Mr. David Tuck - A Story Of Survival

Holocaust Survivor and World War II Soldiers Tell The
Real Story Of Survival and Liberation To U-City Students

18 March 2011 by Jag Times Staff Writer
Perspective can be the most important part of listening with empathy. Students in our Arts & Humanities Academy got a first-hand account from a survivor of the Holocaust in Germany during World War II. Mr. David Tuck told how he was awakened to German voices on the radio as a 12-year-old. He was sent with his family to the Lodz Ghetto for a brief time before being sent to Posen, a labor camp where he worked as a mechanic and survived on meager rations of bread, coffee, and a watery soup. He was a worker who tried not to call attention to himself as others were beaten, brutal-ized and killed. He related his story of being transferred to the infamous Death Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau and how he was forced to remove valuables from corpses and grave-sites. He also worked in a cannon factory. He subsisted on very little food and when the camp was closed he was shipped to Mauthausen to work on German aircraft parts. During the transfer he was able to survive by scooping snow from outside the train “cattle car” with a piece of his torn shirt. It was here that he described a time when he had scrounged some bread and it was hidden in a drawer. When the guards discovered it, he thought they would execute him. It was one of the scari-est events of his imprisonment. He was witness to many deaths due to violence, disease, mal-nourishment, or abuse. When he was finally liberated he weighed only 78 pounds. His story, and the stories of the American soldiers from Fogelson-Young Post No. 697 Jewish War Veterans who joined Mr. Tuck during yesterday’s presentation were a haunting re-minder of the events of the Second World War. Our students were awestruck at the presentation and descriptions of the pictures and accounts from the concentration camps that were shown during the event. One of the most poignant statements made by CDR Jerry Goldstein (Post 697 Former Com-mander) was that our student’s generation will be the “last generation to have access to first-person accounts of the trag-edy of the Second World War”. With the recent death of America’s last surviving soldier from WWI, we should be re-minded that the “Greatest Generation” is slowly following them into the history books. Our students should be encour-aged to seek out information on WWII from the victims and soldiers who were there NOW while they are still alive. Mr. Tuck remarked that the reason he is alive today is because his “will to live was greater than the pain he endured then.” He begged them to stay in school and do their best in life. Hope-fully our students will see his perspective and appreciate their lives a little more. Many thanks to Mr. Tuck for his story!