'You just can't forget it'
Paper: Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
Title: 'You just can't forget it'
Author: STEVEN ANDREWS
Date: January 30, 2005
Section: Local/Regional News, Page A10
As light snow fell on the frozen ground and bleak rows of abandoned barracks, a spectral cloak enveloped Thursday's ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the most notorious of the Nazis' World War II extermination centers.
In the eerie quiet of southern Poland, where the tears and screams of 1.5 million people once reverberated before they died, world leaders and a few camp survivors gathered to mourn the terror's toll and vow never to let the world forget how it happened.
In southwestern Connecticut, the solemn commemoration prompted powerful memories among Auschwitz survivors. They joined in saying that their stories must stand as a warning against the brutal policies that launched the Nazis' genocide.
"It's really been a long time and it's still with me, you just can't forget it," said Elizabeth Deutsch of Fairfield, who was 15 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz in 1944.
Before Soviet soldiers liberated the camp, Deutsch and her family were among millions of Jews sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz. Most arrived by crowded rail cars. There, at the site where last week's ceremony took place, the prisoners were met by doctors who chose a few to work as slave labor while the rest were sent to gas chambers. Others died of starvation, exhaustion, beatings and disease.
The majority of those who died at the camp were European Jews, but the slaughter also included Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political opponents of the Nazis.
As the liberation ceremony ended with a recording of a locomotive whistle blaring from loudspeakers, a half-mile of train tracks leading from the front gate to the crematoria was set ablaze, two flaming straight lines through snow, toward death.
The scene would appear hauntingly familiar to Deutsch.
"As we rode the train to the camp, we could smell smoke and the burning of flesh," she said. "My father could see the flames from the crematorium and told me, 'We have come to hell.' "
Deutsch, 77, tells her story because she does not want people to ever forget what happened.
"I've been talking to children in school and they've been really flabbergasted by what had been done," she said. "They were shocked by the tattoo on my arm"-- the prisoner number indelibly stamped into her flesh by the Nazis.
Abe Baron, 80, also has a tattoo on his left arm marking him as Auschwitz prisoner No. 127326.
Baron, a Polish native who now lives in Fairfield, was 15 when he was taken from his home and spent almost the entire war in prison camps. He worked as hard as possible to survive, and vowed that one day he would let others know about the crimes being committed.
"Every year I speak to about a dozen groups," he said. "I've told my story to thousands of people at colleges, churches and synagogues."
For survivors, telling their firsthand accounts of the Nazis' persecution personalizes the tragedy and brings the cruelty to life.
Anita Schorr of Westport was 14 when she was imprisoned at Auschwitz.
"It's amazing how the kids are really interested. They say I make the history come alive, because otherwise it's just a page in the history book," said Schorr, 74.
Rabbi Israel Stein of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Bridgeport believes that remembrance of the Auschwitz horrors is essential.
"What makes the Holocaust especially painful is that it gave precedent to an event that now dares to be repeated," he said.
"Humankind was guilty of indifference then, and is guilty again when it fails to respond to the genocide in Rwanda and Sudan."
The Auschwitz survivors are acutely aware of this point.
"I always give a mission to those I speak to, that they never forget this story and I beg them to avoid discrimination of any kind," Schorr said.
Dr. Gavriel Rosenfeld, an associate history professor at Fairfield University who specializes in the study of the Holocaust and modern Germany, agrees that continued education is imperative in preventing future tragedies.
"It is certainly important to recall the crimes that were perpetrated at Auschwitz," Rosenfeld said. "It is important for its own sake, but more important because of the innate human tendency to forget over time.
"In a world where Prince Harry can attend a party dressed in a Nazi uniform and not think twice about it, it is clear that no matter how much we think we've heard and learned about the Holocaust there are always some who haven't."
Rosenfeld's point is given credence by a recent BBC poll that found that 45 percent of adults in Britain had never heard of Auschwitz; among people under 35, the number rose to 60 percent.
Despite the atrocities they witnessed and the hardships they endured, the Auschwitz survivors see their lives after the camp's liberation as a gift.
"For children survivors, it took almost as much courage to rebuild our lives as to survive, and that is what is barely mentioned," Schorr said.
Baron met his wife, Sari, who also spent time in Auschwitz, a few weeks after liberation while working with American soldiers.
"At first I felt completely left alone and wondered why I fought all those years," Baron said.
Looking at his family, which now includes two children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he describes his life since he moved to America in 1949 as "miraculous."
Baron would not trade those horrific experiences for another life, because he is so proud of what he has done.
"I would never get my tattoo removed," Baron said. "It's like a Purple Heart, because the man who put it on me is dead, but I'm still here to tell my story."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Author: STEVEN ANDREWS
Section: Local/Regional News
(c) 2005 The Connecticut Post. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
Title: 'You just can't forget it'
Author: STEVEN ANDREWS
Date: January 30, 2005
Section: Local/Regional News, Page A10
As light snow fell on the frozen ground and bleak rows of abandoned barracks, a spectral cloak enveloped Thursday's ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the most notorious of the Nazis' World War II extermination centers.
