Holocaust Survivor: "I Am the Spark After Darkness

A baby hidden in a makeshift crib in a Greek forest survived because a German soldier smiled and walked away. That baby grew up to become Professor Asher Matathias, and his message to a Rockaway community 80 years later rang with defiant hope.

"The Nazis tried to make the Jews disappear from history and they failed," Professor Matathias told the packed Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony at Temple Beth-El of Rockaway Park in April. "They failed because I am here. They failed because my wife, Anna, and I built a life. They failed because our children exist."

Born in 1943 while his family hid in the forests near Velos, Greece, Professor Matathias shared a story that moved between heartbreak and unexpected grace. His father was out foraging for food when a German patrol discovered his mother and infant Asher in their hiding spot.

The patrol leader looked down at the baby and smiled. He motioned that he had left a baby just like this in Hamburg, then ordered his men to move on and leave them alone.

That moment of humanity amid genocide saved a life that would go on to touch thousands. Professor Matathias detailed how 87% of Greece's Jewish population was exterminated, the highest percentage outside Poland.

His family eventually made it to New York by boat, where young Asher looked for the Statue of Liberty and saw the Belt Parkway instead. In 1970, he returned to Greece to retrace his childhood steps and met his wife Anna, a Greek Jew living in Israel who had come home to help her family.

Their wedding was so unusual in post-war Velos that two local newspapers covered it.

Why This Inspires

Professor Matathias didn't ask his audience to forget the horrors or pretend evil doesn't exist. Instead, he challenged them with a different kind of hope.

"Remembering the Holocaust is not only about honoring the dead. It is about protecting the living," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "It is about refusing to let hatred become normal. It is about insisting that human beings are human beings."

He spoke of moral hope, not naive fantasy. Hope grounded in the choice each person makes every day.

"I'm not asking you to believe the world is always good," he told the community. "I'm asking you to believe that you can be, and if enough people choose that, the world changes."

Six children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors lit memorial candles and shared their families' stories before Professor Matathias spoke. The ceremony, co-sponsored by Temple Beth-El and the West End Temple, brought together generations determined to remember and to choose differently.

"Remember that even after the greatest darkness, a spark of life can remain. I am that spark, and so are you," he concluded.