RABBI ARTHUR SCHNEIER 
NEW YORK, USA
BORN 1930, AUSTRIA
TRT: 23’27”
TOPICS: 
    Life before the War
    Antisemetic measures
    Impact of Kristallnacht     
    Moving to Budapest
    Close to deportation 
    Giving back to the world
    Religious cooperation efforts
    Hate and the future
    Meant to survive 

Rabbi Schneier: After surviving the Holocaust, a lifetime of peace-seeking

MUSIC FADE UP AND OUT

Rabbi Schneier: “It's gratifying to know that I survived for a purpose in or-der to enhance and help perfect an imperfect world. That really has been my mission.”

Narration: 
Welcome to In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope, a pod-cast preserving the testimonies of those who survived the atrocities commit-ted by the Nazis and their racist collaborators in the 1930s and 1940s, and who shared their stories at United Nations Holocaust commemorative events around the world, reminding us of the human cost of hate, and our responsibility to fight injustice. Some survivors have agreed to join us for an in-depth conversation. This is the story of Rabbi Arthur Schneier.

Rabbi Schneier still remembers the evening his childhood synagogue was  engulfed by flames, just a young boy when Nazi Germany invaded his na-tive Austria.

The destruction of his house of worship was part of the November Pogrom, or “the night of broken glass” in November of 1938. The Nazi State-organized demolition and plundering of Jewish homes and businesses sig-naled an escalation of cruel treatment toward Jews in Europe. For Rabbi Schneier, the incident is a stinging reminder of the consequences of hate left unchecked. He has committed his life to keep that history from being re-peated.

At nine years old, Rabbi Schneier and his mother fled to Hungary the follow-ing year and lived through the Nazi occupation in Budapest, during which he had several close encounters with death, but managed to escape them all.

Now approaching his 91st birthday, Rabbi Schneier has spent more than 60 years in leadership on behalf of religious freedom, coexistence, and human rights, largely through the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, the interfaith coalition of which he is Founder and President, in addition to his day to day obligations as senior Rabbi at New York City’s historic Park East Syna-gogue. 

For his decades of commitment to promoting peace, he has been the recipi-ent of numerous awards and recognitions including high honours from ten countries, eleven honorary doctorates, and was conferred papal knight-hood.

He tells us how his experience as a Holocaust survivor sparked a lifetime of work toward overcoming societal division and hatred. 

Rabbi Schneier: I’m Rabbi Arthur Schneier, born March 20, 1930, in Vien-na, Austria, and arrived in New York City on May 8th, 1947.

Natalie: If you could briefly describe your childhood in Vienna before the war, what was that like? 

Rabbi Schneier: I was the only child, and unfortunately lost my dad at the age of six. He died in 1936, so my mother brought me up. I attended school in Vienna and had many non-Jewish friends who came to my home and we played soccer together, we went to the movies together, celebrated various holidays. And then after the Nazis took over, I became a pariah, and not be-cause the friends of mine had any animosity - they were taught by their par-ents to not have anything to do with this Jew. And that's why I always say children are not born with hatred. They are taught how to hate. 

Natalie: Absolutely. What sort of antisemitic measures do you remember affecting you as a child? 

Rabbi Schneier: Well, first of all, if I wanted to buy ice cream in the ice cream parlor, Jews and dogs were not wanted. I could not wear my leder-hosen because I was Jewish. And the dehumanization that really started with the attack on Jewish stores, with keeping Jews out of schools, universi-ties. 

But above all, I had to give up my place in public school, which was in my neighborhood because we were assigned to a school reserved only for Jews. 

And I had to walk all the way to the first district in order to attend classes and then worry about being beaten up by the Hitler-Jugend on my way home. So what I did, I would always try to make sure that I would walk near an adult in order to prevent an onslaught.  Also, no attendance at soccer games, movies, just was being excluded. The greatest impact was really Kristallnacht. 

Natalie: How do you remember Kristallnacht - the November Pogrom? 

I remember this was a Thursday night, during the night, the plundering of Jewish apartments, the beating up of Jews, pulling many of the men out for further deportation to Dachau concentration camp. And the next day, on Fri-day on my way to school, passing by my synagogue, saw the firemen and policemen rejoicing at the burning of the synagogue, only concerned about the saving of the neighboring buildings. Unfortunately, when I return to Vi-enna now, that synagogue doesn’t exist. There is an apartment house in place.

Natalie: And you were eight years old at this point? How did that feel to see your synagogue in flames? 

It has stayed with me for the rest of my life, and that's why I identify when-ever a church or a mosque or synagogue is attacked, I do have a reflex, a recall of seeing my own house of worship in flames, and that's why I made it my point to fight what I consider an attack on the jugular of faith of any community attacking the house of worship. 

