Holocaust Survivor Will Speak At Morrilton on March 5
Alfred Munzer with Gisele Munzer, his mother, outside a cosmetics store in The Hague, ca. 1948-1949. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Alfred Munzer. |
Holocaust survivor Alfred Münzer will speak at Morrilton as part of the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton’s 11th annual Holocaust Survivor Series. He will lecture at Morrilton High School’s Devil Dog Arena at 9:45 a.m., Tuesday, March 5, to secondary students in UACCM’s service area. Later that evening at 6:30 p.m., he will speak again at UACCM’s Fine Arts Auditorium. A question and answer session and photo opportunities will follow the presentations. Both events are free and open to the public.
When Alfred Münzer was born in Nazi-occupied Netherlands on
November 23, 1941, his parents knew their youngest of three children was entering
a dire situation. The family doctor even advised his parents to terminate the
pregnancy to save the child from the evils of the Holocaust. Some 160,000 Dutch
Jews lived in the country and faced a hardening Nazi policy of suppression—activities
included segregation from the general population, confiscation of property, and
regular violence. Only months after Alfred’s birth, the Nazi government ordered
his father, Simcha, into a labor camp, only to be saved when he admitted
himself into a hospital for a hernia surgery.
When his mother, Gisele, joined her husband under the auspices of a
nurse’s assistant, Alfred and his two sisters separated and went under the care
of family friends. Alfred moved in with a Dutch-Indonesian family, the Madnas,
who treated him as one of their own. The Madnas’ housekeeper took much of the
duties to take care of him and acted as a surrogate mother. He was never
allowed to leave the house and had to hide in the cellar when the Gestapo conducted
searches for Jews in hiding. He remained with the Madnas throughout the war.
Alfred with the Madna Family, April 18, 1944. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Alfred Munzer. |
After the war ended, the Red Cross evacuated Gisele back to
Holland. She reunited with Alfred, but the four-year-old had no memory of his
mother. To transition the boy back to his family, Gisele invited his surrogate
mother to their new home in the Netherlands.
In 1958, Alfred and Gisele immigrated to the United States. He
lives in Washington, D.C., where he was an internist and pulmonologist. He
still maintains a close relationship with the Indonesian-Dutch family who hid
from the Nazis.
Alfred Munzer, present day |
“It’s now been almost 74 years since World War II ended and
Auschwitz and other death camps were liberated, “Clark said. “We want to
provide as many people in the region with the opportunity to hear from a
survivor, to be enlightened as to how and why this happened, and to make sure
that people never forget. It’s an honor and a privilege to host this event. We
can read books and watch films about the Holocaust, but nothing can compare to
hearing these powerful stories first-hand.”
The format of both events will be a stand-alone lecture with
Münzer speaking about his experiences for 40-50 minutes followed by a Q-and-A
session and photo opportunities with the audience. Those who wish to bring a school group to the daytime presentation should
contact Mary Clark at 501-977-2011 or clark@uaccm.edu
to ensure students can be seated together.
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