March 25, 2025 • 64 mins
This is a conversation that must be heard. Holocaust education is more important than ever. Join me for an unforgettable episode of Conversations with Alan as we honor the legacy of Abe Piasek, a Holocaust survivor who turned his pain into a powerful message of hope.
I’m joined by Steve Goldberg, who has shared Abe’s story with over 6,200 people, and Abe’s son, Joe Piasek, who first heard the full details of his father’s journey in 2017. Together, we’ll reflect on Abe’s resilience, kindness, and his unwavering belief in teaching others not to hate.Just days before his passing, Abe asked Steve to “keep telling my story.” This episode is part of that promise.🎧
Let’s ensure Abe’s legacy lives on.
I’m joined by Steve Goldberg, who has shared Abe’s story with over 6,200 people, and Abe’s son, Joe Piasek, who first heard the full details of his father’s journey in 2017. Together, we’ll reflect on Abe’s resilience, kindness, and his unwavering belief in teaching others not to hate.Just days before his passing, Abe asked Steve to “keep telling my story.” This episode is part of that promise.🎧
Let’s ensure Abe’s legacy lives on.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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[MUSIC]
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Good evening everyone and thank you for joining me for conversations with Alan.
I'm Alan Locker, the child of two Holocaust survivors.
I created this series to foster honest discussions about the rise of anti-Semitism and hate,
with the hope of sparking conversations that encourage us all to reflect an hour role in shaping history.
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My goal is to inspire collective action to eradicate hate in all its forms.
These conversations are more crucial than ever as anti-Semitism continues to rise around the world.
Tonight I am honored to share the story of Abe Piosic, a remarkable Holocaust survivor whose resilience,
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courage and joy for life left in an indelible mark aren't all who knew him.
Joining me to help tell Abe's story are Steve Goldberg, a dedicated history teacher who is taking a break
from his 20 plus year career to share Abe's legacy and educate people about the Holocaust.
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And Abe's son, Joe Piosic, will provide a personal perspective on his father's extraordinary life.
Abe's story is one of survival, hope and the power of lifting others up, even in the darkest of times.
Together we'll explore his journey, the lessons he left behind, and why his message is more important now than ever.
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Please, thank you for joining us tonight as we honor Abe's memory and his unwavering call to keep telling his story.
Please help me welcome Steve Goldberg and Abe's son, Joe Piosic, to Conversations with Alan.
Hi, gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Alan. It's great to be here.
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Well, Steve, you reached out to me back in November after coming across the previous Conversations with Alan episode.
And I really am inspired by your passion for history and your passion to go out and tell Abe's story.
Where did your love, I mean, you were a history teacher, but a US history teacher.
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Where did your love of history first begin? That's a great question.
I had a teacher in high school. I wasn't, I wasn't not a fan of history at the time.
And I didn't do particularly well in his class. It was an ancient and medieval history class.
But he was just incredibly personable with students.
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And he became sort of a mentor to me. My first teaching job was at my old high school.
And he actually sent, he was on a sabbatical. His name is Philip Burnham.
People knew it was Dr. Burnham, if anybody's who knows him is watching.
He had a sabbatical year and he sent postcards from Paris to my students.
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And my students couldn't figure out how there was a Paris postmark on them or who was sending them.
He signed them, M.Lip Professor Don Pann. I don't speak French, so I may be butchering that.
But it roughly translates to the professor of yesterday year.
And he sort of like the way that I teach that the word history means to learn by asking questions.
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And he modeled that through the questions that he asked.
And I tried to get my students during my teaching career as active as possible
to be asking questions and to get the why and to look at multiple sources.
So I would say largely through him.
And then I've worked with some amazing teachers along the way and had some pretty remarkable students too.
(04:01):
So interesting. And Joe, you're a teacher as well, correct?
Yes, communication at the State University here in New York.
Nice. I studied communications. Steve, I think I might have mentioned this when we first spoke,
but I didn't like history. And I don't know if that has anything to do with
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my parents' story of being Holocaust survivors. I don't know why, because I am
much more fascinated at this age today. But I wonder if I had a teacher who would have inspired
the questions of the asking the why, because I think that is actually, I'm so glad you said that out loud
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because I do think that is so important. And also learning our stories, I didn't ask enough
questions of my parents growing up. So Steve, were you, how familiar were you about the Holocaust
before aid came into your life? I've been thinking a lot about that.
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I mean, I've visited the Holocaust Museum in DC several times and I'd read "Night" by Ellie
Wiesel. And the year before I met Abe, actually, I, well, let me back up. There was a woman named Vivian
Connell who, she had ALS and she was a teacher in Chapel Hill. I never met her, but a rabbi, I know,
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posted about her when she passed away and suggested that people watch this talk that she gave. And it's
one of the best talks I've ever given. I've ever heard, I didn't give it. And in it, she makes the case
that one of her dying wishes with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease is that she wants to bring her students to
the Holocaust Museum because it's such a powerful place. And so I was inspired by this talk and I
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asked my principal, can I show this to my students because she dropped some colorful language toward the
end and he said, yeah, I tried to cut before then, but it's okay. And so I showed it, I think, in 2016,
2017 and 2018 at the beginning of the year, to my students. And it was like about, you know, standing
up for, standing up against injustice and the Holocaust Museum is this incredible place. And she had
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an amazing journey with her students there. And so I showed it to my students in 2018 and a girl said,
so when are we going? And I said, when are we going where? And she said, well, the Holocaust Museum,
you showed us this video that it's the really important to go there. And, you know, are we going to go?
And I said, well, you know, I don't have ALS and I'm not sure I can put that together, but I'm,
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I hear what you're saying and let's see if we can put that together. And that then led to,
I guess the previous year I'd had a survivor come speak, but his family had funds and his story was
about how they were able to, you know, get visas and get away and many members of their family
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perished during the Holocaust, but they weren't in the camps and it was, he was a wonderful speaker,
but I didn't have the connection I had with Abe. And then when I didn't bring Abe to our school,
I don't know if you want to ask this question. Yeah, I will. Before we go there, the story
from this teacher with ALS, is that available online anywhere? Yeah, if you search for under
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Vimeo, you know what? Send it to me and I will put it up on the link down below for people
they can watch it. So definitely send it to me. Joe, you know, for me, I knew my parents were Holocaust
survivors. They might have talked about it a little when I was younger, but it was after Shindler's
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List and getting my parents to do the video for the Shoah Foundation. For you and your sister,
what did you know growing up about your dad's experience, you know, was it, did you know the full scope of it?
Well, that's a good question. No, and I don't even think I currently know the full scope of it.
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I'm, you know, still learning and thinking and reflecting on the things that he had difficulty
talking about when I was young to try to kind of synthesize my memory to now add some meaning to what
he said that fell perhaps a little flat, you know, decades ago. So no, I'm not so sure about the full
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scope, although with Steve's investigative work and his passion on this, I've learned a lot more
and thought about it in a way that I hadn't thought about him before. Yeah, my mother was an American
was his escape hatch from needing to live that story every day.
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That's such an interesting take on that, but I can imagine how true and how different
than my parents because both of my parents were, you know, so they really couldn't escape that.
That's really an interesting take and I can imagine that that must have been an escape from many
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survivors, you know, finding a partner who didn't have that connection.
You know, American or not, wherever they were from. Steve, you are Jewish, but have no
personal connection to the Holocaust, correct? Not that I'm aware of. No, yeah, my family came over
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like 1880s, 1890s. Wow. And you, Abe came in 2018 and you said you had nothing to do with bringing him
there. How did he end up at your school? So our German teacher wanted to commemorate 80 years
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since Kristallnacht, which your viewers may know this, but Kristallnacht was November 9th, 10th,
in Germany and Austria, the territory of Germany can control before World War II, where they
it translates roughly to the night of broken glass and, you know, hundreds, if not thousands,
of synagogues were destroyed and Jewish businesses and homes and I believe about 30,000 Jews were
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rounded up and taken to, they weren't the concentration camps that would come later, but they were taken to
Dachau and other places and basically given the message that, you know, you should get out if you
have the means to get out, you're not welcome here. And so she contacted the Holocaust speakers
Bureau in North Carolina and they sent Abe, we're going to send Abe. And I knew there, I heard there was
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a Holocaust speaker coming, but schools are busy places and it was the Thursday before he was coming and
so I emailed her, I said, "What's the guy's name?" Like I'd like to look him up, I'd like to do a little
research and, you know, I was told a Piasque and I was told a couple of links and I started watching
some video of him and I said, "My God, this guy's amazing." Like, this is not, he's very joyful and I
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think that I keep coming back to that what drew me so much to his story is that he's, like, your
grandfather telling you these stories, but he's also very, you know, matter of fact and not like,
"Oh, look at me or oh poor me, it's just, yeah, my friend had his head blown off and I ran." And it's
very simple, almost taming way asked, like, these declarative sentences that he just issues. And so I
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spent five hours that weekend watching video of him and I put together like a prep packet for my
school and I, you know, the, we didn't have an auditorium so he had, we actually spoke four times.
He spoke for 45 minutes to our ninth grade, 45 minutes to our tenth grade and then he went home to
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Raleigh where he was living and came back the next weekend, did our 11th and our 12th grade and my
principal recognized that I'd done all this work and he said, "Would you like to introduce him?"
So I got to introduce Abe four times and we sort of bonded over, when I told him the format, he said,
45 minutes and he was, he would not have to be with that, I could tell. And we sort of bonded over,
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this is not the way to do this. And so when he left after meeting with the 12th graders, I said,
"Can I follow up with you? Can I get your email?" And he kind of laughed, you say, "I don't really do
email." And he gave me his phone and I called them and I did some follow-up interviews at his house
in Raleigh. Now you talked about Kristallnacht in November 8th, 9th and 10th and he came to speak on
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November 10th, is that correct? No, it was the 9th and 10th was Kristallnacht and he came, I was doing
the research about him on Saturday, November 10th. On November 10th. Which is actually his birthday.
And so I had all these associates, as I started doing research, I came across his, he didn't have a
birth certificate, but well he had in lieu of a birth certificate, said his birthday was the 10th of
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November. And I was like, "Oh my God, he just turned 90 today and I had all these associations with
my father's father who had a lovely 90th birthday party and I was trying to envision this guy who I'd
never met. What his 90th birthday party must have been like and how amazing that he is, mentally he
was completely there. And to be able to speak to a 90 year old survivor who's willing to speak in
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candid terms was just an unbelievable opportunity. He actually came on, I believe the 13th of November,
was when he came on a Tuesday and then he came the following Monday.
