EVANSTON — People packed the classroom at Evanston Regional Hospital on Thursday, April 12, to hear Evanston resident Paul Skog’s presentation for Holocaust Remembrance Day, the topic of the combined Evanston Chamber of Commerce Luncheon and Uinta County Museum’s Brown Bag Lunch for April. 

Skog opened the presentation by saying, “Contrary to popular belief, I am not an expert on the Holocaust.” However, he had certainly done his research and shared some of his own background. 

“My first memory of learning about the Holocaust was when I was in seventh grade and learning about the German atrocities,” he said. Skog said what he learned then resonated and stuck with him. 

He then attended a high school with a large Jewish population, and his brother converted to Judaism. Skog’s Jewish niece now has a master’s degree in Jewish history studies, and he said he spoke with her in preparation for his presentation. 

Skog said he is frequently told that he tells good stories, so he decided to spend the hour sharing stories he researched on people who survived the Holocaust and later went on to fame. “I could stand up here and share statistics,” he said, “but I’d rather focus on telling some stories.”

One of those stories was that of Rajmund Roman Polanski, notorious film director and writer also known for his legal troubles resulting from statutory rape charges in the 1970s. Polanski was born in Paris to Polish-Jewish parents, who moved back to Poland when Polanski was a child just prior to the Nazi invasion. 

Skog said Polanski grew up in one of the infamous Jewish ghettos and watching Nazi propaganda films, which actually piqued his interest in movie-making. 

Another notable person who survived the Holocaust is actor Robert Clary, who played the role of Corporal Louis LeBeau on the television show “Hogan’s Heroes.” Clary’s name at birth was Robert Max Widerman.

Born and raised in Paris, he was deported to Nazi concentration camps as a teen, eventually ending up in Buchenwald where he sang and danced for Nazi troops. Skog said Clary believed he survived Buchenwald because of his age, height and entertaining the troops. 

Clary was still at Buchenwald when the camp was liberated by Allied troops on April 11, 1945, although he was the only member of his family to survive the concentration camps. He later moved to the United States and began singing as a career prior to taking up acting. 

The last person Skog profiled to have survived the Holocaust was Karola Ruth Siegel. Born in Germany in 1928, Siegel was sent to an orphanage in the 1930s when her father was taken by the Nazis. She later learned both of her parents were killed at Auschwitz. 

In 1950 Siegel moved to France and went to school, earning her degree in psychology. She moved to the United States, began teaching and ultimately went on to fame as Dr. Ruth Westheimer. 

During his closing comments, Skog referred again to the television show “Hogan’s Heroes,” saying he finds it particularly interesting that so many of the cast members, including those who played the major German characters, were themselves Jewish and had lived through World War II and the Holocaust. Skog then asked for the attendees to observe a moment of silence for all of the victims of the Holocaust. 

Evanston Chamber Director Marian McLean thanked Skog for his presentation and said she knew when she saw on the calendar that the date of the April luncheon coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day that she wanted that to be the topic of the day. McLean shared a statistic she said she finds to be particularly sobering.

“If we had a minute of silence for each person killed in the Holocaust,” she said, “we would be silent for 11 years.”