TEXARKANA, Texas -- Local pastor Richard Hornock knows very well why his mother-in-law, Holocaust survivor Alexandra Goode, clung nearly all her life to the words at Genesis 50:19-21.
"Don't be afraid," the Bible character Joseph says in the verse. "Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done."
Goode, 93, died March 6. She left a legacy of speaking on her experience surviving once of the cruelest events in world history.
"I would say that through all the suffering and trauma she had to endure, Alexandra allowed the experience to enrich her with motivation to show love and compassion to all people, especially children, since she was a child herself at that time," said Hornock, senior pastor at Fellowship Bible Church.
Born Sept. 13, 1929, in a Russian section of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Goode lost her mom, dad and both brothers during the swift 1941 Nazi takeover of the country in the early stages of World War II.
By late 1942, Goode's boarding school closed, leaving the 13-year-old and other girls bound for an orphanage.
Later, German soldiers forced the girls out of the orphanage and removed them from their caretaker, according to a 2020 report on Goode's life. The girls and other children eventually were loaded into cattle train cars bound for Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
At Dachau, Nazi soldiers forced Goode to surrender all her clothes and other belongings in exchange for a striped prison uniform. Her head was shaved and she was forced to live in barracks with beds that resembled wooden shelves, the article states.
Goode spent about four months in Dachau and easily more than twice that long in a labor camp near Rugen, off Germany's northeast coast, Hornock said.
However, within the first few months of 1945, with Germany's defeat inevitable, Goode managed to ease herself out of the almost deserted labor camp with nearly a dozen other girls. They boarded a train but eventually dismounted after being informed by a fleeing German soldier that the rail cars were set to explode as a result of the war coming to an end.
By 1948, Goode, now 18, made her way to the United States aboard a passenger boat.
Upon arriving in New Jersey, she pursued becoming a nun to take care of children but soon married George. The couple moved to New York and eventually Memphis.
In their retirement, the couple opened an orphan adoption agency that ultimately placed nearly 250 Russian orphans into U.S. homes, mainly in the Dallas area, Hornock said.
The Goodes also owned a travel agency, and George also worked for Texas Instruments in Dallas.
Goode continued her adoption work, while her husband took care of the paper work.
The couple found out that by just being available, they could continue to find homes for Russian orphans brought to the U.S., including those with disabilities and other special needs.
Apart from her care for children, Hornock said his mother-in-law spent more than 30 years traveling the country for hundreds of speaking engagements to share her story.
"She went on to speak at churches, civic organizations and Holocaust remembrance events," Hornock said. "I would say that having come through all the suffering and trauma, she let it enrich her motivation to show love and compassion for people everywhere."