Day: November 2, 2015

Another Brandywine THON Record Broken

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By: Paul Alberici, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, paa5102@psu.edu, updated by Lion’s Eye Web Staff

Each year Penn State students join together in defiance of pediatric cancer through THON, and Brandywine’s own THON organization continues to break its own personal records.

During the first canister solicitation where students collect donations on various street corners, Brandywine’s THON organization raised $12,331.07. This breaks the single weekend record for the group by $200, which was a new record set last year. The two canning captains of the group, who plan locations were very pleased.

“I was very impressed,” Canning Captain Kevin Cardella said, who was part of the previous record breaking weekends was. “Our members are brilliant and work so hard. This reflects on our organization and the generosity of the community.”

“The success came from everyone,” Canning Captain Nick Raffaele said. “It was a team effort from everybody. We all contributed to make this work.”

This success has been heavily attributed to the amount of new members in the organization. There are many new freshman and sophomores in THON now. All the different members bring their own unique reasons for joining.

“I joined THON at Penn State Brandywine because of the great experiences that I had with my high school’s mini-THON,” Freshman Dave McDermott said. He is an alum of Springfield High School, which hosts the largest Mini-THON in Pennsylvania. “After meeting some of the people who actually do THON here at Brandywine, I realized that I wouldn’t be forced into anything, and that they were like the people from Springfield: devoted, excited, fun, kind, and understanding.  So I joined Brandywine’s THON, and I’ve met some of my favorite people on campus.”

Other members had family influences with their decision, like freshman Cody Stewart.

“I joined THON because my sister told me it was great,” Stewart said. “That piece of advice made me want to check it out.”

Some members wanted to use THON as a chance to make friends and an impact at the same time.

“I joined THON because I was always an introvert,” freshman Hannah Chu said. “I wanted a change of pace. I wanted to make a positive impact while making unforgettable friends.”

Between these new members and the dedicated captains, Brandywine has had a consistent team this year.

“It comes down to team building,” Brandywine THON President Liz Gramlich said. “We have been doing more things to increase involvement with new members so they have the chance to make as much of an impact as the captains of our group. We are also consistently reinforcing why we do this to the members.”

With the first big success of the year under their belt, Brandywine THON members, new and old, have high expectations.

“I’m looking forward to getting to know more people here at Brandywine, canning some more, and just enjoying my first year of college,” McDermott said. “I’m sure that there is plenty to look forward to that I don’t even know about yet.”

The one thing that everyone seems to be looking forward to above everything else is the annual 46-hour Dance Marathon. This event ends the fundraising year and the total amount raised throughout that year. THON 2016 will be held February 19 -21 at the Bryce Jordan Center.

This early success is only the beginning for this group. Multiple events and another canning weekend separate them from the dance marathon at the end of the year. Since this is just the beginning, the only place for the total to go is up.

Holocaust Survivor Enlightens Brandywine with Story

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By: Kevin Dallatore, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, kzd5241@psu.edu, updated by Lion’s Eye Web Staff

 

Holocaust survivor Esther Bauer came to Brandywine in October during common hour to talk about her experiences during the Holocaust.

Through her amazing recollection, those in attendance were able to picture the events of her life and get a closer look at what happened during this tragic time in world history. It was a moving speech that had everyone interested in learning as much as they could—at times, aghast and others, angry.

Bauer, who was born into a middle-income family in 1924, lived in Hamburg, Germany. When she was 9 years old, Hitler came to power. She recalls that, at that time, people were not sophisticated and, to shield her from the truth of Hitler’s reign, her parents did not tell her the truth of Hitler’s plans. After Hitler began to control Germany, her father, a Jewish teacher, was no longer allowed to teach the Jewish children who attended public schools. This trend continued as her mother, a doctor, could not go to work anymore, and Jewish people were not allowed to walk in the parks.

When the Nazis burned the synagogues in 1938, Bauer and her family were forced to wear the yellow stars on all of their clothing. “I can remember a man who got up from his seat on the subway and said to me, ‘please sit down.’ I knew that not all Germans were bad people,” Bauer said.

Another one of the rules enacted was that she and her family had to move from the home in which they lived in Hamburg to a Jewish apartment where there was no hot water and no heat–until they received a notice they were to move to Theresienstadt, a Jewish ghetto camp which is located in the present Czech Republic.

Upon arrival to Theresienstadt, they were forced to leave their suitcases on the floor and walk to the top floor of the building. While walking up to the top floor, she caught a glimpse of a young man, who would later introduce himself as Hanza, standing in the kitchen. Once she got up to the top floor where they were forced to sleep, they slept with nothing to comfort them. Their suitcases never made it to their rooms either.

Six weeks after her arrival at Theresienstadt, her father came down with meningitis and died. Later in her stay, Bauer also suffered health issues as she came down with pneumonia so severe that Hanza, who could not speak German but brought translators with him to speak with Bauer, found a doctor for her. Hanza was also able to get Bauer a job in the offices at the camp so she didn’t have to work in the fields. While working in the offices, one of her co-workers was able to teach her Czech so she could finally communicate with Hanza. Apparently the communication helped because they secretly married when they discovered he was going to be transferred to a different Nazi camp.

One of the main characteristics of Theresienstadt was that it was a temporary holding camp, and those in the camp would not be there for a long time. This was true for Bauer who was told she could be reunited with Hanza since she was his wife. Bauer made the hard decision to leave her mother behind to move to the camp in which Hanza was supposedly located. It was on the train that Bauer realized she was not going to be reunited with Hanza; she was actually going to Auschwitz.

As she recalls, Auschwitz was a dreadful place. Upon arrival she was told by the Nazi officers to throw all the food she was carrying over the fence because the Nazis would not allow them to carry it in. The lady who was standing next to her decided she was going to do as she was told and was immediately shot and killed.

As Bauer got as settled in as she could at Auschwitz, she received the new job of making metal rivets for German airplanes. She would work on these pieces for 12 hours a day with no breaks during her shifts.

In one of her many feisty moments during the speech, Bauer mentioned that she tried to make some of the pieces as short as possible as an act of sabotage so that none of the pieces she made for the planes would fit.

During the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, Bauer was finally freed from Nazi rule and soon moved to the American occupied city of Lintz. While in Lintz, she was able to reach out to a family member who had moved to Illinois. They gave her an affidavit to come to the United States, and she arrived in New York in the June 1945.

As she finished her story, she opened it up for questions. The audience learned that Bauer does not feel guilty that she was able to be liberated while 6 million others were killed. Rather, she is happy that she was given the chance to live her life, marry, and after her husband’s death nearly 50 years later, meet her “boy-toy” Bill and tell everyone about her story.

“I couldn’t talk about my experience for the first 20 years. For the next 20 years, no one seemed to care, and now for these past 20 years, it seems like everyone wants to hear my story, which I am happy to tell,” Bauer said. “I would like for those who have heard my story to learn that everyone should look to see that the events that took place in my youth never happen again.”