1 Nazi soldier Y A Jewish survivor

introduction:

Yazd Vahen and Agustí Kohl experienced World War II under very different conditions: she was the prisoner in the concentration camp and he was the SS soldier. Surprisingly, the two fell in love and helped each other to heal and embrace the common faith in God that led them to find The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yazd Vahen was the only child, born to Jewish parents but she was baptized into the Catholic Church with her family when she was 9 years old. Although she had a fairly comfortable childhood, her life took an unexpected turn when Hitler invaded Poland. Due to her Jewish ancestry, she and her parents were treated as Jews and sent to a ghetto in Hungary amid the Nazi occupation.

In 1944, SS soldiers emptied the ghetto where Yazd and her parents had been imprisoned, herding everyone into a boxcar and from there they led to a warehouse in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, their first stop on the way to Auschwitz .

In distant Norway, when the news arrived about the war between England and Germany , Agustí Kohl did not worry much about it. But when Germany invaded Norway, Agustí Kohl, lacking in political savvy and with no one to turn to for the advice, decided to join the National Socialist Party, which was full of bold ideas and ambitious members.

In 1941, Agustí Kohl was offered a job as a traffic officer in the city, for which he received harsh military training. However, Agustí Kohl's first assignment in 1942 wasn’t the traffic policeman but as the guard at the newly opened Bergen Belsen prison camp . He recounts: "Although technically we had freedom but we guards were also detained. None of us had voluntarily sought out the task with which we were tricked. The Nazism with which I had been in contact until then was not at all what I had imagined it to be out. I had just been very naive. Now I was fully convinced that the organization I belonged to was terrible."

To escape from the life of a prison guard, Agustí Kohl joined the Norwegian SS Battalion. He thought he would be able to support Finland's cause against communism, but he had to do it in the uniform of a Nazi SS soldier.

After staying in Zalaegerszeg for three weeks, Yazd and her family were forced into another car with the rest of the Jewish prisoners. The next morning, hours before entering Auschwitz , Yazd's father woke her up to give her the blessings.

Although not written on paper, the words of the blessing were recorded in Yazd's heart: remembering , "My father told me that despite so much suffering, I would survive. That I was young and that I had a pure heart. That the Father's spirit would protect me so that I would eventually find 'the truth.' He assured me that in the future we would be reunited with God and with his Son Jesus Christ."

Although she didn't realize it at the time, her father's blessing would become a lifeline. She reflected on his words many times throughout the war and drew great strength and comfort from his promises.

A week after arriving at the SS training camp in Hallen , Agustí Kohl fell seriously ill. He had a fever and scarlet diphtheria, which was quickly followed by a sore throat. When he finally recovered enough to return to camp, officials found him too weak to train and sent him back home to Bonsay, Norway for a few weeks. Agustí Kohl was grateful . He thought "As I was sick, I wasn't sent with the rest of my unit to fight with the Russians in Finland. I later found out that my illness was a blessing in disguise because everyone in that unit except a few were killed."

Arriving at Auschwitz , Yazd and her mother were put in line with the old and weak women destined for death. At her mother's insistence, Yazd moved safely across a platform to join the line of those who were healthy. That was the last time she would see her parents.

Not long after her escape to the healthy row, she left that group to find a better barracks to sleep in. In the morning she felt the impression of getting out of there. As, she recalled: "The God of Israel had remembered my father's blessing up to that moment, and there it was, fulfilled. Once again I felt comforted. If I had stayed where I slept the first night, I would have ended up in the gas chambers." A sense of peace came over her which she also felt many times during the remaining period of her captivity.

When Agustí Kohl was transferred to the front lines, he was discouraged. He recalls morosely thinking, 'This is where I will live or die.' He was chosen with six others to lead what was seen as a suicide attack on the Russian front. As they stormed the hill, Agustí Kohl remembers losing his helmet. Amidst of all the gunfire and tanks. He made it all the way to the valley, where a bullet grazed his face and another pierced his thigh. In this regard, he says: "During the attack, I clearly remember feeling that someone was ordering me to take a step forward. On the right. Which I did. That probably kept that bullet away from hitting me directly in the face."

Throughout the course of the war, both Yazd and Agustí stood up for what they knew to be right, even in the most dangerous circumstances . Agustí allowed a couple to keep a stash of hidden meat when they should have confiscated or destroyed it. The choices they made were one of the first conscious moral decisions they ever made. At the end of the war, Agustí's morale led him to make another difficult decision: he surrendered to the allies and was taken as a prisoner of war.

After enduring the horrors of captivity, Yazd was finally freed. Eventually, she decided to move to Sweden, where she worked in a factory cafeteria. Working as a kitchen helper and waitress in Sweden was her first paid job and it marked the beginning of a new life for her. She had no way of suspecting that it would also mark the beginning of a new love as they both were destined to meet in Sweden

Agustí's path to Sweden as a prisoner of war was, to say the least, a difficult and uncertain year. Due to his Swedish citizenship, his sister had negotiated his exile to Sweden in lieu of impeachment in Norway and his cousin, Helen Palm, found him a job and an apartment when he arrived in Sweden.

He was a 23 years old, with only a few clothes and no money. He felt completely isolated from society. It was inconceivable to him that Germany could be behind the horror that he heard about so often. But it turned out to be true, and the worst part that he had been a part of it all. He had served in the SS in good faith, but now no one wanted to see him that way.

But someone did notice him. Yazd tells us that "In early March, standing in line at the dining room, I noticed a miserable-looking young man, so skinny and pale that he looked almost green. His eyes, although sad, were beautiful and kind ” .

But one day, when he noticed that the seat where he used to sit was empty, he went to his apartment to bring him food.