HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

50 years later, his memories are still vivid

Nothing in our history books prepared us for the horror stories we heard from Holocaust survivor Alex Lande, who lives in Fishers, Ind.

To listen to him speak was unlike anything you would hear in a history class. He was intriguing while discussing his experiences during World War II _ as if he were living it all over again. During an interview, tears sporadically welled in his eyes.

The deep lines accenting his darkened face seemed to tell of the eventful life he had led in his 67 years. His mustache curled at the tips, and his thick accent would immediately let anyone know he was not born in America.

Lande was born in Transylvania (central Romania north of the Transylvanian Alps) and graduated from the University of Transylvania at age 16. He was a dental student in 1944 when Nazis removed him and his family from their home.

"Our house was surrounded by Hungarian Gestapo and at 6 o'clock in the morning they knocked on our door. The Gestapo walked in, and he said, `You are under arrest because you are not trustworthy to our government. Put all your valuables on the table and step outside.'

"We were taken from there to a camp outside to the woods, and we lived there for about two weeks. We were interrogated, and my parents were beaten all the time. I was the only one who was chosen to go to a forced-labor camp."

He never saw his parents again. He said he thinks they may have been among the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Lande was sent to a labor camp in France. From then on, he was transported from place to place, never knowing where he would be next, or if he would ever see his family again.

Lande said if he hadn't known how to bake bread, he probably would not be alive right now. Learning how to cook and bake was not by choice but because his mother had rheumatism and was unable to knead the family bread. In the camps, people who worked in the bakery got what were considered extra benefits.

"Because I was working in the bakery shop, I had special privileges of getting bathed" he said. "I had clean clothes because all those people, including myself, before I worked in the bakery shop, were infested with lice. Our bodies were bitten up.

"We had a corner of the back where (we slept). We were given a blanket and nobody was allowed to get close to our quarters."

Even though he worked in the bakery shop, the Germans did not forget he was Jewish. The physical and emotional pain he endured was unimaginable. He told us one of the many awful experiences he faced.

One day, he went to work in the kitchen and was peeling potatoes when a German walked in and asked if there was anybody in the kitchen from Transylvania _ the little town where Lande was born. "I said, `This is my hometown.' He comes up to me and says, `Why are you here?' and I say, `I am a Jew.'

"The first thing he did was kick me with his boot straight in the stomach. Then there was a big pool of water and he pushed me in." Every time Lande tried to surface, the German kicked him in the head.

"Finally, I just laid in the bottom of the pool for a while, and I looked up and he was gone. So I swam up to the other side and the guys (my friends) pulled me out."

Lande explained that in his religion they are taught not to hate. He learned that you should not discriminate against race or religion. Even after all he went through, he did not feel hatred for Adolf Hitler and his Nazis.

"I personally think they should be brought to justice, and they should be prosecuted for what they did. My only crime in the world was I was born to a Jewish mother and father. Now, what am I guilty of?"

Lande remembered when he first heard about Hitler. At first, he thought there was nothing to be worried about. It wasn't until later that he realized Hitler was not a man to trust.

"When I first heard about Hitler, it was just about the same (feeling I had about) David Duke in Louisiana. Nobody paid attention to him, nobody thought he could ever achieve anything.

"But he seized the opportunity, unfortunately." Hitler even won the support of some Jews, Lande said, by spouting anti-Communist rhetoric during a time when no one really knew what Communism was.

Lande eventually escaped from the Germans and later moved to Indiana, where he always dreamed of living because his grandfather lived here and transferred back and forth.

Lande has three sons and is a retired dentist.

He doesn't consider himself lucky. "I was just fortunate."