, usually, the fifth year, you would get citizenship, and I don't remember any immigrants that I knew who were denied citizenship in this country. So from 1935 to 1950, I was stateless, and I have great sympathy for all those 20 million stateless people in this world. We don't know what's going to happen to them. Now, we arrived here penniless. My mother had never worked before. My brother and I had not had any education for three and a half years. I was very eager to go to school, finished high school in two and a half years, and then went to a city college in New York City which was tuition-free. It was an excellent eduction that I received there, and who can imagine sending kids to college these days that are free of tuition? And I'm forever grateful for that. From -- after my graduation from Queens College, I attended Duke University with scholarships and assistantships, and that's how I received my Ph.D. in economics. The job market then was favorable. Even my mother, who had never worked before, was able to find a -- not skilled jobs, but unskilled jobs. And so, the three of us worked to pay the bills, and that was possible in those days. I wish this were possible for immigrants coming to our country today. Unfortunately, we see the echoes of actions taken during the Holocaust in the -- at the present time. We see it all over the world, and we also see it in our own country. Ethnic cleansing, white supremacy, deportation of certain groups, dehumanization, the deprivation of basic human rights -- all of that, we see today. It's different groups now, because we saw a horrendous anti-Semitic incident recently in Pittsburgh, a murderous incident at a synagogue. But Jews don't compose the only group that is targeted at the present time. ^M00:30:11 People from Africa, African-Americans, Muslims, people from Latin America -- all are mistreated in various ways, and it is very painful to see that our democratic values -- some of them, anyway -- appear to be eroding. So my wish for the future would be that all the targeted groups would come together, form an alliance, and revive the basic traditions -- American traditions and values, such as liberty, freedom, and equal opportunity for all. And I'd like to quote one of my favorite heroes, Martin Luther King, who said, "The arc of moral -- the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." And it is my belief that justice is everybody's responsibility. Thank you. ^M00:31:26 [ Applause ] ^M00:31:39 >> Gail Shirazi: Have some time from questions and answers. Is there anyone that has a question? Yes? >> Microphone -- come up here? >> Gail Shirazi: No, he's coming with the microphone. >> Thank you. Irene, I know in my family, we had people who immigrated earlier, and helped bring other people in. Did you -- you know, from Algeria, did you have relatives in Queens, or in New York or whatever that helped you? >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Yes, that's correct. At that time, one needed affidavits. You couldn't get a visa without affidavits, and those were statements -- we had family that they promised that they would take care of you if you were not self-sufficient. They had to prove that they had a bank account, and that they had savings. They would be able to do that, and so our family here in the United States -- in New York provided these affidavits. It still took a long time. It took one year before -- almost one year before I was able to get a visa in Algiers, and it took even longer for my mother and brother, who were still in Switzerland. And I might just mention that the relatives we had had only come to America recently. You know, they were only a few years ahead of us, maybe four years, and they had also been deprived of all their possessions. So for them, it was difficult to make a living, but they managed. But they didn't have a whole lot to spare. Nevertheless, they took us in with great generosity. >> Thank you. >> I want to thank you for a wonderful presentation. I would like to ask whether in reflecting on your experience, you have any views about the periodic madness that seems to sweep humankind. There have been genocides of many sorts in many places as long as I've been observing, and whether you have any thoughts about humankind moving to avoid these forms of genocides and madness. >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Well, that is a big question. You know, we have used the phrase "never again" for 50, 60 years now. It has been repeated numerous times, but saying it is not going to make it happen. And so, there needs to be more action, action of interrupting hatred, of people who are targeted by hatred to come together and fight for what is legal and what is just. And I think we all have a responsibility to protect each other, and not see another group being discriminated against, or being persecuted, or being put in tent camps. We all need to be active, and I think too often we think the problems are so large, and each individual is so small that we can't do anything. But that is not true. Every little step really helps, and we can form alliances. And I wish that people in our Congress would object more to the things that are not just, and that do not correspond to American traditions, and that are illegal. There's too much silence. >> Gail Shirazi: Another question? Yes? >> Thank you. I am immigrated twice, so I know where you're coming from. I escaped from Egypt, then I left France and came to America. And I salute the flag every day, which is in my living room. >> Gail Shirazi: And your question? >> And my question is, what is the seminal event that propelled you to write the book? >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Well, thank you for that question. There are several, but I will mention that, first of all, there were four decades of silence. And my family and myself never talked about the Holocaust, but then there was an awakening. And one person responsible for the awakening is Elie Wiesel, who talked a lot to Holocaust survivors, and assigned the responsibility to witness, to provide testimony, and to tell the stories. And I have a quote in my book I heard him say once to survivors. "If you were in the camps, if you smelled the air, if you heard the