Library shares Holocaust victim's story

2B THE TRIBUNE NEWSPAPERS COMMUNITY WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017 their apartment. His father was taken to a concentration camp and was killed there. He and his mother and sister were taken in by a neighbor and hidden from the public. At the end of 1942, they were taken to the Italian concentration camp on the island of Rab, to the women and children’s section. The camp was located inside the island, occupying an area of about 150 acres with wooden barracks, and was fenced with barbed wire 4 meters high. The guards were posted all around the camp’s barbed wire. There were bunk beds, four high, in barracks 200- to-300 feet long, 26-feet high and 100-feet wide. Poliak slept on the top bunk but spent most of the time outside the dormitory, close to the barbed wire fence with the hope to escape one day. “Food was minimal,” Poliak said. “The arrival of care packages originating from the U.S. was crucial for our weak bodies and hope for survival since the people in the outside world By John A. Crone Alex Poliak is surrounded by Ross Sterling Middle School students after sharing his story with them. Library shares Holocaust victim’s story Tribum Correspondent Octavia Fields Library enjoys reaching out to form partnerships with organizations in the community. Recently, the library facilitated a presentation by Alex Poliak to Ross Sterling Middle School students. His story is an interesting one that he willingly shared with rapt students. Poliak’s true story started in 1941 when he was 8 years old. He lived with his family in Bosanski- Brod in Bosnia which, at that time, was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In April 1941, 19 months after the war had started in Europe, the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia. They set up a Nazi puppet regime and embarked on a systematic campaign of extermination of anyone who opposed them - Jews, I Serbians, Romanians, Croatians, communists and partisans. Thousands ! were massacred or sent to ! theii^eath ip concentration camps. .In 1942, Poliak’s family was evicted from cared for us.” In September 1943, Italy capitulated, and the camp was opened. Poliak and his family could leave. “We made the right decision by leaving the concentration camp,” said Poliak. “By staying, we would have been taken to Auschwitz and certain death.” His mother decided to return to Bosanski-Brod at the end of 1944 thinking the situation had changed, but it had not. She was arrested by the Nazis, taken to Germany and Poliak said, “We never heard from her again.” At the end of the war, Poliak found his way to Romania, then Israel, then England, where he received his high school and college education. He migrated to New York in 1962 and worked for Exxon before moving to Humble in 1 975. Poliak has since written a book of memoirs dedicated to his parents, family and friends. Self-published in 2013, it is titled “Knowing Alex.” Janna Hoglund, the Octavia Fields Library branch manager, worked with Poliak to bring him and his story to Ross Sterling Middle School. “The students were truly interested,” said Hoglund. “They asked lots of questions about Alex’s life, his career, about being in a concentration camp, and his life from the concentration camp to the United States. Alex was truly happy that the students showed such interest. This was a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity for these students to talk to a person who had been interred in a concentration camp and lost their parents in the Holocaust.” Hoglund credited Jenica Blenderman, Ross Sterling world cultures teacher, for working with the library and helping to set up the presentation by Poliak.