Wanda Urbanska speaking about Jan Karski (photo: Karen Klaich)
Holocaust survivor Barbara Rodbell described the horrors of the Holocaust that she lived through as a teenager in occupied Holland to a crowd of 400 at Jones Auditorium at Meredith College during the North Carolina Holocaust Council's annual Holocaust Commemoration on May 4.
Rodbell, who was a friend of Anne Frank's older sister Margot, described the capriciousness of her escape from the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam and how a kindly, young German Nazi soldier looked the other way, allowing her to flee on the morning of the roundup and deportation from her ghetto neighborhood. "I have often wondered what became of him," she remarked. "I hope he wasn't sent to Russia."
Her parents and younger sister all perished at Auschwitz. Rodbell came to America in 1947 and moved to Chapel Hill, NC in 1985. She, along with nine others, lit memorial candles for the dead and those who rescued Jews at the commemoration.
Michael Abramson, chairman of the North Carolina Holocaust Council, emceed the event, a rich program including dramatic reenactments, songs from the Shoah, an awards ceremony for student poets, essayists, art and music. Two members of North Carolina's congressional delegation, Reps. David Price (D-4) and George Holding (R-13), paid tribute to victims of the Holocaust.
Jan Karski Educational Foundation President Wanda Urbanska gave a PowerPoint presentation about Karski's mission to the West and urged attendees to learn more about the emissary from the Polish Underground. After the program, copies of the new Georgetown University edition of Story of a Secret State were donated to teachers who agreed to consider including Karski's legacy in the classroom. Volunteers Lisa Grabarek and Mary Anne Grabarek assisted with distributing literature about Karski and his heroic legacy.
