Emeritus Joe Gosler, Hidden Child During Holocaust, Speaks to Students

Born to Jewish parents in Holland during World War II, Emeritus Joe Gosler, who served as the School's business manager from 1980-2003, talked to students in the Meetinghouse on May 23, 2012 about being a hidden child. He also answered questions about what it was like for him as an immigrant to the USA as a young adult.

During his time at Friends, Joe had an essay published in the Friends Seminary booklet, War: Remembrances in Celebration of Peace (1997), which was published in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the AFSC on December 10, 1947.

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Here are some images of Europe at war.

The cobblestones were washed each morning. The streets which were built for horse and buggy travel did not support the modern age. The advents of the automobile and airplance were symbols of this new time. The thick mist of the 1930s was lifting, and with depression fading, new hopes and new political roots were forming.

The cobblestones were washed each morning. The air was mired with optimism. Children played in the streets, while their parents rushed off to work. Very few people took time to look beyond their own gardens.

If they did, they disassociated themselves from what they saw and heard. What they would see and hear were symbols of the Nazi rise to power: shops vandalized, books burnt, cemeteries and places of worship desecrated and people beaten to death. Why was this happening? Not many people asked that question; after all why should we care, they are not like us! There was a peculiar sense of trust that things would work out, that this too would pass.

There were many Nazi sympathizer, not only in Germany, but also in countries such as Austria, Holland and Poland. They wished for a future which was well managed, orderly, having a single culture and political vision, a vision wich excluded me.

The cobblestones were washed each morning. The traffic in the street was now a mixture of people rushing to and fro, a few automobiles and many trucks and tanks. At dusk, people would come home from work with their groceries, they would listen to the radio and with rare exception, would not go out at night.

Many people (like me) went into hiding. They hid wherever they could: in closets and attics, haylofts and forests. With false identity papers, they stayed in one place or another. The Nazi boot was everywhere and you couldn't trust anyone. Mistakes were fatal, each moment could spell death or pain. Was this real? Would I wake up from a bad dream? As a toddler, I could not understand. I was protected by my own innocence. It was not until much later in my life that I understood how I was robbed of my childhood.

The parade of Nazi boots is now gone. The war has ended. The trucks and tanks are gone and people rush into the streets to celebrate and forget. They stand on the souls of the dead.