silence of the dead, then you must be a witness. You must provide testimony, for if you don't, the dead will die twice." And that made a very deep impression on me, and I started talking. Another incident was, my daughter, when she was in middle school -- she took a course in public speaking, and at the end of the course, she had to do a one-hour speech to the class. And she chose the following topic, "Anti-Semitism, Hitler's Conquest of Europe, and the Concentration Camps." And she came home, and she said, "Mom, will you be my visual aid?" [Laughter] And even though I was petrified to do that, because I had been silent for four decades, I couldn't turn her down. So I have been speaking in schools for more than 35 years now, and it's enriched my life, because whenever I talk in a school, I ask the teachers to have the students send something to me afterward -- a question, a thought, how it changed their thinking, or just a picture, whatever it is. I have an enormous archive of gifts, of really beautiful gifts, and I know that someday I won't be able to go to schools and speak to them, speak to the students anymore. So that is also a reason for writing the book. At least, then, the book will be available. >> Gail Shirazi: Yes? ^M00:38:47 ^M00:38:52 >> Dr. Butter, thank you so much for being here today, and thank you for your words. My name is Nathan, and I'm a college student here in the Washington, D.C. area. For several years -- for several years -- for several years, since I was in elementary school, I've been deeply interested in learning about memories and experiences from the Holocaust. So it has been essentially a lifelong interest for me. Professionally, I'm seriously considering working in a -- working in Holocaust education, and my question is, what do you think is particularly important for young people such as myself to know and to understand? >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Very good question. You know, I tell students that during the Holocaust, there were the perpetrators, and then there were the victims. But what about the bystanders? So many people may not have agreed with Nazism, and with whatever happened to the Jews, but what did they do? ^M00:40:08 Would Hitler have been able to be so successful, and kill six million Jews and six million other people, if people hadn't been passive, and hadn't objected, opposed, interrupted, demonstrated, and all those things? I know there were rules against it. I know there was risk in objecting the Nazi regime, but still, we have to be active. We have to be vigilant, and so, one of the documentaries I think that's here is called "Never A Bystander." And that is the concept I try to submit -- transmit to the students. >> I'm Tony Fowler with the U.S. Department of Education. I'm so grateful to be here today. I wanted to ask you, from your experience with -- in academia, but also -- you just spoke about speaking to students across the country. What hope do you draw from your experiences with younger generations today? Some of us see reports all the time coming across our desk, and it doesn't look like there's any hope. But I'd love to hear your perspective on the hope that you see in the upcoming generations in the United States and elsewhere, where you have had experience. >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Thank you for that question. Well, that's what I'm talking about. The letters and the poems, the verses and the drawings I receive from students are amazing, and actually, I wanted to write a book that would include all of these beautiful gifts, because they are so hopeful. I mean, students will tell me, "It is the responsibility of my generation to eliminate genocide from this planet." Or they will say, "I'm no longer going to be a bystander. I want to help poor people, and I want to interrupt bullying on the playground." Now, that's another one where often students watch another child being bullied, and I recommend that they don't do that, that they intervene. They could be an ally to the child that's being bullied. They can confront the bullier. They can ask for help, and if they're the first one, then maybe there'd be a following, and many people will object to the bullying. And there's so many letters I have that are so touching, of -- some students will say, "You've changed my life. You've changed my thinking about the world. You've changed who I am, who I am going to be, who I want to be." So the favorite student population that I have are middle school kids, because they're not so well-informed. They are uninhibited [laughter], and they come up with beautiful statements. Now, I don't know what I would find if I could see the same students 10 years from now, but I hope that I have had an impact on them. And they're very compassionate, and very understanding, and I think, in a way, ready -- ready to hear about that part of history from someone who experienced it. >> Gail Shirazi: Another question? >> Hi, I'm Lorrie Gilbert [assumed spelling], and the daughter of a survivor. And my mom was friends and camp companions with Irene. Irene, I've always wondered how HIAS came into the role when you were immigrating to the U.S., H-I-A-S, and what role that played, and how the group helped you, and helped my mom and her family when they came to the U.S. >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Well, I don't have such a clear memory, but I know that HIAS was the organization, sort of the middle person between the people who were sponsoring immigrants and the immigrants, or the displaced persons where they were. And I think they played a role in having my relatives provide the affidavit, and then following up so we could get visas. It took a long time, but I think that they monitored this, and also promoted it at every step. And I don't know if it would've been possible without an organization like HIAS. >> Gail Shirazi: Another question? I've got one. To the co-authors, I'd like to know how much you knew about the Holocaust before you met Irene. Is it something you've studied? Was it on your radar at all? >> John Bidwell: There have been a few incidents in my life where I've been truly shocked, in terms of knowledge. And I was in eighth grade when the Holocaust TV series came