Page 26 - Jewish News_May-June-2020

26 May/June 2020 JEWISH INTEREST

Words cannot describe it: My three days Words cannot describe it...continued from previous page

at Auschwitz-Birkenau (March 2-4, 2020)

By Joan Lowery, M.Ed.
Editor’s note: In early March local pened at Auschwitz-Birkenau between is way beyond words, beyond what one had a family member or friend to live
Sarasota residents Dr. Fred Bloom and 1939 and 1945. The cold weather and would think would be humanly pos- for, they found the purpose to survive.
Joan Lowery traveled to Poland to par- rain were a perfect backdrop to get- sible to conjure up, let alone manifest. Dr. Fred Bloom asked us to ask
ticipate in an in-depth tour of the Aus- ting a mere taste of the conditions that How could they devise such a wicked ourselves, “What would I have done
chwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps. millions of Jews and other prisoners plot? Yet, tragically so many everyday under the circumstances? What if I
It was sponsored by the CANDLES experienced on a daily basis at this people supported it and carried out was a Pole or a German or a Jew? How
(Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly God-forsaken concentration camp. the Nazi’s diabolical mission. These would I have acted?”
Lab Experiments Survivors) Holocaust I found myself vacillating between ‘ordinary people’ failed to be upstand- Our group’s reflection times in the
Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana. deep sadness and unbridled rage. How ers. Instead, they stood by as the Ger- evenings were very powerful. There
The purpose of the tour was to pre- could these twisted, beyond the imagi- man machine surgically exterminated were several young people in our
view and provide reflections on an au- nation, monstrous acts be committed Jewish lives across the European con- group who knew little to nothing about
dio tour created from interviews with by people the guides emphasized were tinent. the Holocaust. They were horrified by
recently deceased Holocaust survivor ‘just ordinary people’? How could We learned how the Poles and what they saw and what they learned.
and forgiveness advocate Eva Mozes anyone hate so much that they want to others were also pulverized by the We talked about how to answer the
Kor. Through these audios, Eva’s work obliterate a whole ‘race’ of people be- Germans. Many rebelled and fought question so many people asked them
will continue and many people can cause they happen to practice a religion back. Many tried to help the Jews at before they came: “Why are you going
visit the camps and learn from her different than their own? How could great risk to themselves and their fami- to visit concentration camps?” One an-
transformative journey. so-called ‘ordinary people’ get swept lies. There were numerous upstanders swer I found so compelling: A young,
Eva was one of the twins on whom up in participating in crimes against among the non-Jews who knew what Christian man said, “To bear witness
Auschwitz ‘physician’ Josef Mengele humanity that were so evil, so dark, so was going on. The stories of their brav- and in so doing to protect the future.”
performed barbarous medical experi- systematically inhumane? What could ery and compassion are uplifting and He said, “To ask questions and face the
ments when she and her identical twin they possibly tell themselves in order give me hope. scorching reality of what man can do
sister Miriam were only 10 years old. to forgive their heinous crimes? Yet, what wasn’t talked about by to man; to refuse to be a bystander; to
They lost the rest of their family in the These questions ran through my our guides were the many more non- commit to being an upstander so that
Holocaust. After years of bitterness and mind over and over again as I tra- Jews in Poland, Hungary and other this can never happen again.”
anger, Eva went on to find the ability to versed the desolate grounds where so Axis nations who seemed to rejoice Someone else said she was sur-
forgive her tormentors so that she could many perished. It felt like the earth is in the Gestapo’s plan to eviscerate the prised that the Sonderkommandos ul-
find her personal sense of freedom and still mourning the deaths of so many Jewish people from the earth. There is timately fought back when so many
happiness. She spent the rest of her life dear souls who were gassed and then clear evidence that many supported this others didn’t. Sonderkommandos were
helping others to learn the lessons of cooked in the five crematoriums on this death dance that the Nazis were lead- Jewish prisoners who were responsible
forgiveness. These are Joan Lowery’s campus from hell. ing. They cheered as Jews were hauled for disposing the bodies of those who
reflections on her experience. Our guide told us that 100,000 peo- away to ghettos and camps. They stole had been gassed. My blood curdled
ow does one speak about the ple at a time were prisoners at Birke- their property. at her statement as it could be inter-
unspeakable? When one jour- nau. It was the size of a small city…a And after the war, as skin-and- preted as unintentionally anti-Semitic.
Hneys into hell to get a glimpse city the same size as Terre Haute, Indi- bones survivors returned to their homes Many people have accused the Jews of
of the worst acts man is capable of ana, where many of our group resides. in Poland, the residents refused to give “going like lambs to slaughter.” Leah
committing and has committed, what We ruminated on placing the entire them back their homes. Far worse yet, Simpson wisely responded that the
is to be said? city of Terre Haute in this place. And they murdered them in post-war po- Jews did fight back in so many ways:
Leah Simpson, Executive Director in this hell, each and every one of the groms. So, after losing everything and through the arts; through maintain-
of CANDLES Holocaust Museum and 1.5 million prisoners who were impris- going ‘home,’ the Jews’ fellow coun- ing the Sabbath; through not giving
a Holocaust/Genocide scholar, said, oned there at one time or another ex- trymen carried out executions that the up; through taking care of each other;
“There are no words to capture the perienced their own personal ongoing Germans failed to do. through schooling the children; and
deeds of the Holocaust.” She is correct. nightmare. Recently, the Polish government through battle.
Our group spent three days wit- The industrialization of torture and put into law a decree that no one can I asked myself, why aren’t we
nessing and learning about what hap- killing that the German psyche created accuse the Poles of conducting anti- educating others about the Warsaw
Semitic acts during and after the Ho- uprising, the Sobibor uprising, and the
locaust. The Poles, according to their Bielski Brothers’ partisan resistance
Helping you live the life law, were pure victims of the Holo- activities that helped many Jews flee
caust. In fact, it is a civil offense to
persecution? There are so many exam-
you want, the way you want. mention the truth… that many, not all ples of uprisings. Yet too many times
by any means, but many Poles aided
Jews have been blamed for not fighting
the efforts of the Germans to wipe out back. In so doing we are further victim-
all the Jews. With this new law the Pol- ized by Jews and non-Jews alike.
ish government is attempting to rewrite Is it any wonder that I didn’t sleep
history. They are revising what actu- well in Poland? Is it any wonder that as
ally happened. In doing so, they don’t I returned each day to the hell where it
have to confront their own part in this is likely that my ancestors died that I
travesty. was not in my normal state? For I was
Without making it law, the Hun- getting a taste of the desolation and de-
garian government is doing much the pravity and sense of victimization, loss
same with its denial of Hungary’s and shock that the prisoners must have
role in the decimation of the Jewish felt as they were exposed to the worst,
community in 1944 and its praise for twisted cruelties that humanity ever
WWII anti-Semitic leader and Nazi dreamed up.
ally Admiral Horthy. He passed brutal I have always felt deeply wounded
anti-Semitic laws that forced Jews into by the Holocaust. In my childhood, I
labor camps and cooperated fully with learned about it from neighbors and
the Nazis in their efforts to annihilate friends who had survived the unspeak-
hundreds of thousands of Hungarian able tortures of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• Personal Care Jews. It is well known that Hungarians Who were Bella and Hymie? Who
cheered as the Jews were carted away were Fela and her husband? How did
• Daily Living Assistance to their deaths in the final days of the these simple Polish peasants make it
war. I interviewed a survivor from Bu- through the Auschwitz experience of
dapest several years ago who shared losing their children, their entire fami-
• Light Housekeeping his anguish as his neighbors, those lies and everything they knew of their
he called ‘friends’ and acquaintances, formerly normal lives? How did they
• Skilled Nursing turned on him and his family and cel- go on to create new families, new ca-

