Rhode Island PBS Weekly | Rhode Island PBS Weekly 11/5/2023 | Season 4 | Episode 45

- [Narrator] Tonight Rhode Island survivors of the Holocaust reflect on the rise of antisemitism. - When people say, "How could God have allowed this?" My answer was always, "What man does to man, you can't blame on God."

- [Narrator] Tonight Rhode Island survivors of the Holocaust reflect on the rise of antisemitism.

- When people say, "How could God have allowed this?"

My answer was always, "What man does to man, you can't blame on God."

- [Narrator] Then Healing Through Horses, a program for veterans suffering post-traumatic stress.

- We kind of had that anecdotal data of where there have been individuals who told me that they have not ended their lives because of this program.

- [Narrator] And one Warwick man's decades long love affair with quahogs.

- I still love clams as much today as I did the first time at caught 'em.

(light gentle music) (light gentle music continues) - Good evening.

Welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

This week marks the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

It was a defining moment in the Holocaust in which nearly 100 Jews were killed, and about 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.

- The Holocaust is the most extreme example of Jewish hate in history, but it's hardly the only one.

Nationwide, there's been an increase in antisemitic incidents in recent years, and the Israel Hamas war has set off a rise in hate crimes for both Jews and Muslims around the world.

Tonight, survivors of the Holocaust who moved to Rhode Island describe what happens when violence against Jewish people is left unchecked and why those atrocities should never be forgotten.

- I vividly remember looking out of the bedroom windows.

I saw him being dragged down the street and it was so utterly traumatic to see my father in that position.

- [Michelle] It was the night of November 9th, 1938.

Ruth Oppenheim recalls watching in fear as her father, the head of the community's Jewish congregation was dragged toward the town marketplace in Northwestern Germany.

- We prayed a lot, our main prayer and our pleaing to God to bring our father back alive.

- [Michelle] Decades later, Oppenheim, who now lives in Barrington, describes in detail what unfolded 85 years ago.

She was 10 years old, huddled in bed with her mom and siblings when they heard a noise coming from the back stairs.

It was her father returning home, hunched over, covered in blood and holding a Torah.

- He was the one who was beaten and was supposed to destroy the Torah.

Of course, he couldn't do that because the Torah to us was sacred and they kept on beating him.

- [Michelle] Eventually, Oppenheim and her family hid outside all night in the cold weather.

It was Kristallnacht, known as the night of broken glass.

- [Reporter] Kristallnacht was a mixture of method and madness.

Smashed shop windows, killings, the first deportations to camps.

- [Michelle] Members of the Nazi party and their supporters destroyed and vandalized synagogues, houses, and Jewish-owned businesses.

- We slowly went back into our house.

There was crystal all over the floor and furniture turned upside down.

- [Michelle] Oppenheim left Germany in 1940 and moved to the United States where she lived with her immediate family.

But life in Nazi Germany is far from a distant memory.

She's been saddened to see antisemitism did not end with the defeat of the Nazi regime.

The Anti-Defamation League reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents last year, nearly 3,700 nationwide.

- At least four people, including a rabbi, are being held hostage inside a north Texas synagogue.

- Now the search is on for two people involved in a Staten Island hate crime.

- This happened outside a kosher supermarket.

- [Michelle] And Rhode Island has also seen its share of anti-Semitic incidents.

- Providence police are investigating after an anti-Semitic note was found at the Brown RISD Hillel on Sunday.

- White Nationalist posters are circulating across local cities in Townsend, Rhode Island.

- It's all disheartening, but not surprising to Sarah Mack.

She's the senior rabbi at Temple Beth-El in Providence.

She says, growing up in Seattle, Washington, she never felt unsafe as a Jew.

Do you feel unsafe as a Jew in today's world?

- I feel safe here at Temple Beth-El because I know how we're cared for and the measures that we take.

I won't pretend that when I walk into a Jewish space that I'm unfamiliar with, I look around and and find the exits.

- [Michelle] We first spoke with Rabbi Mack in late August before the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

- As we speak, Palestinian gunmen are inside Israeli towns and cities, and they are fighting running gun battles against Israeli forces trying to regain control.

- [Michelle] Within a week of the start of the war, the temple was the target of two bomb threats.

We went back to talk with Rabbi Mack and find out how her congregation is doing.

- My congregation is just gutted and demoralized and heartbroken by the events in Israel.

There's so much to grieve.

Let us not forget that this is the greatest loss of Jewish life in a pogrom since the time of the Holocaust.

- [Michelle] Mack says the future of Israel complicates the grief so many of her congregants are experiencing.

