Eli Rubenstein - Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations

PREFACE

As we mark the 75 th anniversary of the liberation of Europe and many thousands of Holocaust survivors from the brutal terror of Nazi Germany, it is worth reflecting on the legacy and message of Holocaust survivors.

Survivors testimonies live on through their own words as a gift and as a warning. By listening to the witnesses, we too bear witness.

Survivors have the final say. Hitler is gone, the Nazis are defeated, and the survivors continue to resist their attempt to wipe out memory, speaking their words of truth and insight. They tell their stories because they do not want us to wait they want action now for a better world.

We are grateful for their courage because their stories are foundational for our descendants to know the full turn of history. We are working together with International March of the Living, and with survivors today, to preserve and tell their stories in new ways. In years to come, people will still be able to attend March of the Living and virtually meet them in the very places they lived and survived.

Patiently, bravely, survivors are traveling to their places of memory, recounting home and hiding, ghettos and concentration camps, all recorded on 360-degree video. They walk and talk, stand and cry, laugh and sing, and enable us to witness history, all while giving a face to hope. They are our guide stars now and into the future.

To all the survivors who have given their testimonies, thank you for sharing your lives with us.

Stephen D. Smith, PhD

Finci-Viterbi Executive Director,

USC Shoah Foundation,

UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education

Left to right: Stephen Smith, Edward Mosberg (First 360 Survivor Video Testimony), USC Shoah Foundation Founder Steven Spielberg, with Torah rescued from the Holocaust.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Witness : passing the torch of Holocaust memory to new generations / compiled by Eli Rubenstein with March of the Living.

Names: Rubenstein, Eli, 1959- compiler. | March of the Living (Organization), compiler.

Description: Second edition.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200206745 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200206753 | ISBN 9781772601497 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781772601503 (softcover) | ISBN 9781772601510 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: March of the Living (Organization) | LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) | LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)Personal narratives. | LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)Pictorial works. | LCSH: Holocaust survivorsTravelPoland. | LCSH: Jewish youthTravelPoland.

Classification: LCC D804.3 .R82 2020 | DDC 940.53/18dc23

Copyright 2015 by Eli Rubenstein with March of the Living

Second edition copyright 2020 by Eli Rubenstein with March of the Living

Edited by Carolyn Jackson

Copyedited by Phuong Truong

Designed by Melissa Kaita

Printed and bound in Canada

The views or opinons expressed in this book and the context in which the images are used, do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

Published by

Second Story Press

20 Maud Street, Suite 401

Toronto, ON M5V 2M5

www.secondstorypress.ca

Cover photo: Holocaust survivor, Edward Mosberg and his granddaughter, Jordana Karger, light a memorial torch in Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 2016 March of the Living.

Table of Contents

What Happened? And to Whom?

Where It Took Place and Who Let It Happen

Who Resisted? And How?

We Who Survived

Survivors and Students: Passing the Torch of Memory

The Commitment of a New Generation of Witnesses

Liberation: A Complex Legacy

Remarks by Steven Spielberg

View Survivor Testimony from the Archives of USC Shoah Foundation and March of the Living when you click any photo with a blue border.

A BLESSING FROM POPE JOHN PAUL II

The first official Vatican commemoration of the Shoah took place in the Vatican on April 7, 1994 under the direction of Polish-born Pope John Paul II. The event was held on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the same day as the March of the Living. Among the young Marchers was Canadian Jennifer Shneer whose father had an audience with the Pope that same day. When I met the Pope, her father recalled, I mentioned that my daughter was in Auschwitz that very day on the March of the Living. The Pope smiled and said: I know all about the March of the Living. God bless your daughter, and God bless the March of the Living.

Pope John Paul II was the first Pope to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel and to ask forgiveness for the churchs treatment of Jews over the last 2,000 years.

Edith Zierer was a starving 13-year-old Polish Jewish girl from Krakw, who fled the Nazi German camp at Czstochowa after its liberation by the Soviet army in January, 1945. Edith reached an old train station and sat there for two days without food or water until a stranger, a young man, arrived bringing her tea and two pieces of bread with cheese. He covered her with his cloak, to protect her from the cold, and then carried her on his back for three kilometers until they found a train to Krakw. There she was taken in by a relative and eventually made her way to Israel. The young man who rescued her was Karol Wojtyla, later known as none other than Pope John Paul II.

Keep an Open Heart: POPE FRANCIS

Camila Gorban Acosta: Francisco, Ive just been on the March of the Living. What can we teenagers do to prevent another genocide?

Pope Francis: Work for peace. Unite with people from different cultures and religions. Keep an open heart. Dont discriminate. Welcome and understand others.

May God bless you.

Camila Gorban Acosta with Pope Francis, Vatican City 16-year-old Camila Gorban Acosta, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, took part in the 2018 March of the Living.

Dear Reader,

When the March of the Living program was founded over three decades ago, little did its founders realize the exceptional impact the program would have in the ensuing years. Since that first journey in 1988, more than 260,000 people presidents and prime ministers, community leaders and religious figures, teachers and chaperones, students and survivors have joined this life-changing experience.

All are to be commended for traveling to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the place that symbolizes the very abyss of humanity, to commit to building a world free of hate, prejudice, and genocide. Indeed, many have returned to their homes to become important agents for positive change within their communities.

But of course, it is the Holocaust survivors the voices of our past and the students the custodians of our future who deserve the most praise.