SPECIAL EVENTS

Join the Institute for Hebraic-Christian Studies and Holocaust Museum Houston for the 13th Annual Kristallnacht Memorial, an annual event commemorating the "Night of Broken Glass" during which Jews and Jewish institutions were attacked throughout Germany and Austria.

On November 9-10, 1938 the Nazis went on a rampage of terror against the Jews. They set fire to approximately 250 synagogues, destroyed 815 shops and hundreds of homes, and rounded up 30,000 Jewish men and women and sent them to concentration camps.  This evil action of hate against the Jews came to be known as Kristallnacht, meaning the “Night of Broken Glass,” because the streets were filled with broken glass from the shops and synagogues that the Nazis destroyed.

Not everyone went willingly to the camps. Of the European Jews who survived by avoiding them, there are hundreds of amazing stories of hidden identities, life on the run, and life in hiding — with many never documented.

Hosting the 13th annual Kristallnacht Memorial on Monday, the Institute for Hebraic-Christian Studies invited expert caver and author Christos “Chris” Nicola to tell just one of these stories. Nicola coauthored a book with Peter Lane Taylor, The Secret of Priest's Grotto – A Holocaust Survival Story (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2007).

Nicola will present a slide show of his discovery of the Priest's Grotto cave and the amazing story of the survival of 38 Jews who hid underground there for more than a year from Nazis advancing toward Stalingrad.

What began as a typical cave expedition in 1993, Nicola stumbled upon artifacts of human habitation, and heard tales of Jews hiding there but couldn't confirm anything. Returning in 1997 to gather more information, Nicola learned the story from a local caver who was contacted by several families of Jews who went into hiding there during World War II.

“The Nazis were rounding people up in their towns, and these families were fortunate in that they had a matriarch that told them not to register their names when summoned,” Nicola said. “They searched for a place to hide and discovered one of the several underground caves in the area.”

After his expeditions Nicola, who is not Jewish, began an Internet search to find survivors. It took four years before a relative of one of the survivors contacted him, but that first message led him to several of the original group who now live in Canada, Israel, New York, Georgia and Ohio.

Those contacts and interviews enabled Nicola to piece together the story of the families that included several children, with the youngest aged 2 years old, and the oldest, aged 75 years old. According to Nicola, their year and a half in the cave holds the record for the longest underground habitation on record.

Those contacts and interviews enabled Nicola to piece together the story of the families that included several children, with the youngest aged 2 years old, and the oldest, aged 75 years old. According to Nicola, their year and a half in the cave holds the record for the longest underground habitation on record.

Nicola was amazed at the combination of luck and ingenuity it took to survive the living conditions in the cave. The families lived in total darkness, sleeping for an average of 20 hours a day and eating weak potato soup and unleavened bread. An average temperature of 52 degrees, they did not have modern thermal clothing to keep the damp cold out, yet they came up with ways to keep warm.

They were lucky in finding a natural source of water there — an underground lake, and a large physical space to separate cooking quarters from latrines and sleeping quarters. When they emerged at the end of the war the survivors were starving, jaundiced, and had many vitamin deficiencies and other health problems.

“I consider this a gift from this family, to be their eyes and their voice,” Nicola said. “This story makes me proud to be a human being because it shows how the human spirit can triumph against obstacles of life.”

The IHCS, a non-proselytizing Christian education organization run by Dr. Richard and Peggy Booker typically brings together 400 people for their annual Kristallnacht commemoration, including many of the aged Holocaust survivors in the Houston area.

“This is an opportunity to bring Jews and Christians together to say, ‘Never Again,'” Richard Booker said. “We want to encourage Christians and Jews to stand together against atrocities in the future.”

Above article by  ARLENE NISSON LASSIN For the Houston Chronicle.

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Program Schedule:
Dramatic story as told by caver Chris Nicola
Lighting of the IHCS Wall of Remembrance
Candle lighting with Jewish and Christian leaders
Israeli national anthem
Multi-media shofar presentation "Never Again"
Kaddish and Christian prayer of repentance