He said he remembers the exact address of the apartment on the bottom right-hand side of the building in Budapest, Hungary where he was born.
The apartment on “Tobacco Street” where his eight older brothers and sisters grew up was where Joe Guttman first remembers being a 6-year-old child in the Holocaust.
Guttman, a 69-year-old Holocaust survivor, shared his memories Sunday night with an audience of 60 at the Northwest Campus Auditorium.
The event was co-sponsored by the Jewish Student Union and Hillel at UCLA, and is one part of a three-part remembrance series in honor of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Guttman spoke of being separated from his family at age 6, moving from a Swiss orphanage, where he was passed off as a non-Jew, to living in displaced people camps in Germany and Israel with other displaced Jewish people.
Guttman said he remembers constantly moving from country to country, while also struggling to cope with the sacrifices his separated family made. Guttman’s family of nine is the largest on record to have survived the Holocaust.
“This is not a story of someone else or a story someone told me, this is a story of what happened to me,” Guttman said.
Known in Hebrew as “Yom HaShoah,” it literally translates to “Remembrance day for The Holocaust and Heroism,” honoring the 6 million Jews and 6 million other people who were murdered during the Holocaust.
“At age 6, I had seen any kind and all kinds of executions,” Guttman said, adding that he vividly remembers the 500 dead bodies of Jewish people who were executed in the Danube River near his apartment.
After rejoining with most of his family in Hungary once Russian soldiers helped release him from the orphanage, Guttman said the river near his home was infested with so many dead bodies that it stopped the flow of water when a bridge was being built.
Students who attended the event said they came because they wanted to learn history in a tangible form.
Blake Stokes, a third-year theater student, said he came to listen to Guttman speak about the Holocaust to hear it directly from someone who survived it.
“I wanted to hear it from the source,” Stokes said.
Jennifer Lorch, president of UCLA’s Jewish Student Union, said learning about the Holocaust through Guttman’s speech is something many may never experience again.
“The (Holocaust) survivors are dying. It’s not going to be something we’re going to have forever,” Lorch said. She said the message is twofold. The event is for students to learn more about the Holocaust and to also understand its importance.
“It’s all about making a connection and making it meaningful for everyone,” Lorch said.
Guttman said he wants to make sure people do not forget the Holocaust, and remind everyone that “hate doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Names of Holocaust victims will be read for 12 hours straight today starting in the morning. There will also be a ceremony and concert later in the day.