Doing research for speakers who will come to your school, was that something you always did,
or was this just something that sparked your...
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I have training as a lawyer so I like to be prepared, but this was way above and beyond what I normally
would, I would spend like 20 minutes like, "Who's coming, how can I link this story to my
students' experience?" And once I learned as much as I did about him, I made sure my students were
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particularly well prepared for him to come in. But again, the format of it was, we only had like
45 minutes and you know, then afterward I think you need a chance to reflect after you hear a story
like that and it was the kind of our schedule, you go to your, whatever your third period class is, right?
So...
Right.
Joe, talk about your dad, the dad you knew. How would you describe Abe?
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differently.
I would describe him quite differently than Steve got to know him because he came to my dad like that
from the outside and above it with some background, some information as a historian. And I came
as, you know, to know my dad as an embryo. And, you know, from the inside and then to the out. So I
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saw him from the underbelly, if you will. He was a very well-rounded person. Although I didn't get to see
the dark side of the moon until Steve actually and others shine the light on that part of him.
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He was always against something big and that was this idea of hate. That was always part of his
consciousness. Although the way he described it within the family and in our daily lives as a kid
was not joyous. It was... I think of a word that might replace joy.
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It was cautionary. It was very cautionary. He, anytime there was any indication of hate,
whatever it was, I hate spinach. No, no, you don't. You might not like it.
But you don't hate it. And I said, no, I so get that definition of hate from this point of view,
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was extremely informative. And I think very beneficial, something I carried with me all the time.
Yeah, I just about hating ideology or hating, you know, even people's actions. There was this
whole notion of what it is to reject something holy. And holy WH, you know, that kind of rejection on
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the notion of where hate came from was almost like verboten, you know, was a word that should be
purged from the dictionary. Wow. Wow. Steve, you mentioned that you asked Dave to follow up.
He, you know, I think you said he was like, why? And you did. You went to his house, you sat down with him,
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and you told him about, you know, your students wanting to go to the Holocaust Museum. We talked
about what you learned on that follow up visit and his reaction to the students wanting to go.
Yeah, well, sort of funny. The first time I went, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm interviewing a 90-year-old
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Holocaust survivor as I was wanted to honor. And I didn't, I had like four pieces of paper
that were, you know, together like this, a really long timeline like, okay, I want to fill in this,
this, this, this, this. But I didn't record it because I thought, you know, I wanted to just establish
rapport with him first. I didn't know what it would, what it would be like. I remember now, I came to
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the door and he knocked or rang the bell and he just yelled, it's open. Come in. I was like, who is
this guy? He really knows me. And we sat down. We talked for like two hours and I told some friends
that I had done this and I hadn't recorded it. And they said, you're an idiot. Like if you talk to a
90-year-old Holocaust survivor, you have an obligation to record it. And so when I came back, I was
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super bowl Sunday around 11 o'clock in the morning. I showed up at his house. I think it was February 3rd.
And I had my tape recorder and I had, my iPhone was set up and I recorded and we talked for like
two hours. And I mentioned, as I was packing up my stuff, that my students wanted to go to the
Holocaust Museum. And Abe said, unprompted. He's like, oh, I've never been. Maybe I'll go with you.
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And I said, are you serious? And he said, yeah. And that's how I met his daughter who lives in the
area in the triangle in North Carolina where I'm from. You know, just like, is this okay? Can this
really happen? And I was doing some research recently where you know, like if you're in a different
place and you do a Google search, it sometimes gives you different results. I was missing my father
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in Florida and I googled apiastic as I do from time to time. And I found an article from 2017 where he
was asked at the end of one of his talks, have you been to the Holocaust Museum? And he said, no,
I don't want to go. And I'm really curious what happened between that was less than a year
before I met him. And so, you know, in a year and change, something was appealing about me and
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my students or something changed within him. I don't know what, but for him to say, yeah, let me go with
you was amazing. Yeah, that's it. I mean, the gift of that to the students alone and yourself.
Joe, your dad came to speak to students at your school in 2017. And was that really the first time
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you heard him articulate his story? First hand, yes. Wow. Yeah, that was the, that was the first time
that I had a first hand view of the way he told stories. And I think what Steve said a while ago is
that he came in and he had a three or four, 45 minute sessions with your students. 45 minutes was
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his, the preface to his talk. You know, he needed another two, three hours, perhaps a day. And at
at SUNY Delhi where he gave a talk in 2017, he elongated the introduction to the point where
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I thought, well, you know, short attention span, the students are just going to, you know, leave.
But he was exactly captivating that they didn't budge. And he actually gave a long, long introduction
for about an hour. Took a break, 15, 20 minute break. And all the students remained. He came back and
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he talked for another hour or so. So he had a lot to say, a lot of stories and he's a really good
storyteller. And when did he start speaking out? Was it, was that around the first time
where he had been doing it for a while at that point? Do you know? I think he, he, you Steve also might
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have some insight on this too, but I recall when my mother passed away was an opportunity for him to
kind of get up and interface with the world without the perfilter. And that was in 2012, I think she
died. Yeah, it's hard to feel weird being the family historian when I'm not a member of the Piazza
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family. But he, so he, the first time he spoke about it was the two hour show at interview in March
of 1995. And shortly after that in Florida, and I don't think there are any records of these, but he
spoke at a synagogue or two, at probably a couple schools. And he was also involved with other
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community service, but he got a presidential award for, for freedom for the, his community work
in Florida. So I know he spoke there. I would guesstimate maybe 20 times. I, you know, and then they moved
to North Carolina to be near Pam, Abe's, Abe daughter, Joe sister in 2009. And he spoke some while
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surely was still, your mom was, was still alive. But then like, he really picked up after that.
Yeah, the show interview was, was the first, but it was private. It was in the home and there
wasn't an audience there. There was a camera there. And he was asked questions. He really hadn't
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considered to articulate answers to an English ever before. And we always, uh, kidded him to his
very unique, um, way of speaking. I wouldn't call it an accent because you couldn't put your finger on
what kind of an accent. But it was just the way he spoke. Um, but his ability to articulate, um,
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grew exponentially, uh, when he started to get out and, and talk. And his, his, um,
communication style as observing what happened around him as he was
being surviving through these various circumstances, which very few people survived.
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Um, there was a combination of his personal firsthand experience and his firsthand, um,
imagination of other people's experience. And so over time, my sister and I would always say,
was this something he did or something he saw done to somebody else? There, there was a big,
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kind of gray area there. But the more he spoke, the more he kind of personalized and first person,
the stories and made them much more impactful that way. But we noticed, and Steve brought this up
before, is that how can he tell a story of such tragedy with, with somewhat of detachment
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that allowed him to express it in ways that were not, um, bringing tears to his eyes?
Uh, part of what I imagine was happening is that he was integrating other people's experience. And
as he was describing it, he was actually seeing it for the first time. You know, in a new light.
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Wow. And if I could do something, you just said, when you said in English, right? Like, I,
I so wish I could have heard him tell the story either in Polish or yetish, right? Because there
were things he wanted to say and he'd be struggling for the right word to say. And he, again, as you
said, like when I met him at, he had just turned 90, he was a remarkably good storyteller,
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but it wasn't in his primary language. He, we always thought he never had a primary language.
And I always thought that was really great because, um, I think English is my second language.
I have no first language. And I think that if we can be anybody can understand that the way they
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communicate goes far beyond and way below our verbal language. And I think he was able to create
a language using English as its basis, like nobody else could in these stories.
You mentioned the, uh, show a foundation videos. Were you in your sister and mom not there when he
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recorded it or maybe your mom was in the room? I think my mother was. I was not. My sister and I were
in the room when my parents were, um, and it was, um, you know, I probably for the, I heard a lot of
things for the first time. Granted, I think, you know, my mother was three to eight during the war.
My dad was 13 to 18 during the war. Um, both of them found that interview very difficult.
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Um, you know, it was a stranger coming into their living room to do it. Um, but it is so important.
But you, you know, I, I show the video sometimes when I speak out about it. And you could hear. I mean,
my mother, you know, breaks it's, it's something that they definitely put in a different part of their
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brain. Um, to do so. Joe, I mean, hearing him describe this at your school in, in greater detail
than you had ever heard, what, what was that like for you personally? It was really an honor to meet him.
Wow. Oh, wow. Wow.
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Oh, you know, I mean, I've known, you know, I've circled around him. But that was an inside view that, uh,
was, um, an honor, you know, and I really thanked him. I got to know my father through that experience.
And, and others, and much of which Steve brought out in him too. And he also appreciated the
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encouragement to tell the stories. I was opposed to don't talk about that. It will upset people.
Yeah, I mean, there's, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, I, you know, there's many people who,
who still won't talk about it, you know, yeah. And it, it, it, it is so important. Um,
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you know, sadly, my parents aren't a lot to have seen that I created this series.
Because of them, but, you know, somebody had asked me, you know, what do you think they'd say?
And I think they'd be quite happy, but very, very surprised because I was not,
I didn't grow up in a Jewish community. So I did, I wasn't verbal, you know, people would ask what
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religion or nationality I was. And I never said it. I let them guess. And it was probably because most
of my friends went to Catholic school, right? You know, I was not surrounded by Jewish kids growing up. So,
but in the world that we live, it is so important that we are all here today talking about this and,
and sharing a story. Um, that was a other thing I learned from my father regarding being Jewish.
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Is that I learned from him as juxtaposed with other family members and other community members,
that there was a lot of different ways of being Jewish.
And there's a lot of broad understanding of what that meant.
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Yeah, I mean, I was Bar Mitzvahd, but, you know, I didn't want to go to Hebrew school. And I, and I
think, you know, back that that could have been, you know, part of my parents' story or just not
being in a Jewish community and feeling like an outcast. I don't have the answers, but, you know,
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you think about those things as you get older and why, you know, I, you know.
So describe your father, you know, or what is one word that, you know, I would be asked, you know,
to kind of label my dad. And the first word that came to mind and that still does was immigrant.
(30:46):
Yeah, 100 men as opposed to Jewish. Yeah, 100 percent correct. I would say the same thing.
I just, oh god, I lost my question. I, something hit me at that moment.
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Well, the story like this touches so many, there's so many touchstones in a conversation like this.
