When he was 5 years old, Charles Rojer was living a comfortable life in Belgium with his parents and two older sisters. By the time he was 6, all that had changed. Born in December 1934, the course of Rojer’s life was altered by Nazis Germany. He woke up on the morning of May 10, 1940, to the sounds of German planes. Out his bedroom window, he could see the sky filled with the spectacle of shooting. His mother came to him and told him, “this is the war.”

There would be other times over the next few years when the young Rojet would again witness shootings and bombings.
Rojet shared his story with about 200 people who attended the Pine Brook Jewish Center’s Yom Hoshoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day program. He noted how indignity upon indignity was afflicted upon the Jewish people. They were required to register with officials. Then they could no longer teach at universities. They could not take jobs in government. They were forbidden from riding public transportation. They had to wear a yellow star with “Jude” written across it. Then they could not teach at any school, and eventually, the children could not attend school.

Children were viewed by the Nazis as “useless eaters” and were often killed in concentration camps. One million children were killed by the time the war ended. The best chance for survival was hiding. With this in mind, Rojet’s parents sent their young son away to a tuberculosis sanitarium. As a boy, he could be easily identified as Jewish. Assisting the family was the Belgian underground, a group of “courageous” people who put their lives at risk to place children in safety. Only the sanitarium’s director knew he was Jewish.

At the sanitarium, he lived in huge dormitory quarters with 40 other children. He was told by his parents to forget about being Jewish and not to talk in Yiddush or pray. As Rojet told the Montville audience, “I had to stop being myself.”

Rojet’s parents managed to visit him during December 1942, around his eighth birthday. It was the last time he saw them. They were sent to Auschwitz and died in the gas chambers. His sisters were away visiting friends at the time so were not taken by the Germans. Neighbors took the girls in until the Belgian underground could bring them to a hiding place, which turned out to be a convent. There, his sisters were baptized and converted to Catholicism.

The safety of the sanitarium ended when the Germans came looking for him. The director had him hide in a closet where he sat still and tried not to move or breathe or make any noise. He could hear the Germans walking around, their boots against the marble floors.

The Belgian underground moved him to a house where two sisters, recruited by their university department heads, agreed to hide Jewish children. They had to move around to different villages to avoid being discovered.

Rojet said that what he remembers of the war is that he was always hungry, from the day it started and every day thereafter. The children he was in hiding with had to divide up into groups to steal food. His group went to an orchard to gather apples. Rojet recalled being chased by the farmer who had a gun, but didn’t shoot at the children.

Eventually, the war ended and the Jews were liberated. He was 10 at the time and did not know what had happened to his parents, so he waited for them to get him. He watched as other children’s parents came. Rojet ended up in an orphanage.

In a twist of fate, Rojet was in Brussels while being reassigned to a different orphanage. There, he met up with another child he knew from hiding. While at lunch, he was asked if he had a sister because he looked like a woman who lived nearby. Sure enough, it was his sister. Both sisters survived along with several aunts and uncles and cousins. In June 1948, Rojet and his sisters moved to Philadelphia, where they lived with their uncle and his family. 

Rojet learned English and went onto Temple University and Hahnemann Medical College. Now, retired, he was an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon. He has three children from his first marriage and has nine grandchildren, as he says, “his personal victory over Hitler.”

Rojet tells his story so people will know what happened and be vigilant that it does not happen again. An important lesson as there are still many incidences of anti-Semitism as well as genocide and hate attacks on people just because of their color, culture, and religion.

Montville Mayor Deborah Nielson presented Rojer with a plaque and said to him, “Your story should never be forgotten.”
She also presented a plaque to Montville High School senior, Jason Goldstein, who also spoke that evening. To him she said, “You are the future.”

 Obviously, Goldstein was born decades after World War II ended, but he does have his own tale to tell. He participated in The March of the Living, an international, educational program that brings Jewish teenagers from all over the world to Poland on Yom Hashoah, to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built during the war. The students then visited Israel to observe Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day).

Goldstein took this two-week trip two years ago. The march from Auschwitz to Birkenau was 1.8 miles in length. He described it, saying, “During the march everyone wore blue jackets and blue backpacks which both had the March of the Living logo on them. The sight was amazing, all you could see in front and in back of you was a giant sea of Jews from all over the world uniting together to remember the holocaust and to show the world that Jews are still here and standing strong.”

It was during an Israeli night thrown by Pine Brook Jewish Center’s chapter of USY (United Synagogue Youth), where Goldstein first heard about the march. Although he was told what it would be like, he said, “It was a lot more then I had originally expected it to be.”

He told Neighbor News, “It’s nothing that can be really said in words. It is more of a feeling thing.”

While he had been taught about the Holocaust, he said the trip “made the whole thing come alive and real. Before I had only seen photos and read about it in books.”

Among the moments that stand out for him range from solemn, such as seeing mass graves and saying a prayer inside a gas chamber, to the joyous, such as singing Hatikva (the Israeli anthem) with thousands of people at the same time.

“I would tell another teen thinking of going on the trip that it is a life changing experience,” said Goldstein. “Just the sight of everyone there is unbelievable. It’s a very emotional trip. Poland is very sad, but when we leave for the plane to Israel everything turns for the best! There is singing and dancing and cheering and it’s just amazing!”

What Prejudice Means to Me
Just as Goldstein is the future, so is Melike Bulakbasi. The sixth grader at Robert R. Lazar Middle School was not at the Yom Hashoah program. Bulakbasi is a grand prize-winner for artwork in the What Prejudice Means to Me contest for sixth graders in Morris County. It is sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women, West Morris Section, and the Morris County Human Relations Commission. This year, there were 1,500 entries from 22 schools.

Bulakbasi entered the contest as part of her Language Arts class. Teacher Judy Gothelf explained that the class had talks about prejudice. They learned about current events which was an eye opener for the youngsters who realized that there is hatred in the world. “We talked about acceptance of other people and how to make the world a better place. One way to do that is to stop prejudice and hatred,” said Gothelf.

She said the students came up with very “interesting” suggestions that seemed more fitting of people much older and more experienced. Among the ideas were to do kind things for people and to accept people no matter their nationality or religion. When they hear someone saying something hateful to another person, rather then remain silent and add to the hate, they should “stand-up and say what they believe.”

She said, “It enlightens them to the world outside Montville Township.”

As for Bulakbasi’s artwork, Gothelf recalls the two talking about the concept and that Bulakbasi was thinking about her friends and how they are all so different, but connected.

Bulakbasi offered this explanation to Neighbor News, “It means between friends there should be no prejudice, just always peace.”

The class lessons on diversity greatly impacted Bulakbasi, who is Muslim and has experienced prejudice from both sides. She said that because of the attacks on September 11, 2001, people associate terrorism with Muslims. “You can’t judge a person by what they are and what they look like,” she said.

Bulakbasi said that whenever people said prejudiced statements to her, “I ignored the comments, it wouldn’t get to me.”
As for the classroom discussions, she said, “I learned a huge lesson. Before, I was a prejudiced person, I am not afraid to admit it. I felt so bad for things I did. It shouldn’t matter religion, culture, whatever it is, we should all be friends.”

When hearing that people get killed because of others’ prejudice, she said, “I felt so sad. I wanted to apologize to anyone I ever said anything to.”

It is said that those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat it. As long as we continue to listen to the tales of children, whether first hand accounts of history or later day lessons on getting along, perhaps together, we can strive for the day we are all treated with dignity and respect.