Chabad of Las Cruces to host Holocaust survivor Esther Basch in March

Leah Romero, Las Cruces Sun-News
·2 min read
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A flower left by a participant lies at the railway tracks at the Gleis 17 memorial during a small commemoration gathering on Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, 2023, in Berlin, Germany. The Gleis 17 memorial is located at the train platform from which the Nazis deported thousands of Berlin Jews by rail to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps during World War II. Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls on the anniversary of the Jan. 27, 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, commemorates the millions of people murdered and persecuted by the Nazis from the 1930s and into World War II. The victims include over five million Jews, as well as political opponents, Roma, other religious groups, and homosexuals.

LAS CRUCES – Esther Basch, a Holocaust survivor, will travel to Las Cruces in March for a special event hosted by the Alevy Chabad Jewish Center of Las Cruces on the New Mexico State University campus.

Basch, 94, was born in Czechoslovakia. She lived through the Nazi Germany occupation of her hometown and internment at Auschwitz concentration camp, where both of her parents were killed. She had several run ins with Josef Mengele, a physician known as the Angel of Death. Basch was also sent to work in several German ammunitions factories and was forced to take part in a death march deeper into Germany before U.S. soldiers liberated prisoners in April 1945.

She was 17 at the time.

“Soon all Holocaust survivors will be gone. We are working to ensure their personal stories of tolerance, diversity and triumph are remembered,” wrote Rabbi Bery Schmukler and wife Chenchie Schmukler about the Las Cruces event.

Emilie Rasmussen, left, a New Mexico State University student in industrial engineering, talks on March 17, 2019, with Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, after Schloss addressed an audience of about 540 people.
Emilie Rasmussen, left, a New Mexico State University student in industrial engineering, talks on March 17, 2019, with Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, after Schloss addressed an audience of about 540 people.

Chabad of Las Cruces hosted Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss for a similar event in March 2019 where she spoke to a packed auditorium of her time in Auschwirz-Birkenau concentration camp. Schloss, 93, is the stepsister of Anne Frank who was killed in the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Basch currently lives in Prescott, Arizona. She and her story of perseverance and strength are the subject of the documentary, “The Honey Girl of Auschwitz,” which is in production.

According to an article in the Nevada Appeal, Basch reunited with Max Lieber, one of the soldiers who liberated the camp she was in, in 2007. Lieber lived in New Mexico and traveled to the neighboring state for an emotional meeting with the survivor. He has since passed away.

Basch will share the story of her life during the Las Cruces event at 4 p.m. March 26 at the NMSU Center for the Arts, located at 1000 E. University Ave. Tickets to the event are $25 for adults and $5 for students with valid ID. VIP tickets are $180 for two and include admission to a reception with Basch held ahead of the event. Tickets can be purchased online at www.chabadlc.org.

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Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Chabad of Las Cruces to host Holocaust survivor Esther Basch in March