A 100 percent and 100 percent. Oh, I know what it was because,
I, you know, for me, it was Charlottesville, what happened in Charlottesville, that made me want to speak
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up. It angered me to a degree that I just had never, and I didn't have this platform then. That was
2017. And it was thinking about what those images would have done to my mother. Not so much my father,
my father was quieter, but, you know, my mother died of lung cancer, my mother smoked, my mother smoked
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because of, I truly believe because of her experience in the Holocaust. Like that was her crutch
from a very young age. And so I'm curious, you know, I know you didn't know the whole story like,
I guess maybe the hate conversation that you had, you know, how your dad taught you not to hate and
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that should not be a part. Like, you know, I think about the effects of their experiences. You know,
I know what effect of my mother her entire life. Like the fact that my mother always needed my sister
and I to call her when we arrived anywhere basically. You know, she had no control growing up from
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those, that young age. So like she tried to control so much in her adult life. And I'm curious if
there's things now that, you know, time has passed that you think of what, you know, the Holocaust's
effects had on, on Abe, your dad. So as you describe it, you know, if you're traveling somewhere,
(33:09):
let me know that you got there safely. That was definitely part of our lives for sure. And my life,
one might do with my kids. But there's also something that he did that I need to continue on
that was the opposite of hate. I mean, there are many ways you could look at what opposites are,
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but reflective on that. And that's love. And so every Valentine's Day, the Valentine's Day was like
one of his favorite allies. He always gave my mother and my sister and me, Candy, about chocolate,
you know, hearts. So, you know, for the last 30 years, 40 years, I've been sending chocolates to my
(34:01):
kids on Valentine's Day. And that's appropriating that notion of your in my heart versus the kind of
commercial view of romanticism. That was one thing. And I think that he definitely used that
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to express himself very clearly non-verbally.
That's incredible. That's incredible. Steve, you ended up in 2019 taking your students,
going with a, going with Joe's sister Pam and granddaughter and great granddaughter, I think.
Two great, great kids, yeah. Talk about the experience of going there to the Holocaust Museum with Abe.
(34:54):
Yeah, I just, when you just said Charlottesville, it got me thinking right before I met Abe was when
the Tree of Life shooting happened. And I was processing that. And I remember I lived near Duke
University. There's a like a free expression bridge thing and some students had made a mural
for, you know, honoring the people who had been killed at Tree of Life. And in between Abe's two visits
(35:21):
to my school because he came twice, the mural was vandalized with a swastika. And the university,
you know, they cleaned it up and they made all the proper statements. This is not acceptable.
Sort of thing. But that was really that, that was the first visceral experience I had. I grew up
in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb outside of Boston. And, you know, I'd never, I was my last name's
(35:44):
Goldberg. I'd never experienced anti-semitism in a way that I was aware of. And so that, I think that
that plus Vivian Connell, the influence all led to me really diving deeper into Abe's story.
I just wanted to mention that. So, but yeah, it's all of that. I know like, you know, even growing up,
(36:11):
you know, I was a teen in the 80s. And, you know, Penny jokes were still a big deal back then, you know,
or being cheap. Which I didn't, I don't think I understood that as truly being anti-semitism as I do
today. But, you know, Charlotte'sville, like I went and watched the vice did a news like a 20-minute
(36:36):
story. And those images were so disturbing. And I really thought like my mother would have been
under her bed. And, and granted, my mother was not like naive to not think anti-semitism still existed.
She knew that. She proudly wore a high, you know, she, she was not, I have other family members who,
(37:00):
who wouldn't let their children say they were Jewish because of their experience during the war.
You know, like there's just so many levels of how it affected individuals.
But yeah, so I get it. Like it's, and what we're witnessing today is just,
you know, to the levels of it is the fact that anyone is drawing a swastika anywhere is really just.
(37:33):
Shocking to me.
Yeah, I guess I'm, I've told Abe's story more than 130 times now. And, you know, it's sort of like,
why am I doing this? It's, you know, it's a nice story. It's an inspiring story. I like to think that
if people had heard Abe's story, they would be less likely to draw swastikas, right? And they would
(37:54):
be perhaps even, this may be too aspirational, but be more, be willing to say to someone who's
doing something hateful or making a penny joke or, you know, say, hey, no, that's not okay.
Not just for you, you know, to universalize it, but also to see the, you know, the depth of what
(38:16):
happened during the Holocaust, which was kind of amazing. Well, you mentioned reading Eli Weasel,
you know, who is a Nobel laureate's book, Night, while he has said, once you listen to a witness,
you become a witness. And that doesn't just have to, you know, talk about the Holocaust. You know,
(38:40):
you know, you hear about a, you know, what happened at Sandy Hook. You speak, you know, you hear their
story. You become a witness to these things and sharing Abe's story, which I want to get to,
you know, what Abe had said to you, but the Holocaust Museum, you know, what was that like experiencing it
(39:03):
with him and his family and your students? Right. So we, I put together a go fund me and
local media somehow found that and they did a little short piece about us. And that was the first
time I met Pam was they came with cameras and we were in their living room and you know, they asked
(39:23):
Abe about the trip and he said, well, I didn't want to go, but the students are going and, you know,
the story left off with us heading to the museum. And when we got there, I didn't know what to expect.
And I later learned the museum is set up so that survivors can meet other survivors in the lobby. They
don't have to go in to the exhibits. You take an elevator up to the fourth floor. You see the
(39:47):
exhibits on four three two and you come out on the lobby. And so, you know, Abe might not have
have gone in and he learned there was a cattle car on the third floor and he said, I want to go see
that. And I turned to Pam who I'd met once and said, is this a good idea? Like I don't want to
traumatize your dad and she said, no, I think it'll be okay. And so we took a private elevator from
(40:12):
four to three so he wouldn't have to walk the exhibits and he goes on to the cattle car and I
thankfully had my iPhone with me and you know, I did deal with him while I'm going to play that in a minute.
Yeah. And he started narrating. That's incredible. Well, I, before I play that, I just wanted to share
(40:35):
a little about Abe's story. He was 12 years old in 1940 when the SS entered his town in Poland
and killed or deported most the Jewish residents. He was separated from his parents and sister whom he
never saw again. But shortly before liberation, he was put on this cattle car which was roughly two
(40:57):
weeks before liberation and he had no idea where he was going. And you can imagine at 12 years old,
you know, the fear of being loaded onto a cattle car, not knowing where you were headed. Here is
(41:17):
that audio that Steve captured. They've describing. I was standing, standing was Mr. Goldberg standing right
there. The door was shut and we were here can imagine about two at least between 150 to 200 people,
(41:39):
maybe a little bit more. Standing or standing or sitting or you couldn't lay down. And there was no,
the only tiny window was on the side. I was leaning on the wall and a friend of mine was leaning
next to me and that's how it was. When I was when they took us from one camp to another, I didn't think I
(42:06):
had a set foot in a car and my heart, my heart is pounding. And I had to show you how it was like we
were on the elevator. We were packed in. That's how it was in the camp. I was standing, standing was
(42:30):
Mr. Goldberg standing right there. What was it like for the students to hear that from him?
I've been in touch with a few students who were there and they said, you know, I'll never forget you.
You know, like it was, he created this unforgettable moment for them and they had heard him speak at
(42:54):
the school as well. So they knew him a little but that was, I mean, it remains one of the bravest
things I've ever seen. And I think he was doing it for his family and for my students and for
posterity. We met another survivor after coming out of the cattle car. He took an elevator to the
first floor and she had been on three cattle cars. They've been on four during the course of the Holocaust.
(43:19):
My students asked her, did you go in the cattle car? They didn't know. They figured they'd
be other people. They did that. My students like they lost their minds and she said, no, I was on
three of those in real life. I would never do that. No, thank you. And she was amazed that they did
that. I don't have stats but I can't imagine that's very common. I'm with you, Steve. I can't
(43:44):
imagine that that is very common. I don't think it's very common that you get a lot of Holocaust
survivors walking through that museum. Well, I think the people who live in the DC area and
volunteer there, they're, you know, they're docents and they're often like our docent was a, a
2G. His, I think his mother's father was a survivor. But I know that earlier in the museum's history,
(44:10):
they'd had survivors taking groups around. But yeah, just, I mean, people who were just visiting,
that was after that happened, I became an Abe groupie, right? Like he told me where he was speaking.
Next, I took the day off from school. I went, I videoed him. I like, who is this guy? How is he
(44:32):
doing this? And I was, I was going to be his like agent. He had spoken to small groups. But,
you know, I went to Duke and my wife teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and I know people at NC State and
NC Central. I was like, you need to speak it. It's an amazing story. You need to get it out. And he's
like, okay. And you said it up. I'll do it. And then sadly, he fell in September of 2019.
(44:59):
And then he, before he passed, he asked you to keep telling his story. Yeah, he was, he was, I was,
in a hospital bed that was set up at Pam's house. And he was very weak at that point. And I,
I came to his bedside and he said to me, keep telling my story. And like, no one had ever asked me
to do that. And I didn't know what to say. I said I would, but I didn't know what that meant.
(45:22):
And then he passed away three days later on January 15th, 2020. And then COVID hit two months later.
And it was a chance to, you know, what, what is really important and what is worth spending time
doing. And that was when I made the shift to, to researching his story and, and starting to, to
(45:43):
pick up the baton as it were. Wow. Joe, what does it mean to you that Steve is out there,
you know, sharing this with others, you know, your dad's story, an important story.
It means a great deal. Steve is a historian that we are, historians, the ranks of historians
(46:15):
are being thinned today. And it's really important. This story, of course, was incredible, of course,
to me personally. But the idea of not just recounting or investigating or telling historical
stories, but encapsulating them in time capsules, preserving them. I think it's probably one of the
(46:42):
most, maybe even the most valuable human enterprises to preserve the trajectory from which we came.
And I think what Steve is doing is great. It is so important. You know, like I said, I,
so different from this vantage point of age, but like, God, if I could go, you know,
(47:05):
Steve, what you were able to do and go to Aviance it down and record him, if I had really grasped
what my parents had gone through and done the same thing, I'd be happier, you know, I know a lot.
I was able to honor the family that hid my mother away. Like I talk about them all the time. They've
(47:32):
been a part of my show because I realized us would not be having this conversation if that family
did not take my mother and grandmother in for two years. You know, the impact of that and here
I am almost 80 years after the war. It will be 80 years and that family is a part of my life
(47:55):
today. You know, it's something. So it's amazing and you have gone out and you said it, you've spoken
over 120 times to an audience of 6,000. You recently did a talk at the Durham Public Library
on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. How do you think we would feel that you have kept
(48:22):
your promise? I think he'd be very pleased. I think, I think it's some ways it's easier for me because I'm
not related to him, right? Like I said something when I was footing this together for the first time,
I was on a Zoom call with Joe and Pam and four of Aves grandkids, three of whom at the time lived
(48:49):
on three different Hawaiian islands and one was in Los Angeles and I believe it was Dan, right?
