SPRING 2015 VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1 A Passover message from Speech by American Gathering our President Chairman Roman Kent at By Sam E. Bloch others remember all those Auschwitz Commemoration who perished, lonely, and ach year at the abandoned by a cruel world January 27, 2015 EPassover Seder, we that stood by in silence recite the Haggadah’s and indifference. Seventy resident Komorowski, my fellow most important teaching: years later, our memories PAuschwitz survivors and guests – in each generation we are not extinguished. When I am often asked how long I was in should see ourselves as if the German Nazi murderers Auschwitz… my answer is I do not we were slaves in Egypt. and their accomplices know. What I do know is that a minute This passage serves as Sam E. Bloch destroyed our homes and in Auschwitz was like an entire day, a powerful moment for our communities, and a day was like a year, and a month an us, survivors of the Holocaust and our annihilated, with so much cruelty and eternity. How many eternities can one families, because we continue to bear the barbarism, six million of our martyrs – person have in a single lifetime – I don’t wounds of the bitter years of the Holocaust innocent men, women, children – they know the answer to that either. when we were enslaved, tortured, and lost obliterated their hopes and dreams, and the Zachor, Pamjentaj, Remember… our precious families. infinite creativity, beauty, and knowledge This was the word my father Seventy years ago, we were liberated that they could have contributed to the frequently uttered to me during the from oppression and death – but this betterment of our world. We grieve for Holocaust. liberation came too late for our six million them as if it were only yesterday. Today, seventy years later, that martyrs. In their sacred memory, we have There is a danger that their and our command to remember is indeed dedicated our lives to bearing witness and suffering and struggle will, with the superfluous. For me, a survivor Roman Kent to challenging the world to remember. passage of time, be forgotten. But as long of Auschwitz to forget the horrific just skin and bones, but still alive? How It is our sacred duty to remind all those as we live, and as long as there will be in experiences endured in the concentration can I ever forget the smell of burning who already know, those who don’t know, this world free people who care, we the camps even for one moment is flesh that permeated the air? Many of who don’t want to know, and who don’t survivors, our children, and grandchildren, impossible. Witnessing the atrocities us came to Auschwitz not knowing each want to be disturbed by such memories. and the generations to come will not stop committed at the entrance gate to other in life; but most left together in Just as the four sons of the Passover telling and retelling our tales of martyrdom Auschwitz was more than enough to death through the chimney in the form Haggadah must hear the story, so our and resistance. keep me awake at night… until the end of white-blue smoke. own children, our grand- and great grand- Together, we must transform our of time. It is there that the Germans The heartbreaking weeping of the children must hear it. And the world must individual memories into collective welcomed and began to brutalize their children, torn from their mother’s arms know that we will not be silent. To all those action. The conclusion we may draw new guests. Horses were driven into by the brutal actions of their torturers, detractors who try to deny or diminish our from the Holocaust, its aftermath, and families and groups forcing them apart will ring in my ears until I am laid to tragedy, we say we are here to tell the tragic today’s resurgence of antisemitism and and separating them – often forever – as rest. I continue to wonder if the cries truth in full. outright violence against Jews is the camp guards slashed at us with whips of these youngsters ever penetrated We are the living witnesses of the need for vigilance and effective action. that cut as sharply as finely honed heaven’s gate. Shoah. Behind us there are 20 centuries In recalling the past we must reflect on swords. We survivors continuously came of Jewish history, a history of exile, certain present day realities. It is the Even seventy years later, the daily face-to-face with death; yet, despair was oppression, discrimination, persecution, hatred of the Jew that culminated in cruelty and inhuman behavior in the not our response. Despite hopelessness, genocide, and a struggle for survival and the Holocaust. It started with speeches, camps is still indelibly etched in my we created life out of a world of renewal. Behind us are the victims of the burning of books, the burning of mind. The look of pleasure on the darkness, and we now remember the inquisitions, pogroms, death camps, and synagogues, and ended with the burning murderers’ faces and their laughter as all consuming evil we were forced to crematoria. The experiences of the past are of people. they tortured innocent men, women, endure. as much ours as the hatred we Holocaust The burning question persists: How and children is beyond description and We survivors cannot – dare not – survivors ourselves experienced. is it that the free world could not see the lingers in my consciousness. How can forget the millions who were murdered. We choose to remember and make enormity of evil and mass murder? How I erase the sight of the human skeletons, For if we were to forget, the conscience continued on p. 23 continued on p. 9 PERMIT NO. 4246 NO. PERMIT New York, New York 10001 York New York, New NEW YORK, NY YORK, NEW 122 West 30th Street, Suite 304А 304А Suite Street, 30th West 122 PAID Jewish Holocaust Survivors Holocaust Jewish U.S. POSTAGE U.S. American Gathering of Gathering American NON-PROFIT 2 TOgether Spring 2015 Address by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Spring 2015 Volume 29, Number 1 S. Lauder at Auschwitz on c•o•n•t•e•n•t•s A Passover message from our President ........................................................................1 January 27, 2015 Speech by American Gathering Chairman Roman Kent at Auschwitz Commemoration .. 1 Address by World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder at Auschwitz ............2 Following are My life as a Jew in wartime Berlin: How I outwitted the Gestapo ................................3 excerpts from the Israeli Settlers Use Nazi Imagery Against Jews ............................................................3 speech of WJC Muslim Scholar, Looking to ‘Speak the Truth,’ Teaches the Holocaust and Islam ..................4 Finding History and Myself in Vilnius ..........................................................................4 President Ronald Polish students honored for exploring history of Jewish towns ....................................5 S. Lauder at Will Auschwitz make it to eighty? .................................................................................5 Thanking my grandfather’s liberator .................................................................................... 5 the ceremony at From the Pen of My Grandson ......................................................................................................6 Auschwitz-Birkenau Don’t be a passive bystander. 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz ...........7 on the occasion of the Tour a Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok by Drone ............................................................8 Life-affirming observations from Holocaust survivors’ offspring .................................10 70th anniversary of In a town built on Jewish headstones, still no fixing what the Nazis destroyed ................... 11 the camp’s liberation. Ronald Lauder (photo: Detlev Schilke) Tales from Auschwitz: survivor stories ..........................................................................12 When the office is a death camp ....................................................................................18 http://www.worldjewishcongress.org to come back. First in articles and on the internet, in some religious schools and Hungarian premier admits country’s 4shameful’ Holocaust role...................................18 am not a survivor, although I am even universities. From there it made its Searches ........................................................................................................................19 I grateful for the survivors who are way into mainstream society. Benefits for Holocaust Survivors from Poland ..............................................................19 here today. I am not a liberator, although It happened so slowly and it all Holocaust survivor recalls desperate battle to stay alive: I just wanted to live’ ............20 I salute the courage of the veterans who seemed so unimportant that few people Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs Yellow Candle Program – A History ......................20 are among us today. paid any attention. I am here, simply, as a Jew. And, Until now, when Europe suddenly Survivors return to Auschwitz determined to share their stories ...................................21 like all Jews everywhere, this place, this awoke to find itself surrounded by anti- In Memoriam .................................................................................................................22 terrible place called Auschwitz, touches Semitism again and it looks more like Luxembourg wartime bosses willingly helped Nazis find Jews’ ...................................