The Danish Home of Chicago Presents ‘A Conversation with Holocaust Survivor Steen Metz’
Steen Metz was arrested when he was only eight years old.
In the fall of 1943, approximately 450 Danish Jews (about 5% of the country’s Jewish population) were rounded up and sent to Terezin (Theresienstadt), including Steen and his parents. Along with his parents, he was forced from his hometown of Odense, Denmark and deported to Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp located in what is now the Czech Republic. His father died within six months, starved and malnourished. Steen and his mother somehow managed to endure another 18 months in this ‘model ghetto.’
In April 1945, the Swedish Red Cross picked up 423 surviving Danish Jews from Terezin, including Steen and his mother, and brought them to Copenhagen. The camp was liberated less than a month later. Steen and his mother remained in Denmark, where he completed his education. He immigrated to Canada in 1960 and to the United States in 1962.
More than seventy years later, Metz’s mission is to share his story, and the story of millions of victims like him, to help ensure that humankind never forgets the Holocaust.
A presentation by Danish-born Holocaust Survivor Steen Metz will be held at The Danish Home of Chicago, 5656 N. Newcastle Avenue, Chicago, IL 60631 on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 4 PM. The presentation will be open to non-residents – they should make a reservation by calling April Pasquale at 773-775-7383 ext. 4 by Thursday, September 11 (Seating is limited).
What has become a life’s mission began as a memoir for his family. Having endured the Holocaust as a child, Metz needed to do research to fill in the details that would frame his memories. The more he researched, the more determined he became to tell the story more broadly.
“When I spoke at my grandson’s school,” Steen says, “The children were very respectful and attentive. I realized that we need our children to carry the message forward, so we need to make sure they understand what happened and, especially, why it must never happen again.”
“This has all become much bigger than I ever expected when I started writing,” he adds, “It’s now a passion of mine to educate. And every time I present, I even learn something more, from someone asking a question I hadn’t thought of, or sharing part of their story or their grandmother’s story. This is very important, to continue sharing and telling and asking. It’s critical that we never forget. Never forget.”
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