NORTHRIDGE : Survivors of the Holocaust Take Look Back

In reel life, Robert Clary played Louis LeBeau, the small prisoner of war on “Hogan’s Heroes.”

In real life, however, Clary plays a much bigger hero.

Until 1980, Clary, a Holocaust survivor, rarely spoke about his experiences in Nazi concentration camps. “Once I became a human being again,” he said, “I did not want to relive the 31 months I spent in hell.”

Then, he watched a documentary on television, and realized that, as an eyewitness to one of history’s most profound tragedies, he had an obligation to speak out.

On Tuesday night, he continued his mission, as Cal State Northridge hosted a symposium to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps.

“I cannot go to my grave in silence,” said Clary, 69. “I’m not doing it for revenge. It won’t bring back my parents. I’m doing it for history’s sake.”

Clary, who grew up in Paris, said from the time he and his family were rounded up by the Germans on Sept. 23, 1942, until he was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945, “I never knew a quiet moment.”

He said he survived because he was healthy enough to work in factories, and because he was extremely lucky. “You had to be lucky to survive,” he said.

Clary also spoke about the day he was finally liberated. He knew something was different that morning because the guard towers were empty and there were no roll calls. “What a day that was!” he said.

Col. James H. Hayes has his own memories of liberating Buchenwald. Hayes, a member of the 80th Infantry Division, said all nations must practice “eternal vigilance” to ensure that extremist forces from either the left or right don’t acquire that kind of power again.

“It could happen again in any country in the world,” he said in an interview after his talk.

The third speaker was federal immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn, who had been a trial attorney and deputy director in charge of litigation for the Nazi War Crimes Prosecution Unit of the U. S. Justice Department.

Einhorn talked about how ex-Nazis were able to “successfully lie their way into the United States,” but that many were eventually deported.

“Hitler’s henchmen,” Einhorn said, became “the hunted rather than the hunters.”