Holocaust survivor relives 60-year-old nightmare

Eric M. Jukelevics Arizona Daily Wildcat Monique Steinberg Busby (right), who interviews Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielburg's Survival of the Shoah Visual Foundation, holds up the medal received by Hermina Aussems (left) for her work with the underground movement to help Jews escape capture during World War II. Busby interviewed Aussems last night in the Senior Ballroom of the MSU as part of Hillel's week-long conference on the Holocaust.

Aussems, an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor who ran guns for the anti-Nazi underground, recounted her story last night at the University of Arizona.

"Someone had to do something," Aussems said. "I grew up in Amsterdam - we were one community."

Aussems, joined by an interviewer for Steven Spielberg's Survival of the Shoah Visual Foundation, spoke to an audience of about 75 in the UA's Memorial Student Union Senior Ballroom.

Aussems, a Catholic, joined the Amsterdam underground in her early 20s.

"The day they [Nazi soldiers] marched in I thought I died," Aussems said. "Soon I felt above the Nazi's. I didn't want them to think that they could step on me."

In the underground, Aussems ran guns in a baby carriage that held her child at the same time, and used a chloroform-soaked rag on a Nazi soldier to break into German headquarters and steal food coupons.

But Aussems did not go unpunished for her efforts.

"In a Dutch prison, I was forced into a cell with 74 other people," Aussems said. "The cell was built for four prisoners."

"I survived by licking water off of the cell wall and the sweat off others' bodies," Aussems said.

The survivor said her antipathy for the Germans is now deeply ingrained.

"I'd rather have nothing to do with them," she said. "I can never forget and I will never forgive."

Aussems received a medal from the Queen of Holland after the war. "That's not why I did it," Aussems laughed. "I had to do something."

The interviewer who joined Aussems, Monique Steinberg Busby, 53, is one of hundreds of people who speak with Holocaust survivors for Spielberg's foundation, which films and archives their stories for preservation.

Being able to preserve stories like Aussems' is invaluable, Busby said.

She began interviewing survivors four years ago and has talked with more than 25 in Tucson, spending several hours with each.

Busby and a videographer meet with the survivors in their homes.

"We don't coach them," Busby said. "The interviews just follow their natural paths."

Busby went through an extensive training process in Burbank, Calif. before she could work with the foundation.

"We were given strict guidelines to follow in each interview," she said.

Interviewers must always keep their eyes on the survivor and are allowed no verbal responses, Busby said.

"One of the greatest moments of my life occurred during the training," she said. "We were shown a complete interview of a man who survived because of his ability to play the violin."

The man was asked by Nazi officers to play a selection he had heard, but never played, she said.

"He said that God helped him to play the piece," Busby said.

The man's musical piece was used as the theme for Spielberg's film, Schindler's List.

Spielberg hopes his work will help connect families separated during the Holocaust, Busby said.

"Spielberg is to be lauded for what he has done," she said.

The interviews can be accessed in Holocaust museums and will soon be available in schools, Busby said.

The speech was part of the UA Hillel Foundation's week-long conference on the Holocaust.