Remembering the Holocaust

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Bobby Cummings
  • 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs
BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Team Beale hosted a Holocaust remembrance luncheon themed "Never Again: Heeding the Warning Signs" at the Recce Point Club on April 25.

Air Force Lt. Col. (Ret) Michael Prusak, was the guest speaker for the Days of Remembrance event.

The former pilot was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1952 with his parents who met at the camp.

Prusak spoke of the horrific travesties his parents endured during World War II.

"My dad spent most of the war in slave labor camps," Prusak said. "Most of my father's family died during the Holocaust and were buried in mass graves."

His mother however, experienced different hardships.

"My mother actually avoided concentration camps as she escaped through the woods and joined a Jewish partisan group, which resisted the Germans," Prusak said. "She carried a machine gun for two years during World War II, capturing Germans and blowing up railroad tracks."

Prusak served in the Air Force for 25 years until retiring in 1998. He flew a multitude of aircraft, logging thousands of hours of flight time.

"I thought our guest speaker's story was very intriguing," said 2nd Lt. Dalin Chhen, Detachment 11 personnel officer. "When you take into account where he came from and all that he has achieved, it's truly inspiring."

Guest speakers like Prusak are invited every year to the annual Holocaust luncheon at Beale.

"I believe that it is important to remember the Holocaust, to mourn those that have passed, and to highlight a tragedy that should never occur again," Chhen said. "History has a tendency to repeat itself unless we learn from our mistakes."