Sharing survivor’s story

I met the incredible Simon Wiesenthal, the mythic World War II concentration camp survivor, face to face in the lobby of a dowdy Manhattan hotel [“Justice Served: A Nazi Hunter in Word and Deed,” March 4]. He took my hand and gave me a courteous welcome. Dressed in a dark suit and tie, stooped, with eyes that pierced you with their steel and benevolence, Wiesenthal looked at me and came right to the subject we were to discuss: “Ms. Rodgers, you knew Anne Frank?”

“Yes,” I replied, “we used to play marbles together on the streets of Amsterdam.” How had my Jewish family survived Adolf Hitler? My father had been a decorated German cavalry officer during World War I. One day, a former officer, a friend, sent him a message: “Rosenberg, take a vacation.” The next minute we fled to England from the Dutch seaside resort Noordwijk, with our bathing suits and little else. Twenty-four hours later the Nazis marched into Holland.

Wiesenthal survived 12 Nazi concentration camps and three scheduled executions. Yet, he said, “I believe that everything that is bad will one day end. When you look at history you see that the darkest night is followed by the dawn.”

Then I looked at Wiesenthal again in this New York hotel lobby and asked him if he felt safe here. “Yes,” he replied, “I feel safe in New York.”

GABY RODGERS

West Hollywood

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Rodgers is a freelance writer, actress and director.