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Holocaust survivor tells the story of horrors of war by David Lea Oakville Beaver Staff 3 | Friday November 10, 2017 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insidehalton.com Jews and Muslims gathered together at an Oakville mosque on Wednesday (Nov. 8) to commemorate Holocaust Education Week by listening to someone who lived through it. The event, which was held at the Al Falah Islamic Centre in cooperation with the Shaarei-Beth El Congregation, attracted around 100 members from both faiths, who listened attentively to the story of Gerda Frieberg, who survived the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. "Throughout Ontario there are events happening with lectures and films, but I'm not sure if there's an event like this where a Holocaust survivor is in a mosque and sharing her words with these two communities, two communities that share a long history, that share texts, that share prophets, that share morals and values and ethics," said Rabbi Stephen Wise. "This is an important night. This is an important event and we are sending a message about how important it is to remember our past, Rabbi Stephen Wise of Shaarei-Beth El Congregation listens as Holocaust survivor Gerda Frieberg spoke about her personal experiences surviving slave labour and concentration camps in the Second World War. Wise moderated the event co-hosted by Shaarei-Beth El Congregation and the Al Falah Mosque at the mosque. | Riziero Vertolli/Metroland and together as communities of faith, to learn about this and make sure something like this never happens again." Gerda was born in 1925 to a Jewish family in Bielszowice, a Polish town near the German border. The 92-year-old reflected fondly on her life before the war noting that her father Joseph owned a general store and made enough money to provide for Gerda, her older sister Hana and her mother Elfrieda. Gerda said her family was well respected as it was widely known her grandfather had served in the honour guard of the Kaiser during the First World War and had been buried by the Germans with military honours. The tragic irony, she said, was that her grandmother, the widow of this renowned soldier, would meet her end in a gas chamber. While Gerda attended public school in her hometown, she also attended religious schooling twice a week near a synagogue in the city of Hindenburg (now Zabrze) across the border in Germany. It was during one of these trips to the German school in early November 1938 that the 13-year-old first saw the rising danger posed by the Nazis. "My father offered to drive me to school. As we arrived in the vicinity we could smell smoke in the air. We paid little attention to it because fires were common in those days," said Gerda. "We turned a corner and saw a number of Nazis in brown shirt uniforms blocking the road. A lot of people stood on the sidewalk. "The synagogue was on fire. Smoldering Torah scrolls and leatherbound prayer books had been thrown into the rain-soaked streets and strangely no fire brigade was in sight." Gerda now realizes what she saw was the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, an anti-Jewish action that saw Nazis burn synagogues and destroy Jewish businesses across Germany and Austria. As she and her father drove through the city, they saw many Jewish stores with their windows smashed and Stars of David painted on the buildings. They visited a friend to learn what was going on, but arrived only to discover her apartment had been vandalized. The elderly woman told them the Nazis had come in the night and torn her home apart. She was thrown down a flight of stairs when she protested. see Gerda on p.9 only starting from AIRE ONE MADNEss sAlE! 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