Page 84 - Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations

The single most significant aspect of these pilgrimages is the role of the survivors, who share their painful Holocaust experiences with the students in the very places their stories unfolded. Over the years, thousands of stories have been transmitted by survivors to students in Europe – standing near the dome of ashes in Majdanek, or in barracks, or the ramp in Auschwitz, or in a synagogue in Kraków, or near the wall of names in Belzec, or the silent stone markers in Treblinka. Each story is more heartbreaking than the last, each a story of life and love interrupted, of irreparable loss.
Who can forget Pinchas Gutter telling of the last time he saw his twin sister in Majdanek? All he can remember is the long, golden-blonde braid swinging behind her back as she was herded with their mother to her end. He cannot, try as he might, recall her face.
And how could anyone forget Judy Weissenberg Cohen telling of the last time she saw her mother, during the selection on the train tracks in Birkenau, and how, to this day, she still wishes she had given her mother one last hug and kiss good-bye.
Which student could ever forget Anita Ekstein, whose life was saved by righteous Poles, visiting Belzec on, of all days, Mother’s Day and finding her mother’s name on the memorial wall in the Belzec death camp. Or the recounting of her father’s last words to her, his eight-year-old daughter: “Always remember who you are.”
And yet, in the survivors’ act of telling, of transmitting their memories to a new generation, a new seed of hope is planted. In the act of embarking on these trips, the young people are, in effect, pledging this: “Your struggles will be remembered and your loved ones will not be forgotten. We, a new generation of young people, commit to creating a better world for all humanity, a world far different than the one that sought to destroy your generation.”
The Holocaust literally shattered our world. We who were born in the post-Holocaust era have inherited a broken world. For many, the Holocaust still challenges their faith in God, their faith in humanity, or in both.
But as we study this broken world of ours, and then look at the earnest faces of our young people, who so much want to understand, to make a difference, to not repeat the mistakes of the past, we are reminded of what a Jewish mystic taught us some two centuries ago: If you believe it can be broken, then know it can also be fixed.
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