on, and we did a section on it in social studies. And I was just emotionally floored, because I just couldn't imagine that anybody would do this to other people, much less in such a methodical way. So it's something that I've been very aware of, and very moved about since eighth grade. So, yeah, that's my background on this. >> Kris Holloway: I was aware more from a health and human rights standpoint, but not the details. So I think it was getting into the details, and understanding the system, and how many people, and its place in history, and the political and social atmosphere of the time that I learned a lot about. >> John Bidwell: The only other thing I would add is that I've had quite a few family serve in the military. I had two uncles. One was in Normandy, and the other was in Okinawa. And both were deeply influenced by their time in the Pacific theater and in Europe. And when they came back, a big topic in my family was the hardship of war, how it was a dedication, something you really -- it was important to serve, but at the same time, there was a huge price that needed to be paid. And I -- that was something that also made me very aware and very acutely aware of the need to remember what happened during this -- especially the Second World War. So getting to know Irene has been a true honor, and to help tell her story is something that has been one of the most meaningful and moving things of my life. >> Gail Shirazi: Any other questions? >> I have one last question. My father -- >> Gail Shirazi: Wait for the mike [laughter]. Just one second. >> -- so my father, who was a World War II veteran, who's passed, was increasingly infuriated by the deniers, the people who have the audacity to claim that the Holocaust didn't take place. So my question is, what do you do, or how do you maintain your composure when and if you encounter what I apparently see as an increasing number of these people who choose to rewrite history? >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: That's a good question, too. I had an incident not long ago, when I was speaking at public library in Ann Arbor, and a Holocaust denier entered the room, and was in the back row. And he started talking -- all of this is nonsense, and a few other sentences. And then he said, "Even Elie Wiesel admits there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz." So people were getting pretty upset, and I think the library staff was about to call the police. But, you know, I said to him that -- I said, "You are a liar, and you'd better not repeat this." And then he left [laughter]. >> Kris Holloway: Call it like it was. Got it. Call it like it is. >> Gail Shirazi: I have just one -- if there are no other questions, I have just one more little one. Could you speak about your encounter -- could you please speak about your encounter with Anne Frank? I found that particularly moving, what happened afterwards. Could you say a few words about that? >> Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter: Well, the Frank family had sort of a very similar background. They came from Frankfurt. They immigrated to The Netherlands. The Franks and my family lived in the same neighborhood in Amsterdam, but Anne was about two years older than I, and we didn't go to the same school. And I didn't know her well, but I had a friend who was in Anne's class. And she was a neighbor and a friend, and she often told me stories about Anne. And there were many stories about her, because she was naughty [laughter]. ^M00:50:00 And so, then our paths crossed in Bergen-Belsen, because as some of you probably know, the family went to hiding. They were betrayed, sent to Auschwitz. The mother did not survive. The -- Anne and Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen when the Russians entered Poland, and Auschwitz was closed up. The father was the only one who survived of the Frank family, and so I was in the same barrack in Bergen-Belsen as another friend of Anne's. And one night, she went to the fence -- we were separated from the women from Auschwitz by barbed wire, and we weren't allowed to go near there. But it was dark, and she went. And she heard some people speak Dutch, and so she inquired whether Anne Frank was there. And they said yes, and they fetched her, and brought her to the fence. And Hanna Lee [assumed spelling] said she was very thin, and she said, "Can I do anything for you?" And she said, "If you could get me some clothes," because Anne didn't have any clothes. She just had a gray blanket wrapped around her. And Hanna Lee said, "Yes, I'll come back tomorrow, same time, same place." And then she came to the barrack and told me about it, and together, we gathered a bundle of clothing, because they had never taken our clothes away from us. Now, of course, after almost two years in camps, they were rags, but we had more than we needed -- more rags than we needed. So we made a bundle, and so Hanna Lee and I went to the fence the next evening. And Anne came, and we threw the bundle over the fence. And another woman came, picked it up, and ran off with it. So that was the last -- then a few days after that, my family was included in a prisoner exchange, so we left Bergen-Belsen. And many years later, I met with Hanna Lee in Jerusalem, and she told me that she had thrown over another bundle over the fence, and that time, Anne did get it. But both Anne and her sister, Margot, had typhus eventually, and they died in the camp. >> Gail Shirazi: Any other questions? Well, I want to thank our panelists. Irene, you're amazing, and to come out with such hope, and such determination -- you deserve a lot of credit. And thank you for helping her record and document her very special history. >> John Bidwell: I'd just like to add one last thing. Before you clap, which is well-deserved, if you're interested in more, you can go to irenebutter.com, irenebutter.com, the website, and there's a lot more information there. There's also teaching guides, if any of you are teachers, photographs and video. Just wanted to add that. Thank you. >> Gail Shirazi: Is it all downloadable and free access? >> John Bidwell: It's all free, but feel free to pay [laughter]. It's all -- >> Gail Shirazi: Well, I want to thank you. ^M00:53:28 [ Applause ]