Holocaust survivor recounts escape from Nazis in Gainesville talk

GAINESVILLE, Ga. — George Rishfeld of Johns Creek, all 87 years of him, gave a lively talk in Gainesville Sunday afternoon. You might call the mere fact that he appeared at all a miracle; some 95 percent of the 3.3 million Jews in pre-war Poland, where Rishfeld was born, were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Diminishingly few other survivors of the Holocaust are still alive, but Rishfeld told his story in detail, adding human drama to the awful story of mass murder and torture of Jews and others—including Romani people, homosexuals, disabled people, and Russian prisoners of war—under the Nazis from 1939-1945.

200 gather for grim tale

In the talk to some 200 people at Gainesville Civic Center, sponsored by the synagogue Chabad of Hall County, Rishfeld spoke about his early experiences, after his family fled Warsaw when he was still a baby. They landed in Vilnius (then part of Poland, now Lithuania), to escape the ongoing annihilation of 6 million Jews and some 5 million others.

The spritely Rishfeld, casually dressed, divided his talk into events he could not remember but learned about from his family, and later experiences, some of them frightening, which fell within his memory. He said his memories are still quite fresh, and he related some in detail in a little over an hour, followed by audience questions and responses.

The Nazis invaded Vilnius while the Ryszfelds (their original surname) were still there, but they were assisted by a Catholic family, the parents of whom had previously worked for his father in Warsaw.

Over a fence to freedom

His parents later told him that they eased two-year-old George, over the wire fence surrounding the Jewish ghetto into the waiting arms of Helinka Franchevitz, the 20-year-old daughter of the couple. They hid the Jewish boy, and later his parents, for about three years.

The neighbors in the Franchevitzes’ apartment building kept the Jewish family’s identity a secret. George attended church with the family; any of his neighbors could have disclosed his identity to the German invaders, but none did. As he noted, the famed Holocaust victim, Anne Frank, was not so lucky; someone in Amsterdam betrayed her family and all the Franks except her father, Otto Frank, were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

In honor of his Catholic saviors, Rishfeld wears a medallion of St. Christopher soldered to a Jewish star of David around his neck.

The Nazis shot them all

“Hitler drew no distinction among Jews,” Rishfeld said. “The SS (Nazi paramilitary troops) would line up Jewish children next to parents and grandparents and have firing squads shoot them all.”

Then, he added a gruesome detail—the corpses’ gold fillings, rings and their hair were removed, for their value or in the case of their hair to stuff mattresses for distribution or sale by the German regime. “Nothing went to waste,” he added.

The terror came as close to Rishfeld as it could without victimizing him personally: his beloved aunt was sexually assaulted, then murdered by a Nazi soldier in Vilnius, he recounted.

Not just history, Rishfeld says

Rishfeld said that Holocaust education is not a mere historical artifact: he noted that growing numbers of extreme political pundits on both sides of the spectrum in the U.S. have lately surfaced to either deny the Holocaust occurred at all, or to minimize its significance, saying the deaths of 6 million Jews and some 5 million others under the Nazi reign were an accident of war.

Others have called for the destruction of Israel—the world’s only Jewish state—and for the murder of modern Jewry.

Rishfeld urged members of his audience to remind and encourage younger people not to forget the Holocaust and its lessons of the evils of race hatred.

U.S. anti-Semitism on the rise

Rishfeld worried aloud about the rising incidents of anti-Semitic violence across the country, and invoked the Jewish slogan of “Never Again,” against hatred of Jews and any other religious or ethnic minority threatened by violence.

He said he was most worried about the growing and open acts of Jew-hatred since October 7, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israelis, raping and torturing them, and taking some 400 hostages back into Gaza.

Despite recent events, Rishfeld said he had only rarely encountered anti-Semitism in the United States, but one noted exception stood out. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 17, after his family had immigrated safely to New York.

Appointed a platoon sergeant at a base in Arkansas, he said with a surprising smile, “there were some guys with tattoos, and I asked about them. “’That’s a club we belong to,’ one explained.’ It said KKK, for Ku Klux Klan.”

Thinking quickly, he invited three tattooed soldiers to serve as his personal bodyguards, protecting him from any other harm. They willingly did so, he said, and he served his Army time without incident, even while wearing his treasured star of David.

Rabbi calls for charity, lovingkindness

Rabbi Nechemia Gurevitz, spiritual leader of Chabad of Hall County, sponsored and hosted the event, with financial support from local businesses and individuals.

“We’re here today to hear a story of a very dark day in history but also of shining hope,” said Gurevitz, a member of the Chabad Hasidic sect, as he introduced the speaker.

”The world is God’s beautiful garden,” the rabbi continued. “The world, with a divine moral code…will become a beautiful garden for people living in peace with harmony and brotherhood,” and took note of the largely non-Jewish, supportive audience that attended the talk at the Gainesville Civic Center on July 26.

The rabbi and his wife, Shaina, distributed plastic arks, reminiscent of Noah’s Ark, encouraging audience members to contribute regularly to any charity that helps people in need or distress.

The plastic arks represent a Chabad movement acronym of “Acts of Routine Kindness,” reaching out to people of all faiths to join in philanthropic acts and chesed, Hebrew for “lovingkindness.”

“Just look at this room today, hundreds of people gathered from all walks of life,” the rabbi said. “We are going to make this world a better place.”