Dan said, you know, it wasn't like one of this one of Aves grandkids. He says, "It's not like he
sat me on his knee and told me a horrible story," right? Like that's not what you do at Thanksgiving. When
you get together with family, there isn't space to do what I was able to do as an outsider, right?
(49:15):
Joe, if you want to pick up that you had this, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize when Dan said that."
Yeah, that was a revelatory, that point right there. Even though my dad and Alan,
your folks, they're not here, it doesn't mean we can't continue to ask these questions.
(49:35):
Even though, "Yeah, I wish I had asked," well, you can still ask. And there's a,
there are lots of different ways to answer, but none of them are going to happen unless you ask,
unless you're curious, you know, for whatever reason. My son was talking to one of my kids just
(49:57):
yesterday and I sent him some artifact that I said, "This was grandpa's, you know, you might want to have
this." And he said, "He said, "Tell me about this." And I said, "I really know much about it. I'll tell you what I
know." And he goes, "I guess I should start asking questions." And that was really great, because he
(50:19):
didn't ask a lot of questions when he was younger. I asked questions when I was younger. I definitely
had a curious streak, but I didn't get any real answers, mainly because of protecting the notions
that what those answers could lead to, or and/or the inability to articulate an answer that was
(50:43):
satisfying, clear or appropriate, you know, for a young person. But that doesn't mean that those
questions can't continue to be asked by us, by our kids, by Steve, by Steve's kids, you know, by our
students. Keep asking. Yeah, it is amazing what we can learn if we do. And you know, you're so right,
(51:11):
like, because you think of what's happening in our country about how certain groups want to rewrite
history, or, you know, the fact that there are people out there who try to deny the Holocaust ever
happened, you know, is unimaginable. But I do have two paths there, though. Two, one is the
(51:37):
deny that things ever happened, and the other is, "Okay, they happen, but who cares?"
Yeah. You know, and both of those are, you know, devilishly or well-earned, that we need to be
aware of, and redirect. Yes. There's also, there's, I thought you were going to say something slightly
(52:00):
different, Joe. There's, there's Holocaust denial, but there's also Holocaust distortion, which is not
so much, uh, who cares. It's, well, it's not as bad as they said, and that's not what the ovens were for,
and it wasn't six million, and it's, it's this, you know, minimizing, you know, yes, it happened,
but it wasn't that extreme. I think that's a disservice to the memory of the people, I, you know,
(52:27):
in learning more about the Holocaust, that I didn't realize this, but there's like three months,
August, September, October, and this is probably when your dad's parents were murdered,
at Treblinka, that 1.5 million Jews were murdered in just three months. It wasn't like the Holocaust
was a steady stream of murder, a scientific American did a, if you google scientific American,
(52:50):
Holocaust, efficiency, sadly, you'll, you'll find the article, and you know, that works, 1.5 million
in three months works out to 15,000 a day, and that works out to one every six seconds, and when I say
that to students, it stops them, right, to think about what that means 24/7 for a hundred days,
(53:12):
and that's only a quarter of it, right? There's another 4.5 roughly million who were killed some before
and some after, but at that peak moment, what was going on, and if you can start to understand that,
then you can get into, you know, the Rwandan genocide and Cambodian genocide and other, you know,
as humans we do this, but the Holocaust is such a powerful case study, and for me it was an
(53:37):
invitation to really dive in deep, which I've done for the past four years, to try to, as you said,
just keep asking questions with Abe's story at the base, but also, you know, I've met other survivors
and I've done the reading. Yeah, and the evidence is there. Oh, the evidence is there, yeah.
(53:57):
Steve has, there been something that has surprised you most since you started speaking,
and sharing it story? I mean, I thought it was an amazing story. Like, when I told his story
a couple of weeks ago, students are just totally with you, right? Like Joe, you were saying, you thought
(54:21):
that he has wind up you, that he would lose them. It's such a compelling story. I mean, I could
easily talk for two hours, but I get kids who come up and say, "Thank you so much." And I've also,
had a number of students who have, are of Indian descent, who talk about the partition that happened
in 1947, and how they, you know, they know that that's part of their family history, but their family
(54:46):
won't talk about it, but now, it's prompted them to want to ask questions, right? So I think it's
this, it's a particular story. It's the Holocaust, but it has universal qualities to it that people
just connect with, and you know, people are incredibly grateful after I tell his story. It feels,
it's policy, it feels good to tell a story. It feels good that more people know his story,
(55:09):
right? And I feel like people are appreciative of his bravery that inspired me, and of, you know,
I show about 12 clips of a telling the story in his own words, and a fewer, like, at time machine,
back to 1995 when he isn't a polished storyteller, and you get a sense of, "Wow, he really put a lot of
(55:29):
time into, you know, becoming the storyteller that he was," and, you know, conveying this really
complicated and personally difficult story, and telling it over and over, he probably told it
150 to 200 times. I'm catching up. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fascinating because, you know, you just
(55:52):
said that, like, you know, I only heard my parents really tell it in great detail that, I mean, I've heard
the show of video many times now, but in person, that, that one time in detail, you know, for me, it was
like, I, it didn't all come together until Shindler's list came out, and then the girl in the red coat
(56:17):
was like seeing my mother because it was that, she was that age, you know, it was the one color moment
in the film, and then my nephew was born in 94, my first nephew, and from a payphone in New Jersey,
you know, at the hospital, my mother called, you know, the daughter of the family that rescued her,
(56:37):
you know, this daughter was her age, and they were, you know, I knew of this woman my whole life, but
to know that she picked up the phone, a payphone, and the impact, you know, of the one person she wanted
a call to say her, her grandson was born. It just all, it was like, Chinese symbols coming into English
(57:00):
for me, and, you know, and I just understood the impact. And then, of course, I, I went two years later,
and, and literally went to the farm where my mother was hidden away. So it's, you know, it is the impact
of these stories, you know, you sort of bear witness by sharing them.
I have a one story that I heard as a child that my sister never heard, and when I say,
(57:31):
I heard that you're, no, he never heard. So that's why my father's stories, they were
hidden myths, you know, but the one that, that really stayed with me forever, will stay with me forever,
is when he got, who was on the cattle car, and it got bombed, and he got thrown,
(57:53):
and woke up against the tree alive, seeing soldiers, American soldiers,
approached the survivors of the bombing of the train car that they had bombed.
There was a black unit, and they had big smiles on their faces with shiny white teeth, and he's,
(58:18):
and he thought, oh, that's what an American looks like. And we moved into a black neighborhood,
and I've always thought of myself as black because of that, as quintessentially American,
which is why I really appreciate the 1619 project, and the idea of bringing history to the present,
(58:41):
because the present is nothing without it.
That's the perfect way to end this. I mean, seriously, it really is. It shapes everything
in history. It really does. I mean, it shapes who, you know, we, the three of us are today, you know.
(59:07):
Really, Steve, I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible. Before I let you go, what do
your kids think of you doing this at this stage? My son, I mean, my son has heard me, I spoke
once at the school where he was teaching and shared the story, and he's 17, and he's not a scholar
(59:35):
of the Holocaust. He's more, I think, into, I know, he's more into saving the planet.
And enjoys computers, and it's not, he recognizes it's my passion. I think he's, I hope he's proud
that that's what I'm doing, but he hasn't, he hasn't decided, oh, I want to learn more about that.
(59:57):
And I, you know, but he's, I, you have to ask him.
Yeah, I get it, I get it. Thank you so much, gentlemen. I really appreciate it. Steve, thank you so
much for reaching out to me. Sure, no, I appreciate it. And there's a website that needs some work,
but it's myfrienddayb.com. No, great. I will, I will put that up as well. Definitely email me both
(01:00:20):
of those and we'll have them up. So people can find it. And yeah, and get a picture of A, that's for
people that they've heard his voice on the cattle car, but seeing his, his picture is, his picture is
up on on screen. There you go. Wow. Look at that head of hair. That's incredible. Oh, wait,
(01:00:45):
I do have pictures. Sorry. And I meant to show them. I did put them up. My, my, here's, uh,
picket fence. Oh, there's that one. There's that one. My apologies. I meant to do that earlier,
but we were so engrossed. And then here's, that's my friend name. I love that.
(01:01:11):
He looks so distinguished. That picture that Joe just showed first, that's, when I start my talks,
I say how that's Joe, if you want to hold that up again, we're getting a little glare, but that's
the first picture that we have of Abe. I was taking it in a, in a displaced persons camp in Germany.
And that's the picture that was used. So he's roughly 17 because he was 17 after the war. Yeah.
(01:01:35):
When they, when they were liberated, wow. So finally, Steve, the work that you're doing is evidence
of my father's afterlife. Well, you may have kept the cut this for time, but I think you know this show
at the, at his funeral. You know, people, I didn't know your family at all. And I was just, I was
(01:02:00):
there and was hanging around with some other people. And there was the cemetery in Raleigh is in a
pretty urban area. And there was a deer that came toward a group of us who were looking and like
looked at us and then sort of scampered off. And there's a couple of grounds people were looking too.
(01:02:23):
And they're like, that never happens. Like that, that never happens. And I like to think that Abe,
you know, talked with whoever you talk with when you die and said, can I go take over that deer for a
minute just to say hello? And they're like, okay, you, you go ahead and do that. It was a remarkable
moment. I doubt if he asked permission. Yeah. I know many people who would believe that was
(01:02:51):
definitely a sign. And that's the kind of sign you'd like, you know, at a, at a sad moment like that.
Gentlemen, thank you so much. Steve, continue to do this. Thank you, Rowan. Thanks, Alan.
My pleasure. Thanks, gentlemen. Thanks everybody for watching. And as I said before, remember what
(01:03:18):
Eli Whizel has said, once you listen to a witness, you become a witness. Thank you again to Steve and
Joe for being here to honor Abe and to share his story. As I leave you, remember, we all have choices
to make in life. Speak up. Do the hard thing. And let's all fight hate for good. I truly believe
conversations like this can change the world around us. Hate and war is not the answer. Please feel
(01:03:46):
free to share these episodes with your friends and family. And until the next conversation,
please stay safe.
