News

Local survivor of Holocaust knew guard who was shot

By Alan Burke
Staff writer
Published: June 12, 2009

It didn't end at Buchenwald.

Sonia Weitz, a survivor of that Nazi death camp, watched the grim news coming from the Holocaust Museum in Washington on Wednesday only to learn of another victim of hate, museum guard Stephen Johns, 39.

"I knew him," she said yesterday. "I remember the guard from when I was on the (museum) council. Friendly, polite, funny. What a horrible loss for his family. ... He's really, really a hero."

Johns was shot by an 88-year-old white supremacist whose hatred was aimed especially at Jews, police said. The suspect was shot by other guards and remains hospitalized. It happened as hundreds of school kids from Swampscott and Danvers middle schools were in the building on field trips.

The youngsters quickly got to safety. Swampscott Superintendent Matthew Malone praised the response of teachers, administrators and chaperones. Some kids heard the gunshots; Malone wouldn't say whether any witnessed the violence.

"They were in shock over the hate demonstrated," Malone said. "They were scared." Yet, in the aftermath, "they are maintaining a sense of normalcy."

Iris Goldman's daughter Lily quickly called her mother after the incident. "She did hear the gunshots. ... Then pandemonium broke out. Children were running, saying, 'I want to find my mom!' But very quickly the assistant principal got them together and they were rushed out of the building."

Goldman's relief is leavened with regret. "Our children are safe. They're safe because a security guard protected them. ... I feel very sad for his family."

She added, "I put my daughter on the bus on Tuesday morning and kissed her goodbye. And then life happened."

"Our kids are in good hands," Danvers Assistant Superintendent Sue Ambrozavitch said, praising Principal Michael Cali. "We are meeting them when they return."

Both school groups continued their trips yesterday determined not to be defeated by terrorism. Swampscott youngsters even got a 45-minute tour of the Capitol building led by Sen. John Kerry.

Rabbi Baruch HaLevi of Swampscott's Temple Shirat Hayam has taken calls from shaken mothers. The exposure to violence and religious hatred is bound to have an impact, he said.

Urging people to "speak out," HaLevi sees events at a critical stage. "Enough is enough." He links this tragedy to last month's murder of a Jewish woman at Wesleyan College by an anti-Semitic Marblehead man and the recent arrest of four Moslem converts allegedly planning to bomb a synagogue in White Plains, N.Y.

"These moments do not just go away," the rabbi added. "They are life-changing moments." The impact on the children could be positive, he said, before wondering, "They were in a Holocaust museum. I'm a grown adult with a doctorate in spirituality, and I don't know how to process that."

Many see education as protection against such horrors.

"We want to make sure we encourage people to stand up and to act and not be bystanders," said Harriet Wacks, of the Holocaust Center in Peabody. She also sees anti-Semitism growing.

Weitz, her colleague at the center, worries that a tough economy can lead to a search for scapegoats. Nonetheless, she soon recovered her characteristic optimism, maintaining that most Americans reject hate.

"You can just tell by the attendance at the museum," Weitz said. "That's what's so important. They know it's a sacred place."

Goldman is not Jewish, though her husband is. She mused that the Holocaust Museum and its lessons would never be forgotten by these children, "for reasons we wish never happened."

She grew up in Cork, Ireland, not many miles from the bloodshed of Northern Ireland's religious war. "It felt very far away." The difficulty of anticipating such random horrors seems to haunt her.

"I can't get over it. That an 88-year-old man would hold such a grudge. Who would think that, seeing him coming?"