Long Valley Physician to Speak at Holocaust Memorial

FLANDERS, NJ (April 10, 2011)  Dr. Robert Werner of Long Valley will share his father, Harold Werner’s account of his life as a partisan, fighting against the Nazis in the forests of Poland during World War II on Sunday night, May 1^st at 7:00 PM. 

The presentation is part of the community’s observance of Holocaust Memorial Day, or Yom HaShoah, a day commemorating both the atrocities committed by the Nazis and celebrating the many acts of resistance against them by the thousands of partisans, Jewish and Gentile, hidden in the forests of Eastern Europe. 

The event, told through video clips and discussion, is free and open to the public.

Robert Werner was born in Vineland in a small but vibrant Jewish farming community.  He and his brothers would see the numbers tattooed on the arms of his parents’ friends and asked what they meant.

What they learned and heard from their father was not the stuff of bedtime stories, but a stark account of living in hiding and striking back against the Nazi genocide.  Eventually, Harold Werner’s biography was published in the acclaimed memoir, Fighting Back. 

“Very often, the only Jewish experience of the Holocaust that we hear is that of the ghettos and concentration and death camps," said Rabbi Moshe Rudin of Temple Hatikvah, the event organizer.

"But tens of thousands of Jews rose up and fought back.  Their account has to be heard- it's only then that you realize not only how low humanity can sink, like the Nazis, infected with hatred and racism, but how high humanity can rise: fighting back not just for themselves, but for the dignity, worth and honor of every human being."