Exeter Township School District

Six weeks ago, Sidney Bratt died at the age of 96. But his legacy lived on today in Exeter Township Senior High School where his grandchildren, Aaron Wernick, Brian Wernick, Michele Leisawitz and Stacy Seltzer, recounted the horrors that Sidney and his wife, Esther, went through as Jewish children growing up in Germany and Poland during the Holocaust. “It’s a miracle I’m standing here to tell you this story,” said Brian to the assembled group of 10th graders, most of whom are–or soon will be–learning about the Holocaust in English or Social Studies. “My grandmother only had a 1.5% chance of living past the age of 15–which is right around your age, I believe,” he said as he looked at the crowd of teenagers with his 94-year-old grandmother sitting in a wheelchair among them. “When you hear what she’s been through, it is incomprehensible that she survived,” he said.

The four grandchildren of Sidney and Esther Bratt recounted the separate stories of their grandparents’ childhoods as they navigated the terror of living as Jewish children in Nazi Germany. Both endured ostracism by childhood friends and neighbors as their freedom and dignity were stripped away and replaced by fear as they lived under Hitler. As anti-Semitism grew, people they knew and were once friendly with began to spit and throw rocks at them as nearby homes and synagogues where they worshipped were burned by Nazis. Their family members, friends and neighbors disappeared or were openly murdered. Aaron paused in the middle of recounting the terror his grandparents endured as children and said his grandfather asked, “How could one man spew so much hatred? These activities were not only condoned by Hitler… they were legalized.”

Sidney and Esther’s grandchildren–two of whom are Exeter alums (Brian graduated in ‘05 and Aaron graduated in ‘01)--now speak to school groups and other organizations as part of 3G Philly, which stands for “third generation.” Their mission as grandchildren of Holocaust survivors is to make sure that their grandparents’ stories–as horribly vivid and tragic as they are–live on as that generation passes away.

“Many years ago, we used to have Holocaust survivors visit and speak about their experiences, but, unfortunately, many of those survivors are no longer with us,” said Mrs. Heather Mills, an English teacher at the Senior High who helped organize the visit. Emphasizing how important storytelling is as a means of sharing and preserving history, Mrs. Mills said that stories like Sidney and Esther's can also provide a different perspective than what students learn in traditional media, such as books or movies. "The stories (the students heard today) specifically were about life in the ghettos and the kindertransport, which are topics sometimes overshadowed by those traditionally told about concentration and death camps."

In addition to offering new perspectives and educating students about what it was like for their grandparents to grow up as children of the Holocaust, Brian, Aaron, Michele and Stacy hope that their stories will help keep their legacy of their grandmother and late grandfather alive. But, more importantly, they hope to help prevent another atrocity like the Holocaust from ever happening again.