VISITING AUSCHWITZ
BY DR. NURIT ISRAELI
Photos courtesy
of Dr. Nurit Israeli
“For the dead and the living,
we must bear witness.”
T—Elie Weisel he approaching date of
Holocaust Remembrance
Day (Yom Hashoah), which
begins this year at sundown on April
11, evokes powerful memories of my
visit to Auschwitz, the largest and
most notorious Nazi death camp
and the setting for the most massive
murder campaign in history. The
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camp was established by the Nazi
regime in 1940 in the suburbs of
Oswiecim, a Polish city annexed to
the Third Reich by the Nazis. It is
estimated that around 1.1 million
men, women and children died in
Auschwitz, approximately one million
of them Jewish, before Soviet
troops liberated the camp in 1945.
My paternal grandfather, Chaim
Breslauer, was murdered in
Auschwitz on October 5 of 1942,
exactly one week before I was born.
Only recently did my daughter
recover the documents detailing
his death. Three of his children
and their families perished in concentration
camps. My father was
my grandparents’ only surviving
offspring. I am my father’s only
daughter. The profound losses as
well as the resilience of the survivors
have created a legacy which is
inextricably woven into my story.
During a powerfully evocative
trip to Poland (where both my
parents were born) I, along with
my husband and children, traveled
to Auschwitz. Despite the passage
of time, Auschwitz today looks
frightfully similar to the way it
was then. We entered through the
gate with the famed “Arbeit macht
frei” (work sets you free) sign, as
did thousands upon thousands of
prisoners then. We walked the same
paths, entered barrack after barrack
where inmates were forced to live in
unutterable conditions, touched the
barbed wire and walked the railway
tracks used to forcibly transport victims.
We breathed in the suffering,
reliving the horrors of the “Final
Solution.”
By the Auschwitz crematorium,
we held a small memorial service
to honor all who perished there at
the hands of the Nazis. They don’t
Document confirming
my grandfather’s death
(“Fate—murdered”)
have graves, so we chose the site of
their death to memorialize them.
We lit memorial candles, recited the
mourners’ kadish and read paragraphs
from Elie Weisel’s “Night.”
I will never forget Auschwitz. I
will never forget that people are
capable of unspeakable horrors,
but also of great benevolence; that
perceiving or treating any groups
of people as inferior is dangerous;
that Holocausts begin with words;
that we cannot remain silent in the
face of injustice, intolerance, and
cruelty.
When I came back, I wrote the
following poem:
A VISIT TO AUSCHWITZ
Because I was born
to bear witness,
I went to Auschwitz
to see for myself.
Because I was born
to survive,
I won’t stop trying—
stretching as far as I can.
Because I was born
to look after,
I weave safety nets
to catch the falling.
Because I was born
to carry on,
I cherish the chain—
in awe of every link.
Because I was looking
for answers,
I went to Auschwitz,
and there—
where only the questions
live on—I spotted flowers
amid the remains
of a gas chamber.
There, amid endings,
blue flowers of hope
or perhaps my own voice
whispered: Never Again.
The barbed wire remains
Holding a memorial service Flowers growing in Auschwitz in spite of…
12 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ April 2018