Holocaust Survivor Visits Swain School

It was a somber afternoon at Swain School in Salisbury Township, as Holocaust survivor Suzanne Freeling visited eighth-grade students to share her firsthand account of living through the Hitler era.

As part of the “Facing History and Ourselves” eight-week lesson taught by Swain teacher Rebecca Binder, Freeling agreed to come and discuss her personal account as a child living in Brussels, Belgium during the Holocaust.

Freeling has not previously spoken publicly about her Holocaust experiences, but offered a unique perspective as a toddler who survived, much of the time alone.

“Most of the things I remember are sensations, feelings … happy moments and sad moments, “ Freeling told the students.

Freeling spoke of the night when Nazis broke into her parents’ apartment in Brussels, severely beat her mother, and broke a tennis racket over her father’s back as the beatings continued. Her family spent the night in a Brussels jail, but she was saved from going to the concentration camps because her uncle had registered her for a “Red Cross certificate,” which offered her safety as a Jewish child.

She talked about her years living in a “children’s home” in Belgium where she slept on straw beds with rats and cared for herself at the tender age of three and four.

Freeling recalled her anxiety over whether or not she’d have a pair of shoes to wear each day. Shoes lined the entrance of the children’s home, but none had a specific owner. Whoever could fit into a pair was able to wear it that particular day.

An only child, Freeling told the students she lost her father to the Holocaust. Her mother was sent to work in Auschwitz and several other concentration camps until the war ended. Amazingly, she survived, but missed precious time with Freeling as a result of her capture.

Freeling explained she was eventually saved from the children’s home, a horrid place, by her aunt and uncle who had been searching for her for some time. Her grandparents then raised her until the age of seven when her mother returned from Auschwitz.

Students listened intently to Freeling as she spoke of her good and bad memories. Then they asked questions at the conclusion of Freeling’s talk, many sparking additional questions – much in line with the goal of Binder’s teaching method.

Binder said “Facing History and Ourselves” is a national organization with a focus on teaching about civil rights, the Holocaust and other prejudices throughout our history, and how it pertains to our lives and moral actions today.

According to the website, students in a Facing History class learn to combat prejudice with compassion, indifference with participation, and myth and misinformation with knowledge.

“It’s based on questions, so the whole class is always a discussion, never a lecture," Binder explained. "It’s a continual roundtable discussion where kids are learning with each other and from each other. It’s not based on right or wrong. There’s room for everybody’s experience and opinion."

Binder has implemented this method of teaching history for several years. She first learned of it during her graduate education at Columbia University and knew this was the teaching style she wanted to follow.

Freeling and Binder met when Binder was a young girl. She attended elementary school with Freeling’s daughter in New Jersey, where Freeling had emigrated from France when she was 13. Binder’s mother was one of the friends Freeling had spoken with about her past, though Binder admitted she had just recently been made aware of Freeling's incredible story.

Freeling has resided in Livingston, New Jersey for 32 years. She is thankful for her family – a son, daughter and several grandchildren who reside in Israel and California.

Her advice to the students was, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”