91-Year-Old Survivor Mesmerizes Colorado Audience

by Reuvena Leah Grodnitzky – Chabad.edu

For 55 years, Albert Rosa would not speak about the Holocaust. Eventually, his grown children convinced him to share his story, and when told publicly, the 91-year-old’s account of fighting and survival captivates and inspires those who hear it.

The annual Holocaust Awareness Week at Colorado State University attracts attention to Jewish lives and issues, but this year, its evening speaker program packed more of a punch than ever, drawing 1,500 people of all ages and filling four sections of the Lory Student Center ballroom.

“Just seeing Mr. Rosa in person had a dramatic effect on me, and seeing the amount of fight left in him after all that’s he’s been through is profound,” said Marie Handel, a junior at CSU, president of the Chabad Student Organization there and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. “The first thing that he said was that he’s proud to be a Jew. That was powerful for me and also put into perspective just how small our problems really are, and how far we’ve come as a Jewish people.

“Hearing the details and everyday life of someone going through that experience is so much more powerful than reading it in a textbook,” she stressed.

Rosa was born in Greece, raised in an observant home. The youngest of eight children, he was a strong athlete, excelling in swimming, soccer and boxing. He was transported to Auschwitz with his family when he was just a teenager. After witnessing atrocity after atrocity, including the hanging of his brother and the murder of his sister, he vowed that he would make it through to avenge the enemy. In 1945, with other Auschwitz prisoners, he was led on a forced death march, when he escaped and found his way to American soldiers. He joined the U.S. Army to fight the Nazis, earning five medals, including a Purple Heart, for his courage under fire.

For a time afterwards, Rosa lived in a displaced persons camp, looking for Nazis. He also helped recruit refugees and smuggle arms to British Mandate Palestine for the Irgun underground military group led by Menachem Begin, later to become Israel’s prime minister.

He met his wife, Betty Rosensweig (she passed in 1997), also a Holocaust survivor, at a displaced persons camp in Austria. They married in 1948; a year later, they immigrated to the United States with their baby daughter, Regina—who attended the talk last month—and had two more children.

“I feel it’s important that he shares his story so that this generation realizes and learns what actually happened,” said Rosa’s 51-year-old younger daughter, Yvette Rosa, from Loveland, Colo., who helped bring her father to the university from his home in California. “I hope listeners will be inspired by one man’s persistence and will to overcome obstacles in life, seeing that they can overcome what seems to be impossible in their own lives.”

Yvette Rosa, who works as an artist, noted that her father’s lectures are healing for him. After the talk, she was amazed as he stood to greet the long line of people with questions that snaked around the ballroom.

“His story puts things in perspective in people’s lives and gives them strength,” she said. “People rely on him for that inspiration, and it’s very important for those who hear his story of hope, resilience and human spirit.”

Rosa’s talk—part of CSU’s annual Holocaust Awareness week—was co-sponsored by the Associated Students of Colorado State University, the Lory Student Center diversity grant, Hillel, the Chabad Jewish Student Organization and the AEPi Jewish fraternity.

‘Stand Up for Humanity’

“It was remarkable—the sheer number of people who came together to such an event, especially in a place like Northern Colorado, and to see that that many people cared,” said Amy Levine, 47, who works in marketing and web development. She attended the talk with her 17-year-old daughter. “This could be one of the last opportunities we’ll ever have to hear a survivor speak, so it’s amazing that the whole community came out to this unique and special event.”

Levine was particularly impacted by Rosa’s courage and fighting spirit: “His message impacted the whole community.”

For Renee Cohn Jones, what Rosa witnessed and survived, added to the love he had for the family he lost, proved exceptional.

“As a psychologist, hearing that someone told him to bottle up his feelings and not talk about the horrors was very sad to me. I sincerely hope that our new therapies are doing a much better job helping survivors of trauma,” said the 47-year-old Jones, who lives in Fort Collins and attended with her two daughters. “The talk helped people understand that they can make a difference in the world today, and how important it is to stand up for humanity and what is right. I hope my children learned that it is important to be loving and kind, to be determined to never give up, to keep a sense of humor and to be grateful for the world they live in today.”

Among those in attendance were students and faculty from CSU, as well as community members of all ages.

A Message of Jewish Pride

Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik, co-director of the Rohr Chabad Jewish Center of Northern Colorado and Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., with his wife, Devorah Leah, felt the most powerful message was that of Jewish pride.

“Living in a far-flung community without a large Jewish population, Jewish pride becomes an emphasis, as well as looking for ways to bolster it,” said Gorelik, who is originally from Melbourne, Australia, which has the highest per capita of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. The rabbi was instrumental in bringing Rosa to campus, as he was with last year’s guest speaker: Rabbi Nissen Mangel of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Mangel—a renowned scholar, author, speaker and philosopher—was the youngest-ever inmate of Auschwitz, just 10 when he arrived. He addressed some 700 students, faculty and community members at the annual lecture that proves one of the highlights of the week’s programming.

“On every level, this is one of the most meaningful events that I can be a part of, and people really grabbed the opportunity to hear him,” said Gorelik. “We were all very moved by his fighting spirit and his message of overcoming struggles.”

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