Narration: 
As the situation in Vienna grew increasingly unstable, a young Rabbi Arthur and his widowed mother fled Austria in September of 1939 to be with his grandparents. They arrived in Budapest in hopes of acquiring a US visa with no success, and their tourist status in Hungary eventually expired. Nine-year-old Arthur and his mother survived the Holocaust, but living in hiding was not easy. He recalls successfully hiding in an unexpected place, thanks to arrangements made by his grandparents to shield him from the threat of deportation by Hungary’s military “gendarme”.

Rabbi Schneier: 
June, 1941, my grandfather had a very good friendship with the chief of po-lice, and he sent two policemen to warn my grandparents to hide me be-cause the gendarmes were going to pick me up for deportation. My grand-parents arranged for me to stay with a peasant family, but not in the house. For close to two months I stayed with the cows and horses. My grandmother used to bring me food every day, every second day. I remember going through the gardens, they had the wire fences. So when we were told that the deportations were halted, I ventured back through the gardens from one house to the other, and I was stuck on the gate for an hour. And that was very fortunate because had I arrived earlier… the gendarmes, again, came looking for me. 

Narration: In March of 1944, a year before the end of Second World War, German troops moved into Hungary. With the takeover of fascist leader Ferenc Szalasi in October, terror for Jews intensified. In November 1944 when Arthur was 14, Szalasi’s extremist Arrow Cross Group selected him to march to the Austrian border – for all intents and purposes, a march of death. However, a twist of fate would save Arthur. 

Rabbi Schneier: So they made every man and woman, 14 to 60, go on death marches through Hungary to the Austrian border. Many of them never made it. We were lined up, and that’s when I had my sugar reserve. I filled my pockets with lump sugar. 

And, one of the young fascists, Hungarian, came over, cut my pants, and I was left with four pieces of sugar. And then, we were held outdoors at the East railroad station for several days and I rationed myself knowing that we would not get any food at all. 

Then, a miracle happened. The Hungarian Szalasi Government wanted recognition by the Vatican, Sweden, Switzerland…They made an agree-ment that they would establish diplomatic relations provided that they would have some safety houses, and all those who got the safety pass would be able to be in these places. That’s when I ended up with the Swiss safety pass, in a building also run by the International Red Cross, which happened to be my school building. And this is where I was liberated. 

Narration: Rabbi Schneier was liberated in 1945 by Russian troops. He went on to finish high-school in Vienna and arrived in New York City two years later, where he enrolled at Yeshiva University and began the educa-tional journey that would lead him toward his peace-seeking path. Rabbi Schneier did not take his survival for granted, but rather, his witness to the dangers of hate and disregard for human life ignited a sense of responsibil-ity in the fight for religious protection and civic and societal peace. 

Over the decades, he has convened meetings to bring relief to the suffering around the globe, from seeking religious freedom in Cuba, to advocating for the release of victims from the clandestine detention centers of Argentina’s infamous “Dirty War”. Rabbi Schneier says the worrying trend of rising global antisemitism and general hostility will be overcome, but it will require a unified effort.

Rabbi Schneier: That's why I made it a point in lobbying, successfully, through the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, a protection of religious sites resolution in 2001, which was adopted by the United Nations. 

In 2005, The United Nations adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, which was really the liberation of Auschwitz, which by the way, is the graveyard of my grandparents and most of my family. I want to visit the cemetery, I go to Auschwitz. So that was a very important decision in terms of reminding the world of the potential of evil.

And Holocaust survivors, there are very few of us, we are diminishing tribe, we are the eyewitnesses. We saw the man's capacity to do evil. You hate Jews, that’s only the beginning. You can be certain that will be followed by racism, followed by Islamophobia, Christianophobia. 

It's an experience that has to be encountered in order to understand how first, dehumanization of a group of people can lead not only to the burning of houses of worship, but also to the burning of human beings. 

Natalie: Seeing rising antisemitism and intolerance, are you optimistic about how future generations will handle this? 

I believe, I firmly believe that every conflict comes to an end. The problem that we have today, we are in the midst of a societal upheaval, all kinds of technological changes….

Whenever you have a crisis, societal changes, economic hardship, any kind of upheaval, and whenever you have extremes taking the place of the cen-ter, then that is a fertile ground for hatred, any type of bigotry.

So I think we shall overcome this one, too. But unless we take united action, united against antisemitism, united against Christianophobia, united against racism, my favorite saying: “United we prevail. If we’re not united we fail.” 

Natalie: On that topic of unison and operating as a collective, you've suc-ceeded in many civic and religious engagement efforts to bring relief to those suffering. What is the key from your perspective, to communicating with those that are perhaps across the proverbial table? 

