Survivor’s granddaughter lectures on Holocaust

 

Now it’s the Third Generation’s time to remind the world never to forget

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Talia Schauder, almost 17, says that she wants to become a teacher.  But, in essence, she already is.

On Monday, April 8, with all the aplomb of a seasoned teacher, she faced an assembly of several hundred students at Mesa Verde Middle School in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood and shared with them the experiences during the Holocaust of her late grandfather, Paul Schauder.  Before she started speaking, the students were restless in the gym’s bleachers, even drawing reproofs from a teacher to “stop chewing gum,” “take your hat off,” and “show respect.”

Once Talia started speaking, however, the gym was swathed in a respectful silence. Here was someone only a few years older than they, telling them about the horrific experiences that her own grandfather suffered at an age parallel to theirs.  Grandfather Schauder had grown up in Worms, Germany, the son of furniture store owner Marcus Schauder, who was arrested by the Nazis during the infamous Kristallnacht and shipped to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp where he was murdered.

From Worms, Grandpa Paul Schauder went to an orphanage in Frankfurt, and later to one in Berlin, from which the Nazis rounded up most of the children—including Paul’s brother, Herman – sending them to concentration camps.  Paul and another brother, Jacob, were able to escape the orphanage, and went underground, pretending to be non-Jewish Germans, and hiding with sympathetic German families.  Paul hid out in a barn in one town; Jacob and their mother in another town.  In 1945, the family was liberated, with Jacob and their mother sighing with relief that Paul still was alive.

U.S. Army Captain Al Hutler, who later would become the executive director of the United Jewish Federation (today simply called the Jewish Federation of San Diego County), took an interest in the Schauder family, providing money for the family to move to the United States, first to Chicago, and later to San Diego, where they met other Holocaust survivors who had become part of San Diego’s New Life Club.  Among their friends were Max (z”l) and Rose Schindler, the latter a speaker about the Holocaust who often asks who will tell their story after all the Survivors have passed on.

For the last year, Talia has been giving an emphatic answer.  She is teaching her peers about the Holocaust, about tolerance, and about speaking up when others are bullied.

It started for Talia last year while she was a sophomore at Poway High School.  She decided to interview her grandfather for a history project.  Once reticent about discussing his experiences, he opened up to Talia.  In one of the great wildfires that have swept through San Diego County, Paul Schauder’s home in Rancho Bernardo was burned down, and with it, his keepsakes from the Holocaust and the immediate post-war years.  Nevertheless, Talia was able to compile an A+ scrapbook of her grandfather’s experience for her class.  She supplemented his recollections with Holocaust photographs obtainable online as well as with documents that were photocopied and scanned by relatives.

A year ago, at this very same middle school, Talia was persuaded by her step-mother, Heather Schauder, to talk about her grandfather.  There had been what the principal described as an anti-Semitic incident – students playing a tagging game in which the person tagged was derisively called a “Jew”  by the tagger who put a fingertip under his nose in imitation of Adolf Hitler’s mustache.  Before the “game” occurred, it had been arranged for Rose Schindler to speak to the students, but she was unable to move up the date of her talk.  The principal wanted some immediate action, and Talia was volunteered.

She spoke to four groups, each ranging between 30 and 60 middle school students, and connected to them, perhaps as her father, Mark Schauder, suggested because they could relate well to someone who was about their size.  Talia stands 5’ tall in her stocking feet.

Since those appearances, Talia has spoken to other schools in larger assemblies.  She estimated that she now has addressed well over 4,000 students.  This past January, her grandfather died at age 87, leaving behind his wife Joan, three children, and grandchildren as well.

I asked Talia if she had ever encountered hostility.  Not exactly, she replied, although at one school a student wanted to know how the Nazis were able to distinguish who was a Jew if the Jews didn’t wear Jewish stars.  “By their noses,” one student said behind his hand in a stage whisper.  Marc Schauder, who serves as his daughter’s “manager,” reported the incident to the school’s authorities, but he did not know which student was responsible.  At another school, students fidgeted in their chairs and clearly were not engaged, but there were no untoward incidents.

At Monday’s assembly, the mood was quite the reverse.  After listening respectfully to Talia’s slide presentation about her grandfather’s life, some students responded to her question about what might people do to remember the Holocaust and to prevent one from happening again.  One student said the message should be spread, one student to another.  Creating stories through art and literature to educate the public was another suggestion.  Try to understand a person before you judge them was a third.

Talia, you can see, is already a good teacher.

Nevertheless, being a junior in high school, she’s wondering at what college she wants to pursue her own education, following in the footsteps of both her mother, Karen, who teaches preschool at Congregation Beth Am, and stepmother Heather, who work as a coordinator of special education for the San Diego Unified School District.  Talia and her father Mark, a realtor who was named for Talia’s great-grandfather, are making the rounds of Southern California colleges.

Besides by her student audiences and some teachers, who were observed dabbing their eyes as Talia related her grandfather’s family’s fate, Talia has been recognized by organizations within the Jewish community.  She recently was a recipient of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego’s Peter Chortek Leadership Award for her Holocaust education efforts.  She received a $5,400 stipend which she will put towards her college expenses, and an additional $540 to create a donor-advised fund at the Jewish Community Foundation, thereby starting her on a life of financial philanthropy.

Talia also is a semi-finalist for the Helen Diller Family Foundation’s annual Tikkun Olam Awards for 15 teen leaders, who each will receive $36,000 either to further their award-winning efforts or to pay for their higher education.  Announcement of the annual awards usually is made in summer.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com