Story by Victoria Hernandez, February 19, 2021

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.—A Holocaust survivor spoke to University of Arkansas students, staff and faculty Feb. 11 over Zoom.

Arkansas students are ranked last in regard to their knowledge of the Holocaust out of the entire United States, according to a study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Toby Klein, vice president of the diversity and inclusion student council, has been involved in the effort to bring a speaker for UA in order to combat the lack of knowledge.

“Pieter Kohnstam has been working with a committee of folks for Holocaust education for Arkansas,” Klein said. “His story is really unique. We sometimes hear about the Holocaust and assume someone went to a camp and they were sent somewhere.”

This was not the case for Pieter Kohnstam.

Kohnstam and his family were in the Nuremberg/Fuerth area of Germany when they were forced to flee to the Netherlands in the beginning of the Nazi regime, leaving behind a toy merchandising company, according to Kohnstam’s website.

“It was a gradual process moving outside the Netherlands,” Kohnstam said. He remembered being only 4 years old when he first faced anti-Semitism.

The Kohnstam’s lived two apartments away from Anne Frank’s family apartment in Amsterdam. Kohnstam remembered Anne Frank well.

“She was also very advanced for her age,” Kohnstam said. “And among other things a gorgeous writer. She was into fashion, movies, high heels and she liked red color. And you know, people recognized her. You know my mother said she was a bright girl.”

Once Nazi persecution in the Netherlands towards Jews became unbearable, the Kohnstams decided to flee Amsterdam while the Franks went into hiding. The Kohnstams reached safety in Argentina after a year’s worth of travel.

Kohnstam spoke about some of his personal experiences with Nazis.

“[Nazis] came into our street constantly and they were guarding the streets,” Kohnstam said. “They were gradually hitting, demeaning, killing, shooting, invading homes, knocking down the doors etc. This all gradually became part of our lives. It was a daily degradation.”

On one occasion, Kohnstam had to confront Nazis in his own home, he said.

“They came in one day and they were trying to actually bribe me into answering questions, which I didn’t,” Kohnstam said, “and this was one of the first incidences when I was confronted with an experience like this. I’m a little bit of a talker and for my gracious family I was quiet.”

Kohnstam said his family did not do much to prepare for this occurrence. His grandmother thought since she married a German officer from the first world war they would be okay, he said.

While the Nazis interrogated his family, Kohnstam’s mother slipped a paper into his hand.

“I didn’t move. I didn’t do anything. I left it in my hand, and at some point, I put it in my mouth making belief I was blowing my nose,” Kohnstam said. “And then separately, a little bit later, I swallowed it.”

After the Nazis had left, Kohnstam learned that the paper consisted of names of German Christians who had helped his family make it to the Netherlands.

“And if they [the Nazis] would have seen those names they would have definitely sent them to a concentration camp as price,” Kohnstam said. “We saw that daily and it created the separation of us, a society that had been very active for centuries.”

Kohnstam said that no matter the circumstances, the Nazis would continue to torture.

“Old, young, sick, it didn’t matter. There was a constant yelling, clubbing, demeaning. This is what we saw for a few years,” he said.

Kohnstam’s wife, Susan, also spoke of stories they had discovered years later.

“Pieter’s mother had a brother living in the United States and cousins whom she was quite close to who all had financial resources that could have brought them over, but they were denied entrance because of his cleft lip. Incredible,” Susan Kohnstam said.

She also brought forward a picture of Pieter and his mother, him waving at the camera at age two in her arms.

When asked what memory of the Nazis stands out most, he described what he saw often.

“I think all the visuals that I saw, the shootings of teenagers against the wall and in the street, not disclosing the names of those they wanted them to betray, meaning the Nazis,” Kohnstam said.

Even though Pieter Kohnstam experienced tragically graphic instances, he also presented some calmer memories.

“My mother would take me on the train to babysit me and the people were friendly during the good times,” Kohnstam said. “Then the German occupation came, and we had the star of David and we couldn’t do that–traveling–too much. People would look down on the floor or look out the window, and I felt the demeaning separation in society.”

It was not only strangers on the bus or in the streets that separated Jews from society.

“And then the betrayals. The loss of trust, there was no trust anymore, even in families,” said Kohnstam. “There was the German youth. There were all kinds of things that played together.”

After making it to Argentina and finishing high school, Pieter immigrated to the United States in 1963. Now retired in Venice, Florida, Kohnstam is very active in community affairs.

Kohnstam also spoke of his passion for Holocaust education.

“The Holocaust is not only for the dead people but the live ones in that situation during the second world war. I think from a historical point of view, yes. I think it is a good idea not to forget and to remember. And that is what we are doing with Anne Frank,” Kohnstam said.

Pieter Kohnstam is a member of the Board of Directors for the Anne Frank Center working to provide Holocaust education.

“You know the quotation. People who forget the past, who do the present and forget the past will commit the same errors,” Kohnstam said. “I think education is a constant unending kind of matter.”

Kohnstam has worked with Klein to push for mandated education of the Holocaust in the state of Arkansas.

“SB160 is a bill that has recently been introduced in the Arkansas legislature to ensure that Holocaust education will be taught in the state of Arkansas. One of the first letters of support that we got was actually from Chancellor Steinmetz,” Klein said.

As of Feb. 4, 2021, the bill has been rereferred to the Education Committee Senate for further consideration.

“Will people really know what happened? Each one has an opinion, who’s listening, and I’m not going to go into the politics, but this is where we are,” Kohnstam said. “It seems that in every generation and a half we have to start again, reteaching everybody what happened.”

This event was co-sponsored by UA Hillel, Students with Refugees, Graduate and Professional Student Congress Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Jewish Studies Program, Residents’ Interhall Congress (RIC) and the Diversity and Inclusion Student Council (DISC).