Isabel Ratner
The Communicator
Ann Arbor Community HS
1st Place
Division 4, News Writing
Diversity Coverage
She wakes up to the sweet smell of her grandfather’s pancakes on Sunday morning. Jumping out of bed and putting on the new dress her grandmother bought for her, she runs to the kitchen. She spends the day at the park with her grandparents and later at the zoo grinning up at the monkeys. On holidays, her cousins visit. It’s a comfortable life. But it’s soon shattered.
When the Nazis took over Berlin, Irene Butter’s life changed instantly. Her grandfather’s bank was taken from him since Jews couldn’t work in businesses. Butter’s family moved to Holland for safety. The first few years there were fine. Unfortunately, the Nazis invaded three years later.
“Persecution of Jews escalated,” said Butter, “and so from then on, life deteriorated.”
The family was sent to a camp called Westerbork in June of 1943. Butter describes the days there as boring. The kids had nothing to do. Every Monday night, barack leaders would list names of people who were to go on the train, many to Auschwitz.
“[You] first listened for your own name [to be] read, and then if not, there were always people, family and friends or people you had befriended in the camp who would be leaving,” said Butter. “That was just heartbreaking.”
When the train arrived, people were ordered to clean up the wagons. They found notes informing them about Auschwitz and its horrific conditions.
Butter found a way to cope with the circumstances. She found joy in little things.
“There were some famous artists in the camps, and they put on shows, [which] made it quite contradictory.”
After 8 months in Westerbork, Butter and her family were sent to Bergen Belsen through an exchange program with the Nazis. They were told it was a better camp, and that they wouldn’t be there long.
Arriving at Bergen Belsen was a scene like no other. SS officers (Schutzstaffel, a paramilitary organization) with german shepherds met them and told them to walk through a forest to the camp.
“The minute we arrived there, we saw people in rags looking emaciated and like prisoners.”
It was January of 1945 when Butter had an encounter with Anne Frank. Butter was friends with a young girl, Hanneli, who knew Frank. Anne and her sister Margot had just come from Auschwitz, so Hanneli asked for someone to bring Anne to a fence separating them. Anne was in a terrible state, very thin with no clothes but a grey blanket. In tears, Anne said her parents had died and her sister was quite sick. Anne asked Hanneli to bring her some clothes. The following night, Butter accompanied Hanneli to the fence. This was the only time she saw Anne.
“We threw this bundle across the fence,” she said. “It was dark and another woman came, picked up the bundle and ran off with it.”
In the early 1980s, Butter later reconnected with Hanneli in Israel for a Holocaust survivor gathering.
“She told me that after I had left, she met Anne once more and threw over some more clothes and then she got it. Yes, she did get it, but then she died not much later.”
Butter and her family were released from Bergen-Belsen in January of 1945 because of her father’s Ecuadorian passports. Of 4,000 people in the camp with these passports, only 301 were chosen for an exchange with German civilians. Butter describes this as a “miracle.”
This miracle was followed by a tragedy, when Butter’s father died on the train to Switzerland.
“My mother and my brother and I had to go on,” Butter said as she brushed away a tear from her eye.
When they arrived in Switzerland, her ailing mother and brother were taken to a hospital.
Butter had just turned 14 when she arrived at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) camp in Algiers, North Africa. She remembers the beach that you could see from the camp and the luxuries they had there: clothing, a decent supply of food, and clean sheets.
“In some ways it was like a paradise, but I was without my family.”
For those several months at the camp, Butter had no idea if her mother was alive. She had no contact with her mother or her brother.
In the United States, cousins of Butter’s mother provided an affidavit for Butter, after seeing the Joint Distribution Committee’s list of camp survivors. An affidavit guaranteed that the relatives will care for Butter and that they have a solid bank account. Months later, Butter’s brother and mother arrived in New York City, and after three years they found an apartment together.
Butter graduated from Queens College and earned her PhD in economics at Duke University. She met her husband and started a career in public health, later teaching at the University of Michigan.
For years she has been educating the community not only about what happened in World War II, but making them aware of genocide and that it should never occur again. She teaches students the importance of human rights and many freedoms. Earlier this year, a film was released about her, entitled Never a Bystander.
“I try to carry this message of never a bystander, and that we all have responsibility- social responsibility- to protect other people from discrimination, prejudice, oppression,” she said.
The students’ reactions are incredibly rewarding to Butter.
“[She has] taught me about oppression
and my role in it,” said another student.Butter’s attitude towards her role as an activist today is what inspires so many people.
“‘I will always try to not be a bystander,” said one of Butter’s student. “I want to be a rescuer.”
They say they will surely carry on her brave story of survival to their children and grandchildren.