[Music]
[MUSIC]
(00:06):
Good evening everyone and thank you for joining me for conversations with Alan.
I'm Alan Locker, the child of two Holocaust survivors.
I created this series to foster honest discussions about the rise of anti-Semitism and hate,
with the hope of sparking conversations that encourage us all to reflect an hour role in shaping history.
(00:29):
My goal is to inspire collective action to eradicate hate in all its forms.
These conversations are more crucial than ever as anti-Semitism continues to rise around the world.
Tonight I am honored to share the story of Abe Piosic, a remarkable Holocaust survivor whose resilience,
(00:51):
courage and joy for life left in an indelible mark aren't all who knew him.
Joining me to help tell Abe's story are Steve Goldberg, a dedicated history teacher who is taking a break
from his 20 plus year career to share Abe's legacy and educate people about the Holocaust.
(01:12):
And Abe's son, Joe Piosic, will provide a personal perspective on his father's extraordinary life.
Abe's story is one of survival, hope and the power of lifting others up, even in the darkest of times.
Together we'll explore his journey, the lessons he left behind, and why his message is more important now than ever.
(01:34):
Please, thank you for joining us tonight as we honor Abe's memory and his unwavering call to keep telling his story.
Please help me welcome Steve Goldberg and Abe's son, Joe Piosic, to Conversations with Alan.
Hi, gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Alan. It's great to be here.
(02:00):
Well, Steve, you reached out to me back in November after coming across the previous Conversations with Alan episode.
And I really am inspired by your passion for history and your passion to go out and tell Abe's story.
Where did your love, I mean, you were a history teacher, but a US history teacher.
(02:24):
Where did your love of history first begin? That's a great question.
I had a teacher in high school. I wasn't, I wasn't not a fan of history at the time.
And I didn't do particularly well in his class. It was an ancient and medieval history class.
But he was just incredibly personable with students.
(02:46):
And he became sort of a mentor to me. My first teaching job was at my old high school.
And he actually sent, he was on a sabbatical. His name is Philip Burnham.
People knew it was Dr. Burnham, if anybody's who knows him is watching.
He had a sabbatical year and he sent postcards from Paris to my students.
(03:10):
And my students couldn't figure out how there was a Paris postmark on them or who was sending them.
He signed them, M.Lip Professor Don Pann. I don't speak French, so I may be butchering that.
But it roughly translates to the professor of yesterday year.
And he sort of like the way that I teach that the word history means to learn by asking questions.
(03:35):
And he modeled that through the questions that he asked.
And I tried to get my students during my teaching career as active as possible
to be asking questions and to get the why and to look at multiple sources.
So I would say largely through him.
And then I've worked with some amazing teachers along the way and had some pretty remarkable students too.
(04:01):
So interesting. And Joe, you're a teacher as well, correct?
Yes, communication at the State University here in New York.
Nice. I studied communications. Steve, I think I might have mentioned this when we first spoke,
but I didn't like history. And I don't know if that has anything to do with
(04:23):
my parents' story of being Holocaust survivors. I don't know why, because I am
much more fascinated at this age today. But I wonder if I had a teacher who would have inspired
the questions of the asking the why, because I think that is actually, I'm so glad you said that out loud
(04:44):
because I do think that is so important. And also learning our stories, I didn't ask enough
questions of my parents growing up. So Steve, were you, how familiar were you about the Holocaust
before aid came into your life? I've been thinking a lot about that.
(05:09):
I mean, I've visited the Holocaust Museum in DC several times and I'd read "Night" by Ellie
Wiesel. And the year before I met Abe, actually, I, well, let me back up. There was a woman named Vivian
Connell who, she had ALS and she was a teacher in Chapel Hill. I never met her, but a rabbi, I know,
(05:33):
posted about her when she passed away and suggested that people watch this talk that she gave. And it's
one of the best talks I've ever given. I've ever heard, I didn't give it. And in it, she makes the case
that one of her dying wishes with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease is that she wants to bring her students to
the Holocaust Museum because it's such a powerful place. And so I was inspired by this talk and I
(05:59):
asked my principal, can I show this to my students because she dropped some colorful language toward the
end and he said, yeah, I tried to cut before then, but it's okay. And so I showed it, I think, in 2016,
2017 and 2018 at the beginning of the year, to my students. And it was like about, you know, standing
up for, standing up against injustice and the Holocaust Museum is this incredible place. And she had
(06:22):
an amazing journey with her students there. And so I showed it to my students in 2018 and a girl said,
so when are we going? And I said, when are we going where? And she said, well, the Holocaust Museum,
you showed us this video that it's the really important to go there. And, you know, are we going to go?
And I said, well, you know, I don't have ALS and I'm not sure I can put that together, but I'm,
(06:48):
I hear what you're saying and let's see if we can put that together. And that then led to,
I guess the previous year I'd had a survivor come speak, but his family had funds and his story was
about how they were able to, you know, get visas and get away and many members of their family
(07:08):
perished during the Holocaust, but they weren't in the camps and it was, he was a wonderful speaker,
but I didn't have the connection I had with Abe. And then when I didn't bring Abe to our school,
I don't know if you want to ask this question. Yeah, I will. Before we go there, the story
from this teacher with ALS, is that available online anywhere? Yeah, if you search for under
(07:34):
Vimeo, you know what? Send it to me and I will put it up on the link down below for people
they can watch it. So definitely send it to me. Joe, you know, for me, I knew my parents were Holocaust
survivors. They might have talked about it a little when I was younger, but it was after Shindler's
(08:00):
List and getting my parents to do the video for the Shoah Foundation. For you and your sister,
what did you know growing up about your dad's experience, you know, was it, did you know the full scope of it?
Well, that's a good question. No, and I don't even think I currently know the full scope of it.
(08:23):
I'm, you know, still learning and thinking and reflecting on the things that he had difficulty
talking about when I was young to try to kind of synthesize my memory to now add some meaning to what
he said that fell perhaps a little flat, you know, decades ago. So no, I'm not so sure about the full
(08:49):
scope, although with Steve's investigative work and his passion on this, I've learned a lot more
and thought about it in a way that I hadn't thought about him before. Yeah, my mother was an American
was his escape hatch from needing to live that story every day.
(09:12):
That's such an interesting take on that, but I can imagine how true and how different
than my parents because both of my parents were, you know, so they really couldn't escape that.
That's really an interesting take and I can imagine that that must have been an escape from many
(09:38):
survivors, you know, finding a partner who didn't have that connection.
You know, American or not, wherever they were from. Steve, you are Jewish, but have no
personal connection to the Holocaust, correct? Not that I'm aware of. No, yeah, my family came over
(10:00):
like 1880s, 1890s. Wow. And you, Abe came in 2018 and you said you had nothing to do with bringing him
there. How did he end up at your school? So our German teacher wanted to commemorate 80 years
(10:21):
since Kristallnacht, which your viewers may know this, but Kristallnacht was November 9th, 10th,
in Germany and Austria, the territory of Germany can control before World War II, where they
it translates roughly to the night of broken glass and, you know, hundreds, if not thousands,
of synagogues were destroyed and Jewish businesses and homes and I believe about 30,000 Jews were
(10:45):
rounded up and taken to, they weren't the concentration camps that would come later, but they were taken to
Dachau and other places and basically given the message that, you know, you should get out if you
have the means to get out, you're not welcome here. And so she contacted the Holocaust speakers
Bureau in North Carolina and they sent Abe, we're going to send Abe. And I knew there, I heard there was
(11:12):
a Holocaust speaker coming, but schools are busy places and it was the Thursday before he was coming and
so I emailed her, I said, "What's the guy's name?" Like I'd like to look him up, I'd like to do a little
research and, you know, I was told a Piasque and I was told a couple of links and I started watching
some video of him and I said, "My God, this guy's amazing." Like, this is not, he's very joyful and I
(11:36):
think that I keep coming back to that what drew me so much to his story is that he's, like, your
grandfather telling you these stories, but he's also very, you know, matter of fact and not like,
"Oh, look at me or oh poor me, it's just, yeah, my friend had his head blown off and I ran." And it's
very simple, almost taming way asked, like, these declarative sentences that he just issues. And so I
(12:01):
spent five hours that weekend watching video of him and I put together like a prep packet for my
school and I, you know, the, we didn't have an auditorium so he had, we actually spoke four times.
He spoke for 45 minutes to our ninth grade, 45 minutes to our tenth grade and then he went home to
(12:23):
Raleigh where he was living and came back the next weekend, did our 11th and our 12th grade and my
principal recognized that I'd done all this work and he said, "Would you like to introduce him?"
So I got to introduce Abe four times and we sort of bonded over, when I told him the format, he said,
45 minutes and he was, he would not have to be with that, I could tell. And we sort of bonded over,
(12:46):
this is not the way to do this. And so when he left after meeting with the 12th graders, I said,
"Can I follow up with you? Can I get your email?" And he kind of laughed, you say, "I don't really do
email." And he gave me his phone and I called them and I did some follow-up interviews at his house
in Raleigh. Now you talked about Kristallnacht in November 8th, 9th and 10th and he came to speak on
(13:12):
November 10th, is that correct? No, it was the 9th and 10th was Kristallnacht and he came, I was doing
the research about him on Saturday, November 10th. On November 10th. Which is actually his birthday.
And so I had all these associates, as I started doing research, I came across his, he didn't have a
birth certificate, but well he had in lieu of a birth certificate, said his birthday was the 10th of
(13:36):
November. And I was like, "Oh my God, he just turned 90 today and I had all these associations with
my father's father who had a lovely 90th birthday party and I was trying to envision this guy who I'd
never met. What his 90th birthday party must have been like and how amazing that he is, mentally he
was completely there. And to be able to speak to a 90 year old survivor who's willing to speak in
(14:01):
candid terms was just an unbelievable opportunity. He actually came on, I believe the 13th of November,
was when he came on a Tuesday and then he came the following Monday.
Doing research for speakers who will come to your school, was that something you always did,
or was this just something that sparked your...
(14:24):
I have training as a lawyer so I like to be prepared, but this was way above and beyond what I normally
would, I would spend like 20 minutes like, "Who's coming, how can I link this story to my
students' experience?" And once I learned as much as I did about him, I made sure my students were
(14:45):
particularly well prepared for him to come in. But again, the format of it was, we only had like
45 minutes and you know, then afterward I think you need a chance to reflect after you hear a story
like that and it was the kind of our schedule, you go to your, whatever your third period class is, right?