- That just hurts so deeply to the core of the Jewish community.

And I'll say I don't know anybody in the Jewish community whose heart isn't grieved by the loss of life in Gaza either.

We hold both of those realities that, you know, civilian life and life of children.

I mean, it's heartbreaking across the board.

- [Michelle] The history of antisemitism dates back to ancient times.

It's been called the world's oldest hatred.

Alice Eichenbaum, a Holocaust survivor who raised a family in Rhode Island, was 13 when she says Jewish hate upended her life.

- In March of 1941, the German troops marched into Bulgaria and that's when like overnight everything changed.

- [Michelle] Eichenbaum remembers seeing the swastika flown on top of her German school in Bulgaria.

Her classmates became mean to her and stopped inviting her to birthday parties.

- All of a sudden, I hated to go to school.

Every morning I remember I was crying and I would say, "Do I have to go to school?"

And my mother would say, my parents would say, "Of course you have to go, you have to finish."

- [Michelle] Eichenbaum then went to a French-Catholic school that accepted Jewish students.

A few years later, Eichenbaum, her parents and grandmother were forced to live in a ghetto in Bulgaria near the Turkish border where Jews were segregated from the rest of the population.

Three families were crammed into one room.

- Life was, it was not fun.

You know, it's a crowded room, nothing to do all day.

We had curfew, only one hour a day freedom.

I had to go to the well to bring two buckets of water 'cause we had no running water so we had something to drink.

- Did you go hungry while you were living there?

- Oh yeah.

There were hungry times.

Yes, there wasn't, there was sometimes there was nothing to eat.

But let me tell you, when I was in the ghetto, I appreciated every, every drop, a little piece of bread.

- [Michelle] Eichenbaum and her family were liberated in 1944 by the Russian Army.

At the age of 95, she continued to make it her mission to ensure the Holocaust is never forgotten.

- It's something that doesn't happen overnight.

It's a slow process.

- [Michelle] She's shared her story with children and adults hundreds of times.

On this day, she spoke with students at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence, which she and her late husband helped to establish.

- Slowly, slowly, Hitler built more concentration camp.

The swastika started to fly over.

Life started to change.

My father had lost the business.

- [Michelle] Eichenbaum's husband Raymond survived Auschwitz and was driven to speak up in the wake of Holocaust deniers.

- Just as it is said that every Jew is obligated to feel as if he personally has been brought out of slavery from Egypt.

- [Michelle] The two were featured in a 1985 documentary with other Holocaust survivors living in Rhode Island.

- Coming over here with a suitcase in your hand with no money in your pocket, with no language- - In your mouth.

- And you don't know nobody, nobody knows you.

- [Michelle] After her husband died, Eichenbaum decided it was her turn to tell both of their stories.

- And that's the last time, the last time he saw his sister.

And he never, never to the dying day, found out what happened to her.

- [Michelle] Talking about her husband's painful past and her own isn't easy, but Eichenbaum felt a great responsibility to keep doing it.

So does Ruth Oppenheim.

- Childhood trauma has deeply affected me.

My father's courage remains a guiding example.

- [Michelle] She gave the keynote address earlier this year at Brown University's Global Day of Inclusion.

- I count on you to remember long after I am gone, do not let it happen here.

- You've said that over the years, it's become increasingly harder to share your story.

And so I'm curious, why do you continue to share your story?

- Because I feel so strongly about what happened to my family and particularly the part of the family that we were so close to.

A little cousin who was doubly related and who was gassed to death.

And when I feel tired and maybe not up to things, then I think of him and it gives me the strength to go on.

- [Michelle] She says she loved her five-year-old cousin Helmut like a little brother.

His parents were also gassed to death.

- I seem to have a lot of tenacity as I examined myself.

- [Michelle] At 95, Oppenheim's family and faith continue to give her a strong will to live.

- We did not lose faith somehow.

And when people say, "How could God have allowed this?"

My answer was always, "What man does to man, you can't blame on God."

- [Michelle] For Alice Eichenbaum over the years, she says, she continually drew strength from younger generations, including her two sons and being able to attend her granddaughter's bat mitzvah.

- This was a touching moment for me because I felt another generation is, that Hitler didn't kill us all.

That the suffering of my husband and me were not in vain.

- I have some sad news to pass along.

Alice Eichenbaum, the Holocaust survivor whom we just heard from, passed away a few months after I interviewed her.

She was 95 years old.

I wanna offer my sincerest condolences to her family and friends.

Pamela, I first met Alice a few years ago.