Rabbi Schneier: First, you have to establish trust in one another, and that happens based on personal contact and dialogue and diplomacy, and that has really been my key. What you have to do is show the other side to search for a common ground that is beneficial to both.

So, yes, there's time for change. But you have to work at it. 

Also I must say, because I lived through the Holocaust myself, you'll find that every society has some people who are righteous.

And I owe my life to Budapest, the Red Army that liberated Budapest and the ghetto, and a Swiss Consul General who made it his point to save thou-sands of Jews by issuing Swiss safety passes. 

That's why it's so important that we recognize those, and there were many, many, people who showed their humanity by welcoming their neighbors. And then you had others who were ready to deliver their neighbors, and just take over all their possessions by handing them over to the henchmen. 

And I think that's a very important lesson, particularly for the younger gen-erations: Join the league of the righteous, and not those who are trying to undermine civility and humanity. 

I personally made a pledge thanking God every day for having survived, paying back by my work into religious cooperation, peace-seeking, not tol-erance, I don't like the word tolerance. Tolerate it, means you're superior and the one you tolerate is second-class citizen. I use the term “mutual ac-ceptance” and respect. Love your neighbour as yourself.  

Natalie: Can I ask you why you chose to become a rabbi? 

Rabbi Schneier: That's a very good question. 

My grandfather, Rabbi Moses Burgmen, was a very, very prominent rabbi in Hungary. And when my mother and I fled to Hungary, he became my sec-ond father, tall, blue eyes, scholarly, highly respected. 

My grandfather was really a victim in the crematorium of Auschwitz. I said, “Whatever I will do in life, I will study in his memory to be ordained as a rab-bi.” Had I remained in Vienna I doubt whether this would have been the case. 

My ambition was to become a psychiatrist. And then the President at Yeshi-va University, said to me, “You know, you're going to treat 30 patients as a psychiatrist, maximum 40. You have a potential to be a leader.”
Before I had my ordination, six months before, he assigned me to fill a pulpit in Flatbush, Brooklyn. And the rest of the story is, I practice psychology and psychiatry on the international scene. 

Narration: 
After more than half a century of commitment to peace building, Rabbi Schneier, also known as a Rabbi/Diplomat, says his agenda is busier than ever. He expresses an immense gratitude for his survival, and says the in-ternational recognition he has amassed over the years is confirmation he continues to fulfill his purpose in serving his community, and the world. 

Rabbi Schneier: I just celebrated my 90th birthday. Actually, it was March 12th last year. 

And the celebration took place at United Nations headquarters. I received messages from the United States President, Pope Benedict, Pope Francis, the Ecumenical patriarch, all people that I've had dealings with over the years. 

And it was very, very gratifying that if I survived, then it's gratifying to know that I survived for a purpose in order to enhance and help perfect an imper-fect world. That really has been my mission.

I'm grateful every day that I’m still, thank God, active, busier than ever be-fore and also trying to not only to do my own share, but transmitting the challenge, which again, I think is so reassuring after we're gone, the wit-nesses to the Holocaust, that horrible tragedy, there is a not only the Jewish community, but you have the United Nations Outreach Programme that will continue to keep that flame alive.

A question I posed to the Secretary-General at last year's International Holocaust Remembrance Service: “I'm always concerned my synagogue was filled with Holocaust survivors, sometimes three or four rows. Today, there's only one row left. What is going to happen after we're gone, with Holocaust denial of all kinds of conspiracy theories? Who's going to re-member?” And the Secretary-General said, “We will remember,”  and that's very reassuring.

Natalie: Rabbi Schneier, thank you very much. 

Rabbi Schneier: Thank you. All the best to you. Bye bye. 

Narration: Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Holocaust survivor and international leader in religious freedom and coexistence. This has been In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope, a podcast by the United Nations Holocaust Outreach Programme. To find out more about the organiza-tion's Holocaust remembrance and educational programme and how you can participate, visit www.un.org/en/holocaustrememberance. I'm Natalie Hutchison. Thanks for listening.

MUSIC FADE UP AND OUT

Accompanying Text: 

Podcast: Holocaust survivor’s lifetime of peace-seeking

Holocaust survivor Rabbi Arthur Schneier has spent decades leading ef-forts toward religious freedom, human rights and coexistence around the world.

After seeing his own synagogue in Austria go up in flames, Rabbi Schneier lived through the Holocaust in Hungry before beginning his quest for coex-istence.

He shares his inspiring story with Natalie Hutchison in this last instalment of our In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope podcast series. 

Production Notes:

Audio Credit: Natalie Hutchison, United Nations Outreach Programme on the Holocaust

Duration: 23’27"

Music Credit:  All tracks by Ketsa
•        Twilight
•        Soul Sale
•        Wild Rivers
•        Warm Fuzz
•        Memories Renewed