So...
Right.
Joe, talk about your dad, the dad you knew. How would you describe Abe?
(15:14):
differently.
I would describe him quite differently than Steve got to know him because he came to my dad like that
from the outside and above it with some background, some information as a historian. And I came
as, you know, to know my dad as an embryo. And, you know, from the inside and then to the out. So I
(15:43):
saw him from the underbelly, if you will. He was a very well-rounded person. Although I didn't get to see
the dark side of the moon until Steve actually and others shine the light on that part of him.
(16:06):
He was always against something big and that was this idea of hate. That was always part of his
consciousness. Although the way he described it within the family and in our daily lives as a kid
was not joyous. It was... I think of a word that might replace joy.
(16:35):
It was cautionary. It was very cautionary. He, anytime there was any indication of hate,
whatever it was, I hate spinach. No, no, you don't. You might not like it.
But you don't hate it. And I said, no, I so get that definition of hate from this point of view,
(17:02):
was extremely informative. And I think very beneficial, something I carried with me all the time.
Yeah, I just about hating ideology or hating, you know, even people's actions. There was this
whole notion of what it is to reject something holy. And holy WH, you know, that kind of rejection on
(17:28):
the notion of where hate came from was almost like verboten, you know, was a word that should be
purged from the dictionary. Wow. Wow. Steve, you mentioned that you asked Dave to follow up.
He, you know, I think you said he was like, why? And you did. You went to his house, you sat down with him,
(17:54):
and you told him about, you know, your students wanting to go to the Holocaust Museum. We talked
about what you learned on that follow up visit and his reaction to the students wanting to go.
Yeah, well, sort of funny. The first time I went, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm interviewing a 90-year-old
(18:16):
Holocaust survivor as I was wanted to honor. And I didn't, I had like four pieces of paper
that were, you know, together like this, a really long timeline like, okay, I want to fill in this,
this, this, this, this. But I didn't record it because I thought, you know, I wanted to just establish
rapport with him first. I didn't know what it would, what it would be like. I remember now, I came to
(18:36):
the door and he knocked or rang the bell and he just yelled, it's open. Come in. I was like, who is
this guy? He really knows me. And we sat down. We talked for like two hours and I told some friends
that I had done this and I hadn't recorded it. And they said, you're an idiot. Like if you talk to a
90-year-old Holocaust survivor, you have an obligation to record it. And so when I came back, I was
(18:59):
super bowl Sunday around 11 o'clock in the morning. I showed up at his house. I think it was February 3rd.
And I had my tape recorder and I had, my iPhone was set up and I recorded and we talked for like
two hours. And I mentioned, as I was packing up my stuff, that my students wanted to go to the
Holocaust Museum. And Abe said, unprompted. He's like, oh, I've never been. Maybe I'll go with you.
(19:23):
And I said, are you serious? And he said, yeah. And that's how I met his daughter who lives in the
area in the triangle in North Carolina where I'm from. You know, just like, is this okay? Can this
really happen? And I was doing some research recently where you know, like if you're in a different
place and you do a Google search, it sometimes gives you different results. I was missing my father
(19:46):
in Florida and I googled apiastic as I do from time to time. And I found an article from 2017 where he
was asked at the end of one of his talks, have you been to the Holocaust Museum? And he said, no,
I don't want to go. And I'm really curious what happened between that was less than a year
before I met him. And so, you know, in a year and change, something was appealing about me and
(20:11):
my students or something changed within him. I don't know what, but for him to say, yeah, let me go with
you was amazing. Yeah, that's it. I mean, the gift of that to the students alone and yourself.
Joe, your dad came to speak to students at your school in 2017. And was that really the first time
(20:38):
you heard him articulate his story? First hand, yes. Wow. Yeah, that was the, that was the first time
that I had a first hand view of the way he told stories. And I think what Steve said a while ago is
that he came in and he had a three or four, 45 minute sessions with your students. 45 minutes was
(21:03):
his, the preface to his talk. You know, he needed another two, three hours, perhaps a day. And at
at SUNY Delhi where he gave a talk in 2017, he elongated the introduction to the point where
(21:25):
I thought, well, you know, short attention span, the students are just going to, you know, leave.
But he was exactly captivating that they didn't budge. And he actually gave a long, long introduction
for about an hour. Took a break, 15, 20 minute break. And all the students remained. He came back and
(21:50):
he talked for another hour or so. So he had a lot to say, a lot of stories and he's a really good
storyteller. And when did he start speaking out? Was it, was that around the first time
where he had been doing it for a while at that point? Do you know? I think he, he, you Steve also might
(22:11):
have some insight on this too, but I recall when my mother passed away was an opportunity for him to
kind of get up and interface with the world without the perfilter. And that was in 2012, I think she
died. Yeah, it's hard to feel weird being the family historian when I'm not a member of the Piazza
(22:37):
family. But he, so he, the first time he spoke about it was the two hour show at interview in March
of 1995. And shortly after that in Florida, and I don't think there are any records of these, but he
spoke at a synagogue or two, at probably a couple schools. And he was also involved with other
(22:57):
community service, but he got a presidential award for, for freedom for the, his community work
in Florida. So I know he spoke there. I would guesstimate maybe 20 times. I, you know, and then they moved
to North Carolina to be near Pam, Abe's, Abe daughter, Joe sister in 2009. And he spoke some while
(23:19):
surely was still, your mom was, was still alive. But then like, he really picked up after that.
Yeah, the show interview was, was the first, but it was private. It was in the home and there
wasn't an audience there. There was a camera there. And he was asked questions. He really hadn't
(23:40):
considered to articulate answers to an English ever before. And we always, uh, kidded him to his
very unique, um, way of speaking. I wouldn't call it an accent because you couldn't put your finger on
what kind of an accent. But it was just the way he spoke. Um, but his ability to articulate, um,
(24:05):
grew exponentially, uh, when he started to get out and, and talk. And his, his, um,
communication style as observing what happened around him as he was
being surviving through these various circumstances, which very few people survived.
(24:28):
Um, there was a combination of his personal firsthand experience and his firsthand, um,
imagination of other people's experience. And so over time, my sister and I would always say,
was this something he did or something he saw done to somebody else? There, there was a big,
(24:54):
kind of gray area there. But the more he spoke, the more he kind of personalized and first person,
the stories and made them much more impactful that way. But we noticed, and Steve brought this up
before, is that how can he tell a story of such tragedy with, with somewhat of detachment
(25:14):
that allowed him to express it in ways that were not, um, bringing tears to his eyes?
Uh, part of what I imagine was happening is that he was integrating other people's experience. And
as he was describing it, he was actually seeing it for the first time. You know, in a new light.
(25:36):
Wow. And if I could do something, you just said, when you said in English, right? Like, I,
I so wish I could have heard him tell the story either in Polish or yetish, right? Because there
were things he wanted to say and he'd be struggling for the right word to say. And he, again, as you
said, like when I met him at, he had just turned 90, he was a remarkably good storyteller,
(26:00):
but it wasn't in his primary language. He, we always thought he never had a primary language.
And I always thought that was really great because, um, I think English is my second language.
I have no first language. And I think that if we can be anybody can understand that the way they
(26:22):
communicate goes far beyond and way below our verbal language. And I think he was able to create
a language using English as its basis, like nobody else could in these stories.
You mentioned the, uh, show a foundation videos. Were you in your sister and mom not there when he
(26:45):
recorded it or maybe your mom was in the room? I think my mother was. I was not. My sister and I were
in the room when my parents were, um, and it was, um, you know, I probably for the, I heard a lot of
things for the first time. Granted, I think, you know, my mother was three to eight during the war.
My dad was 13 to 18 during the war. Um, both of them found that interview very difficult.
(27:13):
Um, you know, it was a stranger coming into their living room to do it. Um, but it is so important.
But you, you know, I, I show the video sometimes when I speak out about it. And you could hear. I mean,
my mother, you know, breaks it's, it's something that they definitely put in a different part of their
(27:33):
brain. Um, to do so. Joe, I mean, hearing him describe this at your school in, in greater detail
than you had ever heard, what, what was that like for you personally? It was really an honor to meet him.
Wow. Oh, wow. Wow.
(27:58):
Oh, you know, I mean, I've known, you know, I've circled around him. But that was an inside view that, uh,
was, um, an honor, you know, and I really thanked him. I got to know my father through that experience.
And, and others, and much of which Steve brought out in him too. And he also appreciated the
(28:22):
encouragement to tell the stories. I was opposed to don't talk about that. It will upset people.
Yeah, I mean, there's, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, I, you know, there's many people who,
who still won't talk about it, you know, yeah. And it, it, it, it is so important. Um,
(28:44):
you know, sadly, my parents aren't a lot to have seen that I created this series.
Because of them, but, you know, somebody had asked me, you know, what do you think they'd say?
And I think they'd be quite happy, but very, very surprised because I was not,
I didn't grow up in a Jewish community. So I did, I wasn't verbal, you know, people would ask what
(29:06):
religion or nationality I was. And I never said it. I let them guess. And it was probably because most
of my friends went to Catholic school, right? You know, I was not surrounded by Jewish kids growing up. So,
but in the world that we live, it is so important that we are all here today talking about this and,
and sharing a story. Um, that was a other thing I learned from my father regarding being Jewish.
(29:33):
Is that I learned from him as juxtaposed with other family members and other community members,
that there was a lot of different ways of being Jewish.
And there's a lot of broad understanding of what that meant.
(29:54):
Yeah, I mean, I was Bar Mitzvahd, but, you know, I didn't want to go to Hebrew school. And I, and I
think, you know, back that that could have been, you know, part of my parents' story or just not
being in a Jewish community and feeling like an outcast. I don't have the answers, but, you know,
(30:21):
you think about those things as you get older and why, you know, I, you know.
So describe your father, you know, or what is one word that, you know, I would be asked, you know,
to kind of label my dad. And the first word that came to mind and that still does was immigrant.
(30:46):
Yeah, 100 men as opposed to Jewish. Yeah, 100 percent correct. I would say the same thing.
I just, oh god, I lost my question. I, something hit me at that moment.
(31:08):
Well, the story like this touches so many, there's so many touchstones in a conversation like this.
