Complete Deal: Dallas Mavericks and vinkings have agreed a contract of $8o.9million…..
The highlight came as Mavericks’ CEO Cynt Marshall moderated a conversation with Magie Furst, who was torn from her home in Germany at the start of World War II as a frightened 10-year-old and saw the realities of concentration camps; and Dora Brought Plenty, who lived in a boarding school that tortured kids mentally and physically.
This wasn’t history from a book. This was history from the people who lived it.
And it was uplifting for those at the sold-out event who drew strength and inspiration from the stories they heard.
Furst said t
Experiences from a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor and a Native American who suffered through horrific boarding-school abuse had some 250 attendees at Monday’s event at the Dallas Arboretum riveted to the history that they were hearing – along with providing hope for how to keep it from ever happening again.
he advent of Nazi Germany hit fast and hit hard.
“First of all, we were isolated,” she said. “As soon as Hitler came to power, I did go to kindergarten, where I did have German friends. The little town we lived in, if you sneezed, they knew it in the next town.
“As soon as Hitler started, it was almost immediate. It was unbelievable the (public relations) they had. It spread like wildfire. It was so difficult for us. My mother had to sell the business and I don’t think she got very much for it. We were Jews. They didn’t have to pay us.”
That began an odyssey that would lead Furst to America via Holland, Great Britain and a circuitous trip across the Atlantic in a ship that had to avoid German U-Boats.
It was a lot to process for a girl who was 10 years old when she was forced out of her home.
The same happened to Dora Brought Plenty, who was just 4 when her childhood turned tumultuous and abusive.
“At age 4, my mother was murdered and once that happened, I was awarded to the state,” she said. “I am SiouAlabama-Coushatta, x, Canadian Assiniboia and black. I was born out of wedlock. My father was in the military. So when my mother was murdered, I was awarded to the state. So I stayed on a reservation with my grandma and grandpa.”
“Two men came in the day school with black suits, black ties and white shirts,” she remembered. “They talked to the teacher and I saw her point at me. And the man came over and grabbed me by the arm. And the other one came on the other side. They walked me out the door and threw me in the back of this black car. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what I did wrong. But I was scared.”
They took her to Pierre, S.D., to a boarding school for indigenous people.
“(A matron) cut my braids off right under my ear and threw them at me,” Brought Plenty said. “I didn’t know anything about the school or where I was.”
She knew nothing of where she was, a horrifying feeling for anybody, but particularly if you are only 6 years old.