She was always so graceful, kind, and very generous with her time.

- What a legacy she leaves.

And we are grateful that she was willing to share her story with us.

Well, as Veterans Day approaches, we wanted to take another look at a story we ran earlier this year.

It's estimated more than 5 million veterans return home every year from the service with behavioral health problems.

For some soldiers, it is the wounds you cannot see, the memories of combat that take the greatest toll.

We visited one local program helping to ease veteran struggles by developing a special brand of horse sense.

- Winston Churchill said, you know, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a person.

You know, and it's true.

There is a magic that happens of being around an animal that large with that type of energy.

(horse nickers) Thank you.

- [Pamela] Thor Torgerson is one of the founders of a nonprofit organization run out of a horse farm just over the Rhode Island border in Stonington, Connecticut.

It's aimed at assisting veterans who return home from the service troubled and broken.

Mike Warren has been there.

- I wasn't right.

I don't, you know, just a lot of bad things done to human people.

You know, a lot of wrong, you know, that you would see in a humanitarian situation.

- [Pamela] And Thor Torgerson says he's encountered other veterans like Warren haunted by their tour of duty.

- I have seen individuals who have been homeless, addicted to drugs, incapable of walking on their own without a walker or a wheelchair, become fully mobile, off of their addictions, own their own home now, drive.

Incredible, I mean it's a 100% transformation.

And we kind of had that anecdotal data of where there have been individuals who told me that they have not ended their lives because of this program.

Start to make your turn 'cause he's gonna wanna walk out.

- [Pamela] This program is called V.E.T.S, an acronym for Veteran Equine Therapeutic Services.

- Walk on.

- [Pamela] This brand of therapy provides healing through horses.

Former service members are invited here free of charge to learn how to handle these highly intuitive 1,500 pound animals.

- Horses are, you know, just by nature, the poster child of PTSD.

They have hyper vigilance, trust issues, fight or flight issues, all of the markers that are traditional PTSD markers.

And that is a survival mechanism.

And we have veterans who come in who have those same issues.

And you know, when they come in, I kind of jokingly say, "You're just a horse and we can work with that."

- Hold for three.

- How the equine specialists in mental health work is first encouraging veterans to totally unwind.

Shaking off tension and getting comfortable begins with taking deep breaths to let the horse know you are calm, in control, and a decisive leader.

Torgerson gave me a lesson.

If you put both hands on him and do that same breathing exercise, you're trying to relax and make him relax by you relaxing.

- [Pamela] Torgerson says, because horses are so perceptive, they can sense anger and stress in humans.

Empathy, compassion, and emotional management leads the horse to respond.

The hope is veterans take those skills off the farm and into their lives.

And it doesn't require mounting a horse, just harnessing trust.

- 'Cause if I taught you how to ride a horse and then you never interacted with a horse again, the skill or the experience would be wasted versus coming, get to understand an animal at a very deeper level that makes you understand yourself at a very deep level.

- [Pamela] Torgerson says the program can be transformational by creating a therapeutic environment to ease the isolation of local veterans experiencing combat trauma.

- There are people who have had to see and do things that no one should have to see or do.

You wanna stuff those in the darkest place that you can.

And many people feel that they can never come back from that darkness.

- Walk on, walk on.

- [Pamela] Mike Warren found himself in that darkness.

He was an 18-year-old Marine when he was deployed to the Gulf War.

While on the way, his company was sent to evacuate US citizens from Liberia during its civil war.

- I saw, you know, a kid out on the street, you know, he had to be like 11 years old, shoot an adult, you know?

And those are just things that you never forget.

- That was Operation Sharp Edge, and then another deployment to Iraq.

How did you get diagnosed with PTSD?

What happened to you?

- Well, I didn't know until later.

I ended up going to an alcoholic and drug rehabilitation treatment.

- So you were self-medicating?

- Yeah, I self-medicated, you know, and- - Because why?

- To try to suppress the feelings that I had of the things that I've seen, you know, and just the relationships.

- How did this program make a difference for you?

- I'm here today because of the program.

- Really?

- Yeah, because I was in the hospital five times for suicide, you know, wanting to commit suicide.

- How did this program change things for you?

- There was a purpose here and being with all veterans and seeing that they had similar situations or similar problems.

You're a good boy.

Go.

- Now Warren volunteers here.

Not just to care for the horses, but also to be there for new veterans entering the program.

Some 100 service people have come through these gates.

Also spending time here are families of veterans, people like Sarah Stepalavich.

What was life like as a military wife?

- It can be lonely sometimes.