ebrated as their Jewish neighbors were reers and live their lives in peace?
• Dementia Specialists taken away to die at Auschwitz-Birke- I know that I was deeply imprint-
nau and other camps. ed by my mother’s caring for Bella. I
• Respite Care and Family Relief How does one go on when the remember her comforting Bella and
blackest scars of humanity are perpe- bearing witness as she suffered tor-
• Inpatient Hospital Sitters trated on innocent people and then this tuous flashbacks from the camps. A
scourge is further perpetrated as oth- psychiatrist friend of mine once said,
• And Much More … ers deny what we all know happened? “Your mother was a healer.” Indeed,
What is there in the human spirit that Mom was a healer. She offered empa-
allows such denial and lies? How can thy and caring like food to Bella and so
one ever come to believe that killing many others.
and torturing others is justified? And then there is Eva Moses Kor,
I kept asking myself the question our first-person guide through the mo-
(as I have done many times before), rass. She was a remarkable, extraordi-
would I have given up? It felt to me nary and incredibly strong woman. She
like I could not have survived the bru- was, after all, the reason why we jour-
tality of the camps. Knowing who I am neyed to Poland in the winter to learn
today, I don’t think I would have want- her lessons. Her work must continue.
ed to live. But, when people like Eva continued on next page

Due to COVID-19, please check with each organization for event updates.