Holocaust Survivor Talks Forgiveness at Aurora University

Magda Brown is a living lesson in forgiveness.

Brown was born in Hungary in 1927. When she was 16, German troops marched into Budapest and began taking Hungarian Jews to the concentration camps. On her 17th birthday, Brown and her family were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, where she was separated from her relatives. They all went to the gas chambers.

Brown was a prisoner for nine months, forced to work in an ammunitions factory in Germany, handling poisonous materials. The Allied forces liberated her in March 1945, but she was alone. She was only able to find six of her cousins still alive, out of an extended family of 70, before moving to the United States in 1946, to start over.

Despite all this, she is not angry, and she is not bitter. In fact, her message to a captivated crowd of 500 at Aurora University’s Crimi Auditorium last week was all about love.

Brown was there to kick off a new exhibit on Emma Lazarus, the American Jewish poet whose words (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) adorn the Statue of Liberty. The exhibit was organized by the Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action, and Wackerlin Fellow Jonathan Dean spoke with Brown on the Crimi stage.

She told her story, of being 18 years old, “totally alone, penniless, country-less, an orphan.” She eventually found an uncle in Chicago she had never met, and emigrated to the U.S. She learned English, and took a job as a physician’s assistant, learning everything she could—including, she said, how to heal and how to give.

“You can have billions of dollars, and it won’t mean a thing,” she said. “Give of yourself, and it will come back a million-fold.”

And she talked about her experience in the concentration camps, to anyone who would listen. But it wasn’t until a Nazi march in her adopted hometown of Skokie in 1978 that she decided to find other survivors, and come up with a way to make sure their stories survived.

Together, the group created the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, the second-largest such museum in the United States. She’s been working there ever since, helping create newer exhibits for children, and she’s shared her story, connecting with Steven Spielberg on his efforts to preserve this part of history.

And along the way, she said she has learned to forgive the Germans for what they did to her and her family.

She told a story about meeting a young man in New Zealand who told her his parents were Nazi officers. At the time, all she could think to say in response was that God forgives sins. But now, she said, she would tell that man that she has forgiven his relatives.

Brown said the greatest gift she had been given, besides her own health, was the chance to become an American.

“We have food in our bellies and the freedom to go out into the streets,” she said. “I am an American 120 percent."

She offered three messages to the students, teachers and others who had gathered to hear her speak. First, protect your freedom, she said. Second, think carefully before you hate. And third, she said, “please stand up to the deniers of the crematoriums.”

“It is people like you,” she said to the crowd, “people who believe in helping others, who have been a key factor in my rejuvenation, my rebirth.”

The Emma Lazarus exhibit—“Voice of Liberty, Voice of Conscience”—will be on display at Crimi Auditorium, 407 S. Calumet Ave., until Dec. 16. Two further events are planned to accompany the exhibit: a lecture from Rabbi Victor Mirelman on Nov 15, and a panel discussion on Dec. 7. Go here for more details.