A 100 percent and 100 percent. Oh, I know what it was because,
I, you know, for me, it was Charlottesville, what happened in Charlottesville, that made me want to speak
(31:31):
up. It angered me to a degree that I just had never, and I didn't have this platform then. That was
2017. And it was thinking about what those images would have done to my mother. Not so much my father,
my father was quieter, but, you know, my mother died of lung cancer, my mother smoked, my mother smoked
(31:56):
because of, I truly believe because of her experience in the Holocaust. Like that was her crutch
from a very young age. And so I'm curious, you know, I know you didn't know the whole story like,
I guess maybe the hate conversation that you had, you know, how your dad taught you not to hate and
(32:19):
that should not be a part. Like, you know, I think about the effects of their experiences. You know,
I know what effect of my mother her entire life. Like the fact that my mother always needed my sister
and I to call her when we arrived anywhere basically. You know, she had no control growing up from
(32:43):
those, that young age. So like she tried to control so much in her adult life. And I'm curious if
there's things now that, you know, time has passed that you think of what, you know, the Holocaust's
effects had on, on Abe, your dad. So as you describe it, you know, if you're traveling somewhere,
(33:09):
let me know that you got there safely. That was definitely part of our lives for sure. And my life,
one might do with my kids. But there's also something that he did that I need to continue on
that was the opposite of hate. I mean, there are many ways you could look at what opposites are,
(33:33):
but reflective on that. And that's love. And so every Valentine's Day, the Valentine's Day was like
one of his favorite allies. He always gave my mother and my sister and me, Candy, about chocolate,
you know, hearts. So, you know, for the last 30 years, 40 years, I've been sending chocolates to my
(34:01):
kids on Valentine's Day. And that's appropriating that notion of your in my heart versus the kind of
commercial view of romanticism. That was one thing. And I think that he definitely used that
(34:24):
to express himself very clearly non-verbally.
That's incredible. That's incredible. Steve, you ended up in 2019 taking your students,
going with a, going with Joe's sister Pam and granddaughter and great granddaughter, I think.
Two great, great kids, yeah. Talk about the experience of going there to the Holocaust Museum with Abe.
(34:54):
Yeah, I just, when you just said Charlottesville, it got me thinking right before I met Abe was when
the Tree of Life shooting happened. And I was processing that. And I remember I lived near Duke
University. There's a like a free expression bridge thing and some students had made a mural
for, you know, honoring the people who had been killed at Tree of Life. And in between Abe's two visits
(35:21):
to my school because he came twice, the mural was vandalized with a swastika. And the university,
you know, they cleaned it up and they made all the proper statements. This is not acceptable.
Sort of thing. But that was really that, that was the first visceral experience I had. I grew up
in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb outside of Boston. And, you know, I'd never, I was my last name's
(35:44):
Goldberg. I'd never experienced anti-semitism in a way that I was aware of. And so that, I think that
that plus Vivian Connell, the influence all led to me really diving deeper into Abe's story.
I just wanted to mention that. So, but yeah, it's all of that. I know like, you know, even growing up,
(36:11):
you know, I was a teen in the 80s. And, you know, Penny jokes were still a big deal back then, you know,
or being cheap. Which I didn't, I don't think I understood that as truly being anti-semitism as I do
today. But, you know, Charlotte'sville, like I went and watched the vice did a news like a 20-minute
(36:36):
story. And those images were so disturbing. And I really thought like my mother would have been
under her bed. And, and granted, my mother was not like naive to not think anti-semitism still existed.
She knew that. She proudly wore a high, you know, she, she was not, I have other family members who,
(37:00):
who wouldn't let their children say they were Jewish because of their experience during the war.
You know, like there's just so many levels of how it affected individuals.
But yeah, so I get it. Like it's, and what we're witnessing today is just,
you know, to the levels of it is the fact that anyone is drawing a swastika anywhere is really just.
(37:33):
Shocking to me.
Yeah, I guess I'm, I've told Abe's story more than 130 times now. And, you know, it's sort of like,
why am I doing this? It's, you know, it's a nice story. It's an inspiring story. I like to think that
if people had heard Abe's story, they would be less likely to draw swastikas, right? And they would
(37:54):
be perhaps even, this may be too aspirational, but be more, be willing to say to someone who's
doing something hateful or making a penny joke or, you know, say, hey, no, that's not okay.
Not just for you, you know, to universalize it, but also to see the, you know, the depth of what
(38:16):
happened during the Holocaust, which was kind of amazing. Well, you mentioned reading Eli Weasel,
you know, who is a Nobel laureate's book, Night, while he has said, once you listen to a witness,
you become a witness. And that doesn't just have to, you know, talk about the Holocaust. You know,
(38:40):
you know, you hear about a, you know, what happened at Sandy Hook. You speak, you know, you hear their
story. You become a witness to these things and sharing Abe's story, which I want to get to,
you know, what Abe had said to you, but the Holocaust Museum, you know, what was that like experiencing it
(39:03):
with him and his family and your students? Right. So we, I put together a go fund me and
local media somehow found that and they did a little short piece about us. And that was the first
time I met Pam was they came with cameras and we were in their living room and you know, they asked
(39:23):
Abe about the trip and he said, well, I didn't want to go, but the students are going and, you know,
the story left off with us heading to the museum. And when we got there, I didn't know what to expect.
And I later learned the museum is set up so that survivors can meet other survivors in the lobby. They
don't have to go in to the exhibits. You take an elevator up to the fourth floor. You see the
(39:47):
exhibits on four three two and you come out on the lobby. And so, you know, Abe might not have
have gone in and he learned there was a cattle car on the third floor and he said, I want to go see
that. And I turned to Pam who I'd met once and said, is this a good idea? Like I don't want to
traumatize your dad and she said, no, I think it'll be okay. And so we took a private elevator from
(40:12):
four to three so he wouldn't have to walk the exhibits and he goes on to the cattle car and I
thankfully had my iPhone with me and you know, I did deal with him while I'm going to play that in a minute.
Yeah. And he started narrating. That's incredible. Well, I, before I play that, I just wanted to share
(40:35):
a little about Abe's story. He was 12 years old in 1940 when the SS entered his town in Poland
and killed or deported most the Jewish residents. He was separated from his parents and sister whom he
never saw again. But shortly before liberation, he was put on this cattle car which was roughly two
(40:57):
weeks before liberation and he had no idea where he was going. And you can imagine at 12 years old,
you know, the fear of being loaded onto a cattle car, not knowing where you were headed. Here is
(41:17):
that audio that Steve captured. They've describing. I was standing, standing was Mr. Goldberg standing right
there. The door was shut and we were here can imagine about two at least between 150 to 200 people,
(41:39):
maybe a little bit more. Standing or standing or sitting or you couldn't lay down. And there was no,
the only tiny window was on the side. I was leaning on the wall and a friend of mine was leaning
next to me and that's how it was. When I was when they took us from one camp to another, I didn't think I
(42:06):
had a set foot in a car and my heart, my heart is pounding. And I had to show you how it was like we
were on the elevator. We were packed in. That's how it was in the camp. I was standing, standing was
(42:30):
Mr. Goldberg standing right there. What was it like for the students to hear that from him?
I've been in touch with a few students who were there and they said, you know, I'll never forget you.
You know, like it was, he created this unforgettable moment for them and they had heard him speak at
(42:54):
the school as well. So they knew him a little but that was, I mean, it remains one of the bravest
things I've ever seen. And I think he was doing it for his family and for my students and for
posterity. We met another survivor after coming out of the cattle car. He took an elevator to the
first floor and she had been on three cattle cars. They've been on four during the course of the Holocaust.
(43:19):
My students asked her, did you go in the cattle car? They didn't know. They figured they'd
be other people. They did that. My students like they lost their minds and she said, no, I was on
three of those in real life. I would never do that. No, thank you. And she was amazed that they did
that. I don't have stats but I can't imagine that's very common. I'm with you, Steve. I can't
(43:44):
imagine that that is very common. I don't think it's very common that you get a lot of Holocaust
survivors walking through that museum. Well, I think the people who live in the DC area and
volunteer there, they're, you know, they're docents and they're often like our docent was a, a
2G. His, I think his mother's father was a survivor. But I know that earlier in the museum's history,
(44:10):
they'd had survivors taking groups around. But yeah, just, I mean, people who were just visiting,
that was after that happened, I became an Abe groupie, right? Like he told me where he was speaking.
Next, I took the day off from school. I went, I videoed him. I like, who is this guy? How is he
(44:32):
doing this? And I was, I was going to be his like agent. He had spoken to small groups. But,
you know, I went to Duke and my wife teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and I know people at NC State and
NC Central. I was like, you need to speak it. It's an amazing story. You need to get it out. And he's
like, okay. And you said it up. I'll do it. And then sadly, he fell in September of 2019.
(44:59):
And then he, before he passed, he asked you to keep telling his story. Yeah, he was, he was, I was,
in a hospital bed that was set up at Pam's house. And he was very weak at that point. And I,
I came to his bedside and he said to me, keep telling my story. And like, no one had ever asked me
to do that. And I didn't know what to say. I said I would, but I didn't know what that meant.
(45:22):
And then he passed away three days later on January 15th, 2020. And then COVID hit two months later.
And it was a chance to, you know, what, what is really important and what is worth spending time
doing. And that was when I made the shift to, to researching his story and, and starting to, to
(45:43):
pick up the baton as it were. Wow. Joe, what does it mean to you that Steve is out there,
you know, sharing this with others, you know, your dad's story, an important story.
It means a great deal. Steve is a historian that we are, historians, the ranks of historians
(46:15):
are being thinned today. And it's really important. This story, of course, was incredible, of course,
to me personally. But the idea of not just recounting or investigating or telling historical
stories, but encapsulating them in time capsules, preserving them. I think it's probably one of the
(46:42):
most, maybe even the most valuable human enterprises to preserve the trajectory from which we came.
And I think what Steve is doing is great. It is so important. You know, like I said, I,
so different from this vantage point of age, but like, God, if I could go, you know,
(47:05):
Steve, what you were able to do and go to Aviance it down and record him, if I had really grasped
what my parents had gone through and done the same thing, I'd be happier, you know, I know a lot.
I was able to honor the family that hid my mother away. Like I talk about them all the time. They've
(47:32):
been a part of my show because I realized us would not be having this conversation if that family
did not take my mother and grandmother in for two years. You know, the impact of that and here
I am almost 80 years after the war. It will be 80 years and that family is a part of my life
(47:55):
today. You know, it's something. So it's amazing and you have gone out and you said it, you've spoken
over 120 times to an audience of 6,000. You recently did a talk at the Durham Public Library
on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. How do you think we would feel that you have kept
(48:22):
your promise? I think he'd be very pleased. I think, I think it's some ways it's easier for me because I'm
not related to him, right? Like I said something when I was footing this together for the first time,
I was on a Zoom call with Joe and Pam and four of Aves grandkids, three of whom at the time lived
(48:49):
on three different Hawaiian islands and one was in Los Angeles and I believe it was Dan, right?
