Gift #2 – Bernhard Kempler
“Resilience is the capacity to find new and creative ways to assert life despite great trauma and obstacles.”[1]
Born in 1936 in Krakow, Poland, Bernhard was only three years old when the Nazi forces invaded Poland and forced his father into hiding and his mother to flee.
Bernhard and his older sister Anita were left to the care of their governess (whom they called Niania) who took them into the countryside hoping to hide them from the Nazi’s.
Over time Niania no longer felt it safe and secreted them to a convent for protection.
They were discovered hiding in the convent, forcefully removed and taken to Ravensbrück. Bernhard being a young boy should not have been put into the women’s and girls’ concentration camp, but in an effort to keep him with his sister, he was dressed as a little girl and miraculously remained undiscovered until their rescue by the Swedish White Buses in 1945.
He recalls his experience in the camp saying:
“I had no idea what was going to happen. I … wanted to survive from day to day. … I didn’t know why I was in (the concentration camps) in the first place.”[2]
Among other limited memories of his time in the camp, he shared that as the war was coming to an end
“we were getting American care packages. We had food; it was lying in mounds inside the camp.
That was a sign that something good was happening. Of course, I didn’t know what America was, or who these people were, or why this was happening.” 12
Bernhard’s recollection of the White Buses rescue is also limited.
“Almost immediately we got packed into these buses and taken out of the camp.
I know now and knew shortly thereafter, that it was the Swedish Red Cross, and we were being taken to Sweden.
But I didn’t know what Sweden was. Some of these buses on their way up through Germany, and through Denmark were bombed.
The people who were too sick were placed in the luggage compartment.
They became like hospital beds. But then everyone had to get out of the bus, and go on the side of the road because we were being bombed.
I don’t know who was bombing us.” 12
Bernhard’s first years after rescue on a White Bus convoy were sickly, recovering from tuberculosis, learning Swedish since he had forgotten Polish,
“learning how to live just as a child, under normal circumstances, how to play games, how to talk, how to be in class, how to . . . everything was just totally new.
Nothing was to be taken for granted”
and eventually reuniting with his parents in 1947. 12
They remained in Sweden for 7 years, without a home, stateless.
“My father had some very distant cousins [in America].
He felt there that there would be better opportunities for him to get started again in some kind of business.
I think the main motivation was to get out of Europe.
First, we spent a week on Ellis Island … right before Christmas, 1951 . . . Finally, they checked our papers, and found everything in order.” [3]
“We were adaptable . . . we just learned to be adaptable.
We wanted to be adaptable.
It was difficult, but I didn’t go around, and think,
“This is very difficult… I just did it.”13
Losing much of his contact with his family upon leaving for college, Bernard did not think about or talk about the war much.
Despite his parents socializing and maintaining contact with other refugees, Bernard focused on adapting.
Eventually he began to wonder if all these events had really happened to him or not.
He tells the story of his return to Krakow and Auschwitz where everything was real again and he knew that he had not made up any of the horrors that he faced as a young boy.
While in Poland he also ran into one of the nuns who had been in the convent where he was hidden many years earlier.
She was astonished that he had survived.
This trip was important because “one of the main values of going back to these places was to take that part of your past from this never, never land of dream, fantasy, nightmare . . . because it feels that way.”13
“I went around Krakow. I saw buildings that my Uncle Sigmund had built.
I went to the apartment where we had lived and I remembered. I saw that balcony where I had played as a child of two or three.
I went to the park where we had met and seen my mother from a distance.
It was not an unpleasant experience. It was a very reality-affirming experience.
But it’s not easy to talk about as one story. When I was at the children’s conference, that was a big thing, everybody wanted you to tell your story.
It’s difficult to do that, not because you get overwhelmed by your feelings… everyone thinks that that’s the problem…but you end up talking about it like a story.
So, it’s a problem. You don’t quite know how to have it, how to be with that past. Including why did I survive when so many others didn’t?”13
The Shadow Side of Self-Disclosure[4] represents the intersection of Bernhard’s professional career as a psychologist with his childhood experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
He asserts that “responsible” self-disclosure of reactions to events, feelings, and other life events is part of being a mature adult, whereas premature disclosure can be harmful in the short and longer term.
An academic scholar and psychologist, Bernhard practiced in Atlanta for decades and served on the faculty of Georgia State University.
He helped people through difficult struggles so they could better cope with life’s stresses. He married the former Diane Gail Solomon; their son was born in 1964.
Yad Vashem serves as Israel’s national official memorial to preserve the memories of those who died in the Holocaust, to honor those who helped end the carnage and hopefully prevent such atrocities from happening again.
Bernhard Kempler has a special connection to this memorial which plants trees as a symbol of life, of endurance and recognition.
“When I found out about Yad Vashem, [ I ] decided that it was very proper for me to honor [our governess] Niania (whose real name is Rozalia Natkaniec) who had died right after the war.
So, I wrote up [her story], and my story, and………………………………… sent it to Yad Vashem.”
She was accepted as a Righteous Gentile on May 2,1985.
To assert life. To cause life to recognize (one’s authority or a right) by confident behavior.
To take a proactive approach despite the circumstances that are inflicted upon oneself. This was Bernard Kempler.
Bernhard’s is a life well lived with the gift of service to others.
Figure 3 Gentile Rozalia Natkaniec and Bernhard Kempler at the dedication of a tree planted foreground) in Rozalia’s honor. Yad Vashem recognizes
“Rozalia Natkaniec (as) a village girl who had worked in the home of the Gruenberg family in Krakow before the war.
Immediately after the occupation, Natkaniec decided to remain with the Gruenberg family in order to repay them for their kind treatment and the concern they showed for her while she worked for them.
As the persecution of the Jews worsened, Natkaniec came to the assistance of her employers, but was only able to save their daughter Ziuta, after the child’s parents were caught and killed.
Ziuta hid with Natkaniec for two years until the liberation, and after the war, she immigrated to Israel.
Natkaniec also saved Bernhard and Anita Kempler, Ziuta’s cousins, and they hid under an assumed identity in a monastery in Krakow.
Unfortunately, their identity was discovered and the Gestapo transported them to the Plaszow concentration camp.
After Natkaniec learned of this, she risked her life and smuggled them out of the camp after which she hid them in her home.
The Kempler’s survived and after the war, immigrated to the United States.
On May 2, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Rozalia Natkaniec as Righteous Among the Nations.” [5]
[1] DeNoon, Daniel. “America’s Resilience,” WebMd online, October 12, 2001. Interview a month after September 11th. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20011012/americas-resilience. Accessed February 6, 2022.
[2] Bernard Kempler, Oral History, Bremen Museum, November 20, 1991.
[3] Bernard Kempler, Oral History, Bremen Museum, November 20, 1991.
[4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022167887271008
[5] https://righteous.yadvashem.org
