A tear for Irving Roth

Bridget is my youngest daughter. She is 14 now and at that age where the world is opening up to her, and she is becoming aware of its goodness and evil. This semester, she finished reading the novel, “The Berlin Boxing Club” by Robert Sharenow, for her eighth-grade social studies class. It is the story of a young Jewish boy’s struggle to survive in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich.

Recently, Bridget showed me a notice in The Vindicator of a lecture to be given by Irving Roth at Youngstown State University. “Dad, can we go to this?” she asked. She handed me the newspaper. It read, “Irving Roth to speak on his experience as a prisoner of Auschwitz.” I looked at her, weighing whether the topic was beyond her understanding. Her blue eyes peered through horned-rimmed glasses waiting for my response. My youngest daughter is growing up. I gazed back at her. “OK Bridget; mark the calendar,” I said.

‘Bondi’s Brother’

On a cold January evening, we drove to the Kilcawley Center at YSU. We found two seats near the front row of the Chestnut Room. Bridget perused the pamphlets on the table near the stage. She purchased a copy of the book “Bondi’s Brother”, written by Irving Roth and his son, Edward Roth, and then joined me in the audience. I watched as she flipped through the pages. She nudged my elbow and pointed to the words printed on the page, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which translated means “Work makes you free”. She looked at me as if I had an explanation for the insanity of it all. I nodded in silence.

Shortly after 7, a small elderly man walked on stage and adjusted his microphone. “My name is Irving Roth,” he said. He explained that he was 14 when he was transported by cattle car to the concentration camp at Auschwitz by the Nazis. He arrived with his grandparents and an older brother. An orange glow from the distant smoke stacks of the death furnaces greeted their arrival. “When we arrived at Auschwitz, there were 4,000 of us — 3,700 were gone that first day,” he said. Neither his grandparents nor his brother survived the Holocaust.

For little over an hour, Roth spoke of the gas chambers and the horrible living conditions in the camp. Many prisoners died of illness or starvation, and many were exterminated by their captors.

Bridget listened intently as Roth described the systematic destruction of Europe’s Jews. “When groups of people are demonized and no one takes a stand against it, this is what happens,” Roth said. “I lost my family, I lost my way of life, and I lost my childhood.” I watched as Bridget brushed aside a tear.

At the conclusion of his lecture, I suggested that Bridget have Roth autograph her book. She made her way through the small crowd that had gathered at the signing table where Roth was sitting. I watched from a distance as she handed him the book. He opened it to the inside cover and signed his name. She gave him a hug. A woman snapped a picture of the two with Bridget’s cellphone, and then Bridget made her way to the exit where I was waiting.

In the introduction to “Bondi’s Brother,” Edward Roth described his father as an irrepressible optimist, as a man who never stopped believing that mankind is up to the task. I, too, have hope that this world will find its way. I found that hope on that cold January night in the empathy shown by one human being for the suffering of another. I found that hope in a young girl’s tears for Irving Roth.

David Bobovnyik,a lawyer from Youngstown, writes for The Vindicator from time to time, often about growing up in Youngstown.