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Irene Butter Visits CHS By lucy tobier, Elliot BRamson, and bee whalen

On April 14, 2022, Dr. Irene Butter, a peace activist, Holocaust survivor and Professor Emerita of Public Health at the University of Michigan, came to Community High School (CHS) to share the story of the first 15 years of her life and her experience during the Holocaust.

CHS senior Noah Bernstein organized the event with Dean Marci Tuzinsky and Dr. Butter. He had been reading about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was concerned about the rise of authoritarianism, specifically in Russia and China. He believes that the best way to prevent more authoritarian sentiments is by learning from people who have lived under authoritarian regimes.

During the talk, Dr. Butter discussed her time in the Nazi concentration camps of Westerbork and Bergen Belsen andher experience when she arrived in the U.S.

“I don’t know if people understand what happens when authoritarianism takes over and I hope my story creates the real picture that could happen,” Dr. Butter said. “You lose everything. You lose all your rights. You lose all your property. You lose your family sometimes, and your freedom.”

Butter was born in Berlin, and then fled with her family to Amsterdam to escape Nazi persecution. After two years, her family was deported to Westerbork, a concentration camp in the Netherlands. Then, they were deported to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, before being taken to Algeria.

“I will tell you, all of these stops we were forced to go to,” Butter said. “See this is a journey that wasn't by choice. The only thing we chose was to leave Germany and go to the Netherlands. Everything else was by force.”

At her talk, Butter talked about her family, home and daily life in concentration camps.

“We were very crowded in the barracks,” Butter said. “The adults had to go to work. They had various kinds of jobs. They were not very hard jobs, but they had to work every day. My brother had a job as a messenger boy. They gave him a bicycle so he could get from one side of the camp to the next easily. But at that time, I was 12 years old. And there was no schooling. There were no libraries, there were no toys. There was no playground. There really was nothing to do for kids my age. And so what I remembered mostly then was boredom during the day and not knowing what to do.”

In Algeria, Butter was separated from her family, but had better conditions including freedom, real beds and three meals a day. Finally, she traveled to America, graduated high school, worked, and eventually graduated from college and received her Ph.D. despite the odds.

“We were penniless,” Butter said. “We were homeless and we were stateless. We were refugees who came with empty hands and had to make a living in America.”

Now, Dr. Butter is also the co-founder of Zeitouna, an organization of Jewish and Arab women working for peace, and the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Project at the University of Michigan. She has written a memoir of her experiences before, during and after the Holocaust, which she says is not a recounting of misery and tragedy. Rather, it is a genuine story of a girl coming to terms with a terrible event and choosing to view herself as a survivor rather than a victim.

“I started [writing] and there were times that were very difficult,” Butter said. “I wanted to give it up but I have two friends who became my co-writers, and they wouldn't let me give it up. They just kept me going. And so finally we finished it and I'm happy.”

Dr. Butter plans to return on May 18, 2022, to share her story with the entirety of CHS in St. Andrew’s Church. After 40 years in the United States, she was prompted to share her story by her daughter at Tappan Middle School, asking Butter to present to the class and has been talking in schools since.

“I continue because I am so rewarded by the responses I get from students who really listen, who embrace my messages, and who give me hope that somehow we can improve our futures,” Butter said.