By Lara Fominoff @fomsy1 on Twitter

Holocaust survivor brings message of tolerance, understanding to Galbraith and Wilson students

Mar 14, 2017 | 2:09 PM

LETHBRIDGE –  May 15th, 1944 was the day 19 year old Ester Malek and her family were ordered to board a train in German occupied Hungary. Their destination, they believed, was a brick factory.

Malek, her mother and her niece marched 7 kilometres from where they were staying in the ghettos, to a train platform, where they were loaded into two rail cars stuffed with at least 100 people each, that contained two pails. One for water, and one to use as a toilet. It was standing room only for four days straight and people were stuffed together like sardines. Some suffocated to death, others barely made it out alive the stench of human waste was so great.

Malek, now Dr. Eva Olsson, recalls asking her mother as they got off the train, “why doesn’t this look like a brick factory?”

They had arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous concentration camp in German occupied Poland, and they were herded into a line where the Nazi “Angel of Death” Joseph Mengele would direct them “left or right.”

Life or death.

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Olsson explained her story matter of factly to dozens of Galbraith Elementary and Wilson Middle School students, telling them many of the 1.5 million children slaughtered by the Germans were their age as she shows them pictures.

She tells them that two hours after arriving, her mother was murdered; forced into a gas chamber. It took only 20 minutes for those in the dark chambers to die. Parents often fell on top of their children, crushing their skulls.

The children’s eyes widen as they listen intently while sitting on the ground in the Wilson music room.
Olsson tells them this is what hate does.This is what happens when intolerance is allowed to run rampant and to flourish. When nobody does anything to stop a bully, like Adolf Hitler.

She urges them over and over to be grateful for what they have, to cherish their education, to listen to their parents and while they don’t have to like everyone, “hate” is a strong word.

She believes she’s getting through to the children.

“Well, even now one little boy has said, I’m gonna pass this message on to other kids, so yes, I think they understand what I’m telling them.”

Olsson was sent to work in a factory that eventually burned to the ground. She was forced to live during the winter, in a dug out hole with straw at the bottom of it. She had no proper shoes, no socks and no underwear.

She tells the children she was hours away from dying, when the Allies rescued them.

“April 15th (1945) at 11am we were liberated by British and Canadian soldiers. We were supposed to be shot at 3pm that afternoon. Four hours, and we would have been dead.”

She was taken to a hospital where she and others spent the next couple of months. They had to be disinfected and many, including Olsson, were suffering from typhoid fever and dysentery.

From there, she went to Sweden, where she later met her husband and they had three children.

Why does she tell her painful story over and over to so many?

“It’s not easy, but one day at a time. It’s sometimes scary, depending where you’re going. But I need to do this. I made it a mission and I have a responsibility to my family. The way I’m doing it, helps to keep my family spirit alive.”
 
 

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