Missouri lawmaker marks Holocaust Remembrance Day with personal family testimony

A representative from St. Louis County used a point of personal privilege on Jan. 27 to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and describe his mother's experience as a Holocaust survivor.

The representative said his mother, identified in the speech as Jurita Ilkovich (later Jurita Haruza), was 19 when she and thousands of other students and Jewish people were rounded up in Hungary, forced on a march to Austria and sent to concentration camps. "Four thousand started the march, and 500 made it to the concentration camp," he said, adding that many were killed along the route by Austrian militia.

The lawmaker cited the broader scale of the Nazi killing machine, including the speaker's account that "at Auschwitz, more than 1,000,000 Jews and other, quote, undesirables were murdered," and said two grandparents and three great-grandparents were killed at Auschwitz. He described his mother's liberation on May 4, 1945, by the U.S. 71st Infantry Division and her subsequent recovery and career as a physician.

"She was so hungry that she was not even able to visualize her mother's face," the representative said, describing his mother's first Hershey bar after liberation as a shock that restored memories including her mother's face. The speaker said his mother later emigrated to the United States and built a life for her family.

The representative concluded the remarks by asking for a moment of silence "for the 6,000,000 Jews and other undesirables murdered during the Holocaust," which the chamber observed.

The remarks were delivered during the chamber's points of personal privilege and did not accompany any formal action or vote.