Survivors mark Holocaust Memorial Day

The local Jewish community marked Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) earlier this week with ceremonies, candle-lighting and memories.

Holocaust survivors, including Joseph Neustadt of Calabasas and Dr. Erica Miller of Hidden Hills, shared their experiences. Miller also spoke at Temple Beth Haverim in Agoura Hills last Friday.

Joseph Neustadt

Neustadt is one of only 5 percent of the 80,000 Jews from Latvia to survive the Holocaust, and is the sole survivor of his family.

Neustadt, 78, had an idyllic early childhood with his brother and two sisters. He was 14 when the Germans invaded Latvia in 1941, burning down synagogues and killing the Jews hiding inside.

A ghetto was created where thousands of Jews were crowded in to live. Some were forced to work as slave labor, including Neustadt's father and brother, who lived in a smaller ghetto.

Nazis held mass shootings in the bigger ghetto, killing thousands. Neustadt's mother made him sneak out of the bigger ghetto to join his father.

"I went there at night, crawling under the barbed wire fence," Neustadt said. "If I had been caught they would have killed me on the spot."

REMEMBERING-Joseph Neustadt, shown above at age 30, was a teen during the Holocaust. Left, Erica Miller, also a survivor of Nazi horrors, and her husband, Jerry, celebrate granddaughter Shayna Turk's recent bat mitzvah at Temple Beth Haverim in Agoura Hills. Neustadt's mother and sisters were shot in the Rumbula Forest, along with 25,000 Riga Ghetto Jews. Only two women survived by lying among the dead. One wrote a book called "I Survived Rumbula."

Neustadt worked with his father and brother, installing wood train tracks. Eventually they were taken to a concentration camp to build barracks for other prisoners. One day the Nazis made everyone undress and form a line. Some prisoners were sent away, including Neustadt's father.

"We never saw our father again," Neustadt said.

The rest were taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland, including Neustadt and his brother, Jacob.

"It was the most brutal camp," Neustadt said. "It had a big gas oven were they sent hundreds of people daily to be gassed."

One day with the Russians advancing, the Germans loaded the prisoners onto cargo ships bound for Germany.

The ship was overcrowded and many prisoners were thrown overboard. The guards abandoned the ship a few hours' distance from shore. Prisoners used blankets to create sails and bring the ship to shore.

In the spring of 1945. Neustadt and his brother were liberated and hospitalized. His brother died from typhus nine days later.

"But God kept me alive and chose me to be a witness," Neustadt said.

After the war, Neustadt lived in Holland and Canada, but he didn't find happiness until coming to the United States in 1954.

"I could never replace what I lost as a child," Neustadt said.

After four years in New York attending high school and becoming an electrician, Neustadt moved to California in 1961. He worked for 30 years for the former aerospace firm McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing. He married and had two children who now live in West Hills and Thousand Oaks with their own children. His first wife passed away 10 years ago and he has remarried. He speaks of his experiences to local groups, including schools.

Erica Miller

To deal with the pain, Miller, 72, has learned to be detached when speaking of her experiences.

Born in Romania, Miller was 7 when the Germans invaded. She recalls her parents saying the family had to hide.

"I remember that moment. It's traumatic when you see your father and mother with overwhelmed expressions," Miller said.

The family hid in the attic while the Gestapo searched their home. Her mother covered her mouth with her hand so that Miller would not scream.

"She had her hand on my mouth so hard I couldn't breathe," Miller said. "That feeling stayed with me all my life."

Miller heard Germans screaming "filthy Jews" but couldn't understand why.

"I said to my papa 'I washed last night so why are they saying we are filthy? I don't want to be Jewish,'" Miller said.

Her father answered that she had to be and would always be Jewish.

"He said, 'Be proud of it. They are mistaken. You are unique,'" Miller said

The family came out of hiding because the Germans said anyone found would be shot. Miller's family was loaded onto cattle trains packed with people crying for loved ones. After a long ride, weak and hungry, they had to walk to a holding camp.

Miller's memories include seeing her father on the ground being beaten by soldiers, and a soldier shooting a child in its mother's arms.

"I couldn't understand what was going on," Miller said. "What they did to us was absolutely unacceptable."

The family spent four years in a holding camp. Her father was taken to jail where Miller recalls seeing him lying on the floor.

"He was such a broken man, something a child should not see," Miller said.

By the war's end, Miller and her family looked like cadavers, starving, jaundiced and sick. The Romanian government allowed them to go to Israel.

Miller spent several years in the Israeli Air Force, then came to the United States. She became a Hebrew teacher, then went back to school to earn a doctorate in psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology.

She runs 10 area mental health clinics, treating victims of domestic abuse and substance abuse. She is married, has two children and five grandchildren who live in Agoura Hills and Studio City, and is working on a book about her life.

Miller says the pain and suffering she witnessed as a young child influenced her to be a psychologist.

"I had to become a healer to help heal the horrendous pain that people inflict on each other," Miller said.

Miller and her husband recently lost their home to an electrical fire. Miller was awoken by the sound of the fire outside their bedroom door. She and husband escaped with only the clothes they were wearing. Miller is grateful to be alive.

"Our family and the community have been wonderful," Miller said. "Look at me now. I have it all."