Holocaust survivor Werner Coppel shares his experiences with class

This quarter I’m taking a class called Literature of the Holocaust. I figured it would be an interesting topic to study and learn about. Mid-way through the quarter, my premonitions have been correct.

Today our class was lucky enough to listen to a Holocaust survivor, 85-year old Werner Coppel, a man who has lived in Cincinnati since the late ’40s.

Mr. Coppel was born in Germany in 1925. His father was a German soldier in World War I. Coppel was raised Jewish, and had one younger brother. “We grew up middle-class in a suburb, just like many of you,” he said. “Except we didn’t know baseball, we played soccer.” The class chuckled.

Coppel recalled his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. While worshipping in the Synagogue, German people marched outside. He said, “I heard Germans marching by, singing, ‘When Jew blood runs [on] our knives, then we have accomplished something.’” Months later during Kristallnacht (which means “the night of the broken glass” in German) that same synagogue was burned to the ground.

Coppel spent almost a year at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in a labor camp called Buna. He didn’t share much about his time in Buna, but did offer many pearls of wisdom about today’s society in his talk.

He talked about how the Germans didn’t do anything to stop the Nazi regime. “All Jewish men between the ages of 16 and 60 were put into concentration camps,” Coppel said referring to the events that followed Kristallnacht. “And the German people saw this and did not protest. And the world, including the United States did nothing. And because everybody was bystanders, the Nazis saw this and it gave them ‘carte blanche’ to destroy the Jews.”

Perhaps his most stunning comment about the camps was about how all identity was stripped from each man entering the Nazi camps. Coppel explained the process of becoming a prisoner. All your clothes were taken, your hair was shaved, and you were given a tattoo with an identification number on it. “When we had this number on our arms,” he said. “We ceased being human beings. We were strictly a number.”

In the 1970s a letter to the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer claimed that the Diary of Anne Frank was a hoax, and the Holocaust never happened. Coppel was offended to say the least. “Nobody was speaking up except me,” Coppel said, gripping a water bottle in his hands. “I will not be a bystander.”

He warned that a lot of youngsters use derogatory terms like “gay” and protesters compare various political figures to Adolf Hitler. Coppel explained that hatred and prejudice is not the way to live. He said, “Hate and prejudice—what caused the destruction in Europe—is with us today. Little kids, people your age and old folks all use language which really represents hate and prejudice.”

But how do we stop this hateful and harmful language? Coppel told students what he does when he hears terms that are hateful. “I walk up to that person [who said the word(s)] and say, ‘Look, what you just said represents hate. I have no right to tell you not to use it but I do have a right to tell you do not use it in my presence,’” he said. “And you can do the same thing. Including in your own home.”

Coppel shared a story about his youngest grandson to make his most profound point. His grandson was giving a lecture to some of his peers and he said, “Stand up against hate and prejudice even if it doesn’t affect you.”

“So that’s what I leave you with. Stand up against hate and prejudice, even if it doesn’t affect you.”

His half-hour talk about his life experiences certainly opened my eyes, and taught me a few things about how to deal with people in this world who aren’t “good” people. His final comment was one that taught the whole classroom that it is our job to make the world a better place. Even if the problems don’t affect us.