‘Hatred Has to stop’

A Holocaust survivor relives his painful history to foster a hopeful future

Story by Minnie Payne and Ashley Hudson PHoto by benjamin Hager

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At least once a week for the past 14 years, Preston Hollow resident Jack Repp has traveled to the Dallas Holocaust Museum and Center for Education and Tolerance. The museum is an uncomfortable place for the 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, but still he makes the trip because he believes it is important to tell his story.

“He relives his horror each time he speaks,” says Alice Murray, CEO of the museum and center. “His only reason to come is to tell others that hatred has to stop.”

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Reppvividlyremembersthedayin September1939whenGermansoldiers first marched into his hometown of Radom, Poland. At first, his life went on as normal — a “sweet life,” Repp recalls, with his mother, father, sister and four brothers.

One day, however, the Germans showed up at his interfaith school, roughly twothirds Catholic and one-third Jewish. The Nazisescortedtheprincipal,assistant principal, teachers and all of the students, without distinction, to a work site consisting of two piles of mud and stone.

The Germans instructed the principal and assistant principal to show the stu- dents how to work. When the work wasn’t completedtotheirliking,theGermans beat their forced laborers, Repp says. After about six hours of work, the students were hungryandthirsty.BecauseReppwas athletic, the principal chose him to ask the commandant if the students could have some water.

The commandant responded by selecting two students to tie Repp’s hands together and hang him by his hands. Then two German soldiers beat his back with leather straps until he began to bleed. He was cut down and immediately forced back to work.

“The work was of no use except to take our dignity, our childhood and our intelligence from us,” Repp says.

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The students continued to work for anotherfourhours.Theprincipalinstructed another student to ask the commandant for food, but because the child feared being severely beaten, he refused. After working 12 hours, the teachers, principals and students were thrown into the mud, beaten and chased home.

When Repp arrived home, his parents immediately cleaned him, fed him, treated his wounds, and then sat down at a table to ask questions.

“Myfather,asuccessfuldepartment storeowner,askedmewhatworkthe Germans had the students perform, and when I told him, he immediately got up and brought a prayer book [Haggadah] to the table,” Repp says.

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“I said to myself, ‘What does that book have to do with this?’ My father went through the pages and found a verse where the Jewish people were slaves under Pharaoh, and read that the exact same work was ordered to strip dignity from people.”

Thedayafterthisinitialnightmare, Reppreturnedtoschoolandsayshis life returned to normal. A month later, however, the German soldiers returned. This time they seized all of the Jewish children and took them to a labor camp called Radom.

Repp was only 15. Never again would he be able to use the word “mom” or “dad.”

When he and the other children arrived at the camp, they saw a sign at the gate: “arbeitmachtfrei”— workwillmake you free. The children’s names were discarded, and they each were assigned a number.

Repp’s was 238.

The Radom ghetto was an ammunition factory, and Repp worked there as a prisoner for three years. One day, Repp says, the German soldiers rounded up everyone and took roll call. They announced that the Russians were coming.

“We knewthatiftheRussianswere coming, we would be free,” Repp says. But no one smiled. “If we had a smile on our face, they would kill us.”

The Germans led the prisoners on a death march to a camp. On the way to the camp, the boys were ordered to undress on one side, the girls on the other. They knew what that meant.

“Torturous[gas]wouldcomethrough overheadvents,andwewouldn’tcome