"My Father Died In Auschwitz"

January 19, 2007

My name is Andrew Racz. I was born in 1938, the year of the Munich Conference, attended by Chancellor Hitler, Daladier of France, Mussolini, and Neville Chamberlain. There was no loud voice at the eight-hour conference. The participants drank coffee.

The United States of America was not represented. However, history will record that in early 1938 President Roosevelt invited all the above participants --- for a peace conference in New York. Roosevelt offered to pay for all expenditures.

The New York Times, printed on January 13, 2007, laid out the confrontation of Senator Boxer and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “A Passing Exchange Becomes Political Flashpoint Focused on Feminism.” There was not a single word from any of the distinguished members to refer to the historical conference. The subject was the fate of American boys falling in Iraq. Nobody carried the book All Quiet on the Western Front.

I wonder what would have been the reception and the historical interpretation if Senator Boxer had been born seventy years before.

Senator Boxer would have printed her name permanently in world history had she addressed forcefully, loudly, and, if I may say so, confrontationally Chancellor Hitler in Berchtesgaden. After all, nobody challenged Hitler. Nobody criticized Hitler and nobody shouted at Hitler. And this is where the style and courage of the US. Senator could have risen to the occasion.

Yes, challenge Hiltler. After all, Neville Chamberlain representing the almighty British Empire aimed for Peace at any Price. The world needed an articulate American --- and there was an ocean between Germany and the USA --- a powerful posture.

Senator Boxer would have been applauded by history if in 1938 she would have said, shouted, at Hitler, saying, and I quote, “I am saying you are like me. We do not have families who are in the military.” “Chancellor Hitler! stop bluffing.” --- the US. Senate will oppose “your marching.”  Save “German Blood” ! You have 70 million people --- we have 140, the British 60. What price Hitler?

“Chancellor, who pays the price? I am not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You are not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, you have no immediate family. You have no family, only a mistress. Who pays the price? The military and the people you might bomb. I want to bring this issue out to the open.”

Undoubtedly, Hitler would have shouted back. Undoubtedly, an American senator would have gone even further.

Senator, if I have anything to do with it, I will tell the world had you been at Munich in 1938 you would have given my father a fighting chance, and not only my father, the whole Racz family.

In 1944 my father was taken away to Auschwitz. According to the history book, Eichmann sent him directly to the Auschwitz gas chamber in the summer of 1944. I was six and a half years old, standing near the window of our home in Budapest when a friend of our family told me that I will never see my father again. This was in July 1944. A year before, on October 4, 1943, my mother died of breast cancer. I was an orphan, and I was, as I realized, alone.

This was almost seventy years ago. I never forget that day. I never forget the remarks. I was told by a friend of my family that I, Andrew Racz, will never have a father and I will never see my father again.

What price do we have to pay that in the year 2007 there should not be another Andrew Racz who would be told at the age of six and a half that he will never see his father again.

A sole U.S. senator picked up a historical issue, which, frankly, the book All Quiet on the Western Front described almost a hundred years ago, that there is absolutely no honor, no happiness, no results of fighting in the trenches or the streets of Baghdad.

The Senate and the press tried to make a hero out of Secretary Rice, who had no policy of winning the war, who had no policy of bringing home the boys. They tried to make her a hero.

Secretary Rice stated that she thought it’s okay to be single, okay to have no children, she can still make a decision.

What decision, Madame Secretary?

The West never confronted Hitler in 1938. The West, and particularly the United States, in 1938 did not stand with Under-Secretary of State Sumner Wells, sent Senator Boxer to Europe, who would have shouted, screamed, hit the table with one message, “What price Hitler?” Do we care now if Senator Boxer had been in Munich at the conference table and asked Hitler, “Do you know the price people pay? You have no family.” Yes, Hitler had no family. He had no feeling for anybody. That we can never change. But the issue is that in 1938 there was no Senator Boxer, there was no voice of the United States at the Munich Conference. There was nobody who would have confronted Hitler. After all, a U.S. senator had behind herself an ocean and the power and prestige of the most powerful nation in the world. Had Senator Boxer been in Munich she would have made a tremendous upheaval. She would have been the first person to ask Hitler, “Mr. Chancellor, what price is the world going to pay for your policies?” The issue was, after all, a world war. Hitting the table was infinitely more desirable. Appeasement or confrontation? We could have done worse.

And now I bring back reality. Seventy years later a single voice bravely threw at the American Secretary of State a question. Do you know what you are doing? Do you know the consequences of what you are doing? Do you know how many more families will have the hole, the emptiness, which will never be replaced?

I trust that the Senator will continue her reasoning. I trust that she will repeat what she said, and ask again and again the question, “Do we know what it means when a six and a half year old boy suddenly says, “you will never see your father again?”

If we carry this imaginary picture further, and had President Roosevelt achieved that his representative, Senator Boxer, attended the Munich Conference, it would have been vastly different. In any case, history couldn't have taken a worse turn.

It was 1938. Marshall Stalin probably would have made a non-aggression pact with the United States. Hitler probably wouldn’t have attacked. The Manhattan Project wouldn’t have been born.

You’d be living in a world, with the world having only conventional arms, and a hundred million people who would have survived had a U.S. senator, equipped with the power and prestige of its might, as it has in the year 2007, hit the table and shouted into the eyes of Chancellor Hitler a simple question. “Herr Chancellor, do you know what you are doing?”

History would say that asking this question, whether it is Chancellor Hitler or Secretary Rice, is perfectly within the right and being the duty of a U.S. senator.