HOULTON, Maine — Students at Houlton Middle-High School, as well as members of the public had an opportunity last week to hear first-hand accounts of the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the German persecution of Jewish people leading up to and during World War II.
Organized by Tim Tweedie and Heather Fagnant, social studies teachers at the school, the presentation was the first in this year’s “Speaking Series” that brings guests to the school to teach children valuable lessons on historical events.
Charles Rotmil was born in Strasbourg, France in 1932, and his journey for survival led him through Austria, Belgium and several other countries in his attempts to escape the horrors of the Holocaust.
After the war ended, Rotmil and his brother moved to the United States in 1946. He now resides in Portland.
“We were extremely fortunate to have an opportunity to hear Charles’ first-hand accounts of the Holocaust,” Tweedie said.
Rotmil was a 5-year-old boy living in Vienna, Austria when the Gestapo burst into his family’s apartment and took his father. Outside, synagogues burned to the ground and thousands of Jewish people were arrested. Today, that night is known as “Kristallnacht,” or the night of broken glass. The next few years of his life involved escapes, further arrests, gas chambers and survival.
Rotmil said he was not able to speak about the atrocities he witnessed as a boy for many years. Later in his life, he felt compelled to share his stories and began doing extensive research on his family’s history.
“I was curious what happened to my father,” he said. “We are pretty sure he died in Auschwitz.”
His mother and sister died in a tragic train accident as the family was trying to escape persecution.
“From the age of 7 to 11, I lived in hiding,” he said. “I had two different names as I couldn’t be who I was. In a way, I guess I still live in hiding.”
Rotmil’s appearance as a young boy aided in his ability to avoid apprehension.
He said he can still vividly recall the day that the Americans arrived and liberated those being persecuted. As a teenager, he wrote a school essay about that moment that moved his teacher to tears.
Rotmil said he remembers warming himself by fires made by American soldiers as they watched Charlie Chaplin movies on a projector.
