He lived horrors of Holocaust
It's not often that students in grade school get to play historians -- questioning eyewitnesses to the most momentous and horrific events of the past century.
On Tuesday, eighth-graders at Westfield Community School in Algonquin had the rare opportunity to hear a firsthand account of the Holocaust and pose difficult questions about genocide, hate and forgiveness.
Their subject was Aaron Elster, a Polish émigré who escaped Nazi death camps by hiding for almost two years in a neighbor's attic while most of his family, including his 6-year-old sister, Sara, was murdered.
Elster, a Lincolnshire resident who will be 75 this year, has told his story to hundreds of suburban students during the past decade and last year published the story of his survival, "I Still See Her Haunting Eyes."
Printed below are some of the questions Elster was asked and his responses.
Q:If you had not been Jewish, would you have hidden a Jew during the war?
A: If the Germans found that I was there, they would have killed those people. What would possess me to stake my life for a stranger? It's a question I cannot answer. I'd like to answer, "Of course I would."
Q:More than 60 years after the end of World War II, do you still hate the Germans?
A: I gave up on hate quite a few years ago. I decided that hate could destroy me, and I was not going to give up my life to hate.
Q:Can you forgive the Nazis for what they did to your family?
A: Can I forgive? The answer is no. If they want forgiveness, they have to go to my 6-year-old sister who was brutally murdered and ask her for forgiveness.
Q:Do you still question whether God exists and why He allowed the Holocaust to happen?
A: I've made my peace with God and my religion.
Q:Why do you share your story mostly with young people?
A: They're still at an age where they can be reached. Ultimately it's going to be in their hands.
Q:After years of not talking publicly about the Holocaust, why did you decide to start telling your story?
A: I felt that it's important to start telling our stories because of the deniers … and pretty soon, we're going to be gone.