By Ethan Cohen
Yetta Kane’s first experience of the Nazis came when she was just a little girl.
Kane, a Jew, was playing with a friend in the Polish neighborhood where she was born when the Gestapo shot a Jewish man right in front of her.
As the war escalated and the plight of Poland’s Jewish people grew more dire, Kane and her family fled their hometown in 1940, beginning nearly three years on the run.
They endured horrific conditions, eventually reaching Siberia, just 100 miles from the North Pole, where she fought the bitter cold and averted starvation by eating pig feed and stealing milk until the war’s end.
Now 92, Kane is among the last generation of Holocaust survivors still telling their stories firsthand, speaking to students across the country in what she says is her life’s mission.
“Maybe that’s why I survived,” Kane said. “That was my mission, that God wanted me to speak to people, to tell them those things did happen to people and two-legged animals decided who should live and who should die.”
Kane spoke to a room full of students at Long Beach State on Thursday, April 24, during a public event to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day hosted in the Liberal Arts Building.
She highlighted her experience escaping the Nazis and the role that her faith played in her survival.
“The German people, the Nazis, stripped us of everything, but they couldn’t take away our belief in God and our humanity,” Kane said. “That nobody could take away from us. That’s why we’re here.”
Kane has spoken at schools across the country, sharing her story in hopes of keeping alive the memory of the 6 million Jewish people killed in the Holocaust.
When the opportunity arose to bring Kane to campus, Jeffrey Blutinger, professor and director of the Jewish Studies program at CSULB, saw it as a chance for students to hear history directly from someone who lived through it.
“I think any time a student has a chance to hear someone like this, it’s important, particularly for me, who teaches history, to be able to bring in because the Holocaust is still within living history,” Blutinger said. “Within 10 years, that won’t be true. Within 10 years, we will have no survivors left… so it’s important for people to hear them now while they have a chance, because that chance is going to disappear really, really soon.”
Long Beach State student Jessica Schachter speaks to Holocaust survivor Yetta Kane at a Holocaust Remembrance event in LA5-355 on April 24. Kane took the time to speak to many students after her talk. Photo credit: Ethan Cohen
For many students in the room, hearing directly from a Holocaust survivor added an important, personal layer to what they had only read about in textbooks.
Among them was Deborah Valenzuela, 21, a political science major, who said Kane’s story left a lasting impression.
“I’m very fortunate enough to come into this place and listen to her words, her story and her experience, to be reminded of that horrible occurrence in history and to make sure it never happens again,” Valenzuela said. “In a time where antisemitism is rising so much once again, it’s important to be reminded of what happened, what could happen and what humans are capable of doing to other humans.”
As the event came to a close, Kane left the students with a message that she hopes they take with them into the future—a call to live with purpose, compassion and responsibility.
“I hope you’ll be able to say ‘Yes, I met a 92-year-old plus lady that survived hell, chose life, chose to be a good human being, chose to be helping other people, chose to raise children that are healers, that are law-abiding citizens,’” Kane said.
She said, “It’s up to you what you do with your life, and I hope and pray that what you do with your life is make an impression on a lot of people—to help, by kindness, by knowledge, by giving so those things never happen to other human beings, no matter what house of worship we go to.”
