Holocaust survivor shares his story

[The Straight Story]

Holocaust survivor shares his story

When he was 12, living in a small wine-making town in what's now the Czek Republic, William Harvey heard a chilling broadcast.

"I heard Hitler speak on the radio to the world, and he said: 'I'm going to kill every Jew in the world,'" Harvey told more than 200 Bakersfield residents Sunday at a Holocaust Memorial Day service held at Temple Beth El.

It was 1936. "Naturally, when we heard Hitler's speech on the radio we didn't take it seriously," recalled Harvey, now 85 and living in Los Angles.

He and most of his family were hauled off to German concentration camps several years later.

When the train arrived in his town, "the sliding door of the cattle car opened," Harvey said. "When the car filled with people, the sliding door slammed closed on us."

...

"The material things don't mean a thing," Harvey told the gathering. What's important is "what impact you leave behind you on people's lives," he said.


http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x735122180/Holocaust-survivor-shares-his-story