Editor’s Note: This story was orignially published on Student News Net (now Redwood Learn) on Aug. 31, 2018. The story has been updated and edited for this publication.
Aug. 19, 2020 – Irene Hasenberg, with Werner, her brother, mother (Mutti), and father (Pappi), boarded a train on Jan. 21, 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany for a four-day trip to Switzerland where they would finally be free. Irene had not taken a hot shower in more than one year. They had been prisoners for 18 months. Her parents were so ill from starvation and torture, they were not aware the train had departed the camp that had taken them to the brink of death. Irene’s 2018 book – Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story – tells her heartbreaking yet hopeful story as a Holocaust survivor.
Pappi would not survive the train trip to freedom although he was aware his family was close to freedom. Irene was sitting next to him when he died on the train on Jan. 23, 1945. His body, with his name and date of death pinned to his coat, was placed on a bench at a train station in Biberach, Germany. His family would make it to freedom in Switzerland.
Werner and Mutti were immediately hospitalized upon arriving in Switzerland.
Irene was taken to southern France where she boarded a ship bound for a refugee camp in Algeria operated by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).
Her friend Mieke is to her right. (Photo: Courtesy of Irene Butter at www.irenebutter.com)
On Dec. 25, 1945, she arrived in the United States to begin her new life as a 15 year old with a sixth grade education. She went on to earn her doctorate in economics from Duke University after which she spent her career as a professor at the University of Michigan.
Irene could not talk about her experiences as a Holocaust survivor until the 1980s when her children were inquisitive about their mother’s experiences as a teenager during World War II. Since 1986, she has talked to hundreds of students so that the Holocaust is not lost to time or complacency.
The original title of the diary was Het Achterhuis, Dutch for Secret Annex (House).
(Photo: Redwood Learn on April 19, 2017)
Shore Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter with John Bidwell and Kris Holloway
Seventy-three years after her journey from Germany to freedom and a new life in the United States, Irene is telling her story for the world to know. She is telling her stpry through her 2018 book – Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story.
Written with John Bidwell and Kris Holloway, the book is an excellent resource for teachers and parents to introduce the Holocaust to middle school students, high school students, and even adults who did not learn about the Holocaust when they were in school.
In an April 2017 interview, Irene said she asks students to send her reflections after she speaks to their class. Students will often write to her to tell her their parents do not know about the Holocaust.
Irene’s 2018 book is the perfect bridge connecting teens and adults today to the history of the Holocaust and World War II.
Irene’s youth in Amsterdam (the Netherlands)
Irene’s family moved from Berlin to Amsterdam in the 1930s to escape Hitler’s Germany. Pappi (John Hasenberg) and her grandfather owned a bank in Berlin that was taken from them by Hitler’s Nazi government. John had fought for Germany during World War I (1914-1918). He was incensed when his fellow soldiers and his country abandoned him when he most needed them.
Irene’s idyllic childhood in Berlin evolved to a tolerable time in Amsterdam before 1940. They lived in a neighborhood with many Jewish families who had also left Germany, including Anne Frank and her family. Pappi worked for the American Express Company. Many German Jewish families believed that they would be safe in Holland because Holland had remained neutral during World War I.
Germany invades Holland (the Netherlands)
In May 1940, Germany invaded Holland and in just a few days, Nazi Germany occupied the entire country. At first, life continued as it was. But over time, life for Dutch Jews became almost impossible. They were forced to go to different schools, shop in only a few stores, and socialize with only Dutch Jews. They had to wear a yellow star on their clothing to identify them as a Jew.
And then life did become impossible.
Dutch Jews had their bicycles taken from them, making it very difficult to go to work. Soon Dutch Jews were being rounded up and sent away to concentration camps after a stop at Westerbork, a transit camp in Holland. Of about 100,000 Dutch Jews who were sent away to concentration camps, less than 10,000 survived the Holocaust.
In her book, Irene recounts her family’s horrific ordeal, first at Westerbork and then at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany. Pappi had been able to obtain foreign passports for them so the family was allowed to remain together, the only reason the family survived, Irene said. She credits Pappi with their survival and says she thinks of him everyday. The passports did not allow them to leave but rather, were used by the Germans at their discretion to exchange them for captured German Prisoners of War (POWs).
Irene’s family experienced starvation, long roll calls that Irene describes as torture, and physical torture her father suffered at the hands of German guards.
from an Allied aircraft. Irene and her family are most likely part of the hundreds of people
in the square standing for roll call. (Photo: Courtesy Irene Butter)
Irene was with Anne Frank just once at Bergen-Belsen. Anne and margot, her sister, had been sent to Bergen-Belsen from Auschwitz. They did not have passports so were placed in a section of the camp with only tents for shelter. The winter of 1945 in Europe was harsh. Allied troops fighting to hold back the German offensive in Belgium during that time lived outside in foxholes.
Bitterly cold temperatures, little food, and the rapid spread of typhus led to many deaths at Bergen-Belsen.
In January 1945, Hanneli Goslar, Anne Frank’s best friend from Amsterdam, heard Anne’s voice over a fence of barbed wire and straw. Anne had nothing but a blanket to cover her. She asked Hanneli for clothes. Irene and Hanneli went back one night and threw her a bundle of clothes that someone else grabbed. Anne sobbed. The next day Irene’s family was told they were free to leave for Switzerland. Irene was not with Anne again.
Margot and Anne died at Bergen-Belsen sometime in January or February. The British military liberated the concentration camp on April 15, 1945.
Keep history alive
Irene’s book is a gift to history and humanity. Read it, lend it to a friend or a family member to read, ask a school librarian to purchase a copy so it sits on the shelf for generations to come, and finally, commit its lessons to heart and then act so Earth becomes a more peaceful planet.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. When did Irene and her family move from Berlin, Germany to Amsterdam?
2. Why did they move to Amsterdam?
3. When did Nazi Germanuy invade and occupy Amsterdam and the Netherlands?
4. What happened to Dutch Jews after Nazi Germany occupied the country?
5. What happened to Irene and her family during the Holocaust?
6. Why was the Hasenberg family freed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in January 1945?
7. Why was Irene alone without her family after they arrived in Switzerland after their train trip from Germany?
INQUIRY QUESTIONS
1. Irene is emphatic that she is a survivor and not a victim. What is the difference?
2. How do you think Irene summoned the strength to have hope as a survivor of such a tragic, horrific experience?
3. What lessons from Irene are relevant in today’s world?
4. How can you be part of creating a more peaceful planet?