In the eerie quiet of southern Poland, where the tears and screams of 1.5 million people once reverberated before they died, world leaders and a few camp survivors gathered to mourn the terror's toll and vow never to let the world forget how it happened.
In southwestern Connecticut, the solemn commemoration prompted powerful memories among Auschwitz survivors. They joined in saying that their stories must stand as a warning against the brutal policies that launched the Nazis' genocide.
"It's really been a long time and it's still with me, you just can't forget it," said Elizabeth Deutsch of Fairfield, who was 15 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz in 1944.
Before Soviet soldiers liberated the camp, Deutsch and her family were among millions of Jews sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz. Most arrived by crowded rail cars. There, at the site where last week's ceremony took place, the prisoners were met by doctors who chose a few to work as slave labor while the rest were sent to gas chambers. Others died of starvation, exhaustion, beatings and disease.
The majority of those who died at the camp were European Jews, but the slaughter also included Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political opponents of the Nazis.
As the liberation ceremony ended with a recording of a locomotive whistle blaring from loudspeakers, a half-mile of train tracks leading from the front gate to the crematoria was set ablaze, two flaming straight lines through snow, toward death.
The scene would appear hauntingly familiar to Deutsch.
"As we rode the train to the camp, we could smell smoke and the burning of flesh," she said. "My father could see the flames from the crematorium and told me, 'We have come to hell.' "
Deutsch, 77, tells her story because she does not want people to ever forget what happened.
"I've been talking to children in school and they've been really flabbergasted by what had been done," she said. "They were shocked by the tattoo on my arm"-- the prisoner number indelibly stamped into her flesh by the Nazis.
Abe Baron, 80, also has a tattoo on his left arm marking him as Auschwitz prisoner No. 127326.
Baron, a Polish native who now lives in Fairfield, was 15 when he was taken from his home and spent almost the entire war in prison camps. He worked as hard as possible to survive, and vowed that one day he would let others know about the crimes being committed.
"Every year I speak to about a dozen groups," he said. "I've told my story to thousands of people at colleges, churches and synagogues."
For survivors, telling their firsthand accounts of the Nazis' persecution personalizes the tragedy and brings the cruelty to life.
Anita Schorr of Westport was 14 when she was imprisoned at Auschwitz.
"It's amazing how the kids are really interested. They say I make the history come alive, because otherwise it's just a page in the history book," said Schorr, 74.
Rabbi Israel Stein of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Bridgeport believes that remembrance of the Auschwitz horrors is essential.
"What makes the Holocaust especially painful is that it gave precedent to an event that now dares to be repeated," he said.
"Humankind was guilty of indifference then, and is guilty again when it fails to respond to the genocide in Rwanda and Sudan."
The Auschwitz survivors are acutely aware of this point.
"I always give a mission to those I speak to, that they never forget this story and I beg them to avoid discrimination of any kind," Schorr said.
Dr. Gavriel Rosenfeld, an associate history professor at Fairfield University who specializes in the study of the Holocaust and modern Germany, agrees that continued education is imperative in preventing future tragedies.
"It is certainly important to recall the crimes that were perpetrated at Auschwitz," Rosenfeld said. "It is important for its own sake, but more important because of the innate human tendency to forget over time.
"In a world where Prince Harry can attend a party dressed in a Nazi uniform and not think twice about it, it is clear that no matter how much we think we've heard and learned about the Holocaust there are always some who haven't."
Rosenfeld's point is given credence by a recent BBC poll that found that 45 percent of adults in Britain had never heard of Auschwitz; among people under 35, the number rose to 60 percent.
Despite the atrocities they witnessed and the hardships they endured, the Auschwitz survivors see their lives after the camp's liberation as a gift.
"For children survivors, it took almost as much courage to rebuild our lives as to survive, and that is what is barely mentioned," Schorr said.
Baron met his wife, Sari, who also spent time in Auschwitz, a few weeks after liberation while working with American soldiers.
"At first I felt completely left alone and wondered why I fought all those years," Baron said.
Looking at his family, which now includes two children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he describes his life since he moved to America in 1949 as "miraculous."
Baron would not trade those horrific experiences for another life, because he is so proud of what he has done.
"I would never get my tattoo removed," Baron said. "It's like a Purple Heart, because the man who put it on me is dead, but I'm still here to tell my story."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Author: STEVEN ANDREWS
Section: Local/Regional News
(c) 2005 The Connecticut Post. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
posted by Steven Andrews at
8:26 PM
1 Comments:
Great read, Steven Andrews is a rising star.
By
ParkerMurphyCantLose, at 10:59 AM
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