Dopazo was only 7 years old when her parents were arrested by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.
They were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, as part of their faith, could only pledge allegiance to God, not a government or a politician. Saying “Heil Hitler” was out of the question. For their beliefs and their resistance to the Nazi Party’s fascistic rule of law and obedience, Dopazo’s parents were arrested by German authorities. Her mother was imprisoned and eventually released before World War II ended. Her father was executed at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Dopazo, who now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, shared her story of growing up an outsider in Nazi Germany Wednesday on Northeastern’s Boston campus as part of the university’s annual Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week.
