Ms. Sharon Pohoryles shares her father’s story to the Choate community.
Almost a century after the Nuremberg Trials, the first international war crimes tribunal in history, the stories of Holocaust survivors continue to inspire and educate people around the world. On Tuesday, April 18, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Choate community had the privilege of hearing Ms. Sharon Pohoryles share her father’s story as a young Jewish boy of the Holocaust.
Sophie Sharko ’24, a friend of Ms. Pohoryles, opened the program by sharing how she first learned of the struggles Ms. Pohoryles’s father faced while living in Poland during the Holocaust. She was instantly moved by his story and saw an opportunity for Ms. Pohoryles to share it with the Choate community.
Ms. Pohoryles’s father, Mr. Louis Pohoryles, was a survivor of World War II. While he did not always open up about his wartime experiences, he always emphasized the need to remember the reasons why so many lives were lost to prevent such violence from ever being repeated.
Born to Simon and Helen Pohoryles in Lublin, Poland in 1936, Mr. Pohoryles was the first and only child of his Jewish parents. Even as a very young boy, he was forced to witness countless acts of cruelty and suffered from illness and exhaustion when he and his family were held captive. A year into the war, his parents made the difficult decision to give him up to a Catholic woman named Ms. Anna Bosco in order to protect him. Under the care of Ms. Bosco, five-year-old Mr. Pohoryles was forced to mask his Jewish identity completely.
His suffering did not end there. While trying to hide from the Nazis disguised as a Catholic, Mr. Pohoryles also had to face ethnic violence aimed at the Polish.
Despite all that he has been through, Mr. Pohoryles refuses to allow his experiences from the war define him and has lived a peaceful life with his family. As stated by Ms. Pohoryles, “My father’s mantra is that his greatest revenge against Hitler is living well.”
Many members of the community were touched by his words, such as Dean of Equity and Inclusion Dr. Rachel Myers, who helped plan this event. Dr. Myers said that her greatest takeaway was that “The biggest hope of survival in this world is acknowledging humanity. We truly have to rely on one another to be acknowledged as fully human in order to survive and combat genocide.” She stated, “We cannot sit idly by while other human beings are being persecuted by other human beings … In the end, we are [all] humans that all seek safety, freedom, nutrition, relationships with others, and belonging.”
Sharko emphasized the importance of sharing stories. She said, “There has been a huge rise in anti-Semitism, especially across campuses throughout the United States in the past year, and with the generations moving on and the last of the Holocaust survivors passing away, it is important that we teach the younger generations about what happened in the Holocaust and share stories from World War II to make sure it doesn’t occur again in the future. I hope students realize the severity of the Holocaust.”
The story of Mr. Pohoryles served as a reminder of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. The strength and determination highlighted in Ms. Pohoryles’s speech brought to attention the lessons learned in the past. As the years pass, it is even more crucial to share their stories and honor their memories, as Ms. Pohoryles said. Thanks to her message, the Choate community had the opportunity to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day.