- [Pamela] She was a mom with one little boy when her husband put out to sea with the Coast Guard.

- Then we had our youngest with special needs, he has Down Syndrome.

And shortly after that, he transferred up to Boston and was on a cutter.

And so he'd be gone for a couple months at a time.

- How has being here at the V.E.T.S program helped you and your family?

- It's totally, totally changed our lives.

I mean, I like to say that outta something really dark came something really beautiful.

I was at a moment of total crisis.

My oldest is here all the time.

He loves coming out here.

My youngest absolutely loves it here.

My husband has benefited from this program.

I mean, this is my second home.

This is my second family.

I found my voice here.

I've learned how to stand up for myself.

I mean, I found my tribe.

- [Pamela] Stepalavich has also found her calling.

- I am trying to get certified in equine body work and getting, hopefully my equine specialist and mental health and learning.

- [Pamela] Warren now believes he has better communication with family and friends.

- At first you were really stressed out and, you know, and, but slowly all that stuff, it breaks down.

And, you know, I don't know, the horse starts to like bring you down and break you down, you know, it opens your heart.

He's a good boy.

Ah.

You're a good boy, aren't you?

- [Pamela] Warren loves to tell the story about working in the paddock when this horse named Gump showed his appreciation, - He came up to me and he put his head right on my shoulder.

You know, I was just cleaning out there.

He put his head right on my shoulder and it just like lowers everything down.

You know, it almost like can bring you to tears - [Pamela] Because in this space and at this pace, soldiers who have returned home from war find peace.

- When I'm here, I'm not there, you know what I mean?

When I'm here with the horses, I'm in a different place, a tranquil place.

It took a lot of time to get to where I'm at now, but, you know, it's a lifesaver.

You're a good boy.

- One disclosure note, our Rhode Island PBS colleague Calvin Hill is a veteran participating in the program.

And finally, tonight we leave you with a close look at Rhode Island's favorite clam, the quahog.

As part of our continuing My Take series, we travel to Warwick's Oakland Beach to meet a man who knows a thing or two about the mollusk.

He's been digging up these shellfish for more than 30 years.

- This is a 12-month a year job.

I do this on average between 275 and 300 days per year.

I love my job and every day is a challenge and I love a challenge.

My name is Jody King and this is my take on quahogging.

(gentle curious music) A quahog is a hard shell clam, it's a mollusk.

In Rhode Island, we call them quahogs, anywhere else in the country, they call them hard shell clams.

We are unique.

It's derived from an Indian name from the Indigenous people of Rhode Island, the Narragansetts.

They're one of the few animals on earth that never stop growing.

I've actually had them as big as my hand where you couldn't see my fingers.

So I brought it to DEM, they drilled a hole in it and determined that it was almost 150 years old.

You can eat a 12-year-old quahog as well as you can eat 150-year-old quahog.

One's just bigger and one is smaller.

I got into quahogging as a child, and if you had asked me when I was a child if this would be my profession, I would've probably laughed.

But I watched a friend when I was 30 years old catch a few clams and make a couple hundred dollars in an hour and a half, two hours.

I said, "This is it for me.

I've found my job."

My day generally starts about four o'clock before the birds are even up.

I'm up and out of bed for breakfast, feed the dogs, walk down the street to my boat, hop on the boat and go to work.

So yeah, this is when I go out early.

For the most part, when I get out there, I know where I want to go.

When I get there, I figure out the depth of the water.

I set up my pipes and my rake, my handle.

Depending on the depth, I throw them in and start pouring through the water blindly.

(engine chugging) Everything for me depends on God and mother nature to give me conditions to move and the ability to do so.

(water sloshing) And this will have bigger stuff in it 'cause I went out of area.

Every day is different.

No two days are the same.

I don't catch the same amount of clams two days in a row because conditions change day by day.

So I try any, I try for five, I hope for 1,000.

If I get it, I'm happy.

If I don't, I go out again tomorrow and start all over.

You can make chowder, you can make stuffies, you can make casinos, you can make clams and pasta.

There's a myriad of things that you can make with clams.

Every one of them is good.

I haven't had a clam meal that I didn't love.

After 30 years, you think I'd be sick of them.

I still love clams as much today as I did the first time I caught 'em.

My name is Jody King and this has been my take on quahogging in Rhode Island.

(bright curious music) - That's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and X and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly.

Or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(light gentle music) (light gentle music continues) (light gentle music continues) (light gentle music continues)

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmipoaeUmnqqv8uapZ1loJfAbsPEnqKlsV1mfnZ%2Bj2tqZqOpm8axwo4%3D

 Share!