Dan said, you know, it wasn't like one of this one of Aves grandkids. He says, "It's not like he
sat me on his knee and told me a horrible story," right? Like that's not what you do at Thanksgiving. When
you get together with family, there isn't space to do what I was able to do as an outsider, right?
(49:15):
Joe, if you want to pick up that you had this, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize when Dan said that."
Yeah, that was a revelatory, that point right there. Even though my dad and Alan,
your folks, they're not here, it doesn't mean we can't continue to ask these questions.
(49:35):
Even though, "Yeah, I wish I had asked," well, you can still ask. And there's a,
there are lots of different ways to answer, but none of them are going to happen unless you ask,
unless you're curious, you know, for whatever reason. My son was talking to one of my kids just
(49:57):
yesterday and I sent him some artifact that I said, "This was grandpa's, you know, you might want to have
this." And he said, "He said, "Tell me about this." And I said, "I really know much about it. I'll tell you what I
know." And he goes, "I guess I should start asking questions." And that was really great, because he
(50:19):
didn't ask a lot of questions when he was younger. I asked questions when I was younger. I definitely
had a curious streak, but I didn't get any real answers, mainly because of protecting the notions
that what those answers could lead to, or and/or the inability to articulate an answer that was
(50:43):
satisfying, clear or appropriate, you know, for a young person. But that doesn't mean that those
questions can't continue to be asked by us, by our kids, by Steve, by Steve's kids, you know, by our
students. Keep asking. Yeah, it is amazing what we can learn if we do. And you know, you're so right,
(51:11):
like, because you think of what's happening in our country about how certain groups want to rewrite
history, or, you know, the fact that there are people out there who try to deny the Holocaust ever
happened, you know, is unimaginable. But I do have two paths there, though. Two, one is the
(51:37):
deny that things ever happened, and the other is, "Okay, they happen, but who cares?"
Yeah. You know, and both of those are, you know, devilishly or well-earned, that we need to be
aware of, and redirect. Yes. There's also, there's, I thought you were going to say something slightly
(52:00):
different, Joe. There's, there's Holocaust denial, but there's also Holocaust distortion, which is not
so much, uh, who cares. It's, well, it's not as bad as they said, and that's not what the ovens were for,
and it wasn't six million, and it's, it's this, you know, minimizing, you know, yes, it happened,
but it wasn't that extreme. I think that's a disservice to the memory of the people, I, you know,
(52:27):
in learning more about the Holocaust, that I didn't realize this, but there's like three months,
August, September, October, and this is probably when your dad's parents were murdered,
at Treblinka, that 1.5 million Jews were murdered in just three months. It wasn't like the Holocaust
was a steady stream of murder, a scientific American did a, if you google scientific American,
(52:50):
Holocaust, efficiency, sadly, you'll, you'll find the article, and you know, that works, 1.5 million
in three months works out to 15,000 a day, and that works out to one every six seconds, and when I say
that to students, it stops them, right, to think about what that means 24/7 for a hundred days,
(53:12):
and that's only a quarter of it, right? There's another 4.5 roughly million who were killed some before
and some after, but at that peak moment, what was going on, and if you can start to understand that,
then you can get into, you know, the Rwandan genocide and Cambodian genocide and other, you know,
as humans we do this, but the Holocaust is such a powerful case study, and for me it was an
(53:37):
invitation to really dive in deep, which I've done for the past four years, to try to, as you said,
just keep asking questions with Abe's story at the base, but also, you know, I've met other survivors
and I've done the reading. Yeah, and the evidence is there. Oh, the evidence is there, yeah.
(53:57):
Steve has, there been something that has surprised you most since you started speaking,
and sharing it story? I mean, I thought it was an amazing story. Like, when I told his story
a couple of weeks ago, students are just totally with you, right? Like Joe, you were saying, you thought
(54:21):
that he has wind up you, that he would lose them. It's such a compelling story. I mean, I could
easily talk for two hours, but I get kids who come up and say, "Thank you so much." And I've also,
had a number of students who have, are of Indian descent, who talk about the partition that happened
in 1947, and how they, you know, they know that that's part of their family history, but their family
(54:46):
won't talk about it, but now, it's prompted them to want to ask questions, right? So I think it's
this, it's a particular story. It's the Holocaust, but it has universal qualities to it that people
just connect with, and you know, people are incredibly grateful after I tell his story. It feels,
it's policy, it feels good to tell a story. It feels good that more people know his story,
(55:09):
right? And I feel like people are appreciative of his bravery that inspired me, and of, you know,
I show about 12 clips of a telling the story in his own words, and a fewer, like, at time machine,
back to 1995 when he isn't a polished storyteller, and you get a sense of, "Wow, he really put a lot of
(55:29):
time into, you know, becoming the storyteller that he was," and, you know, conveying this really
complicated and personally difficult story, and telling it over and over, he probably told it
150 to 200 times. I'm catching up. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fascinating because, you know, you just
(55:52):
said that, like, you know, I only heard my parents really tell it in great detail that, I mean, I've heard
the show of video many times now, but in person, that, that one time in detail, you know, for me, it was
like, I, it didn't all come together until Shindler's list came out, and then the girl in the red coat
(56:17):
was like seeing my mother because it was that, she was that age, you know, it was the one color moment
in the film, and then my nephew was born in 94, my first nephew, and from a payphone in New Jersey,
you know, at the hospital, my mother called, you know, the daughter of the family that rescued her,
(56:37):
you know, this daughter was her age, and they were, you know, I knew of this woman my whole life, but
to know that she picked up the phone, a payphone, and the impact, you know, of the one person she wanted
a call to say her, her grandson was born. It just all, it was like, Chinese symbols coming into English
(57:00):
for me, and, you know, and I just understood the impact. And then, of course, I, I went two years later,
and, and literally went to the farm where my mother was hidden away. So it's, you know, it is the impact
of these stories, you know, you sort of bear witness by sharing them.
I have a one story that I heard as a child that my sister never heard, and when I say,
(57:31):
I heard that you're, no, he never heard. So that's why my father's stories, they were
hidden myths, you know, but the one that, that really stayed with me forever, will stay with me forever,
is when he got, who was on the cattle car, and it got bombed, and he got thrown,
(57:53):
and woke up against the tree alive, seeing soldiers, American soldiers,
approached the survivors of the bombing of the train car that they had bombed.
There was a black unit, and they had big smiles on their faces with shiny white teeth, and he's,
(58:18):
and he thought, oh, that's what an American looks like. And we moved into a black neighborhood,
and I've always thought of myself as black because of that, as quintessentially American,
which is why I really appreciate the 1619 project, and the idea of bringing history to the present,
(58:41):
because the present is nothing without it.
That's the perfect way to end this. I mean, seriously, it really is. It shapes everything
in history. It really does. I mean, it shapes who, you know, we, the three of us are today, you know.
(59:07):
Really, Steve, I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible. Before I let you go, what do
your kids think of you doing this at this stage? My son, I mean, my son has heard me, I spoke
once at the school where he was teaching and shared the story, and he's 17, and he's not a scholar
(59:35):
of the Holocaust. He's more, I think, into, I know, he's more into saving the planet.
And enjoys computers, and it's not, he recognizes it's my passion. I think he's, I hope he's proud
that that's what I'm doing, but he hasn't, he hasn't decided, oh, I want to learn more about that.
(59:57):
And I, you know, but he's, I, you have to ask him.
Yeah, I get it, I get it. Thank you so much, gentlemen. I really appreciate it. Steve, thank you so
much for reaching out to me. Sure, no, I appreciate it. And there's a website that needs some work,
but it's myfrienddayb.com. No, great. I will, I will put that up as well. Definitely email me both
(01:00:20):
of those and we'll have them up. So people can find it. And yeah, and get a picture of A, that's for
people that they've heard his voice on the cattle car, but seeing his, his picture is, his picture is
up on on screen. There you go. Wow. Look at that head of hair. That's incredible. Oh, wait,
(01:00:45):
I do have pictures. Sorry. And I meant to show them. I did put them up. My, my, here's, uh,
picket fence. Oh, there's that one. There's that one. My apologies. I meant to do that earlier,
but we were so engrossed. And then here's, that's my friend name. I love that.
(01:01:11):
He looks so distinguished. That picture that Joe just showed first, that's, when I start my talks,
I say how that's Joe, if you want to hold that up again, we're getting a little glare, but that's
the first picture that we have of Abe. I was taking it in a, in a displaced persons camp in Germany.
And that's the picture that was used. So he's roughly 17 because he was 17 after the war. Yeah.
(01:01:35):
When they, when they were liberated, wow. So finally, Steve, the work that you're doing is evidence
of my father's afterlife. Well, you may have kept the cut this for time, but I think you know this show
at the, at his funeral. You know, people, I didn't know your family at all. And I was just, I was
(01:02:00):
there and was hanging around with some other people. And there was the cemetery in Raleigh is in a
pretty urban area. And there was a deer that came toward a group of us who were looking and like
looked at us and then sort of scampered off. And there's a couple of grounds people were looking too.
(01:02:23):
And they're like, that never happens. Like that, that never happens. And I like to think that Abe,
you know, talked with whoever you talk with when you die and said, can I go take over that deer for a
minute just to say hello? And they're like, okay, you, you go ahead and do that. It was a remarkable
moment. I doubt if he asked permission. Yeah. I know many people who would believe that was
(01:02:51):
definitely a sign. And that's the kind of sign you'd like, you know, at a, at a sad moment like that.
Gentlemen, thank you so much. Steve, continue to do this. Thank you, Rowan. Thanks, Alan.
My pleasure. Thanks, gentlemen. Thanks everybody for watching. And as I said before, remember what
(01:03:18):
Eli Whizel has said, once you listen to a witness, you become a witness. Thank you again to Steve and
Joe for being here to honor Abe and to share his story. As I leave you, remember, we all have choices
to make in life. Speak up. Do the hard thing. And let's all fight hate for good. I truly believe
conversations like this can change the world around us. Hate and war is not the answer. Please feel
(01:03:46):
free to share these episodes with your friends and family. And until the next conversation,
please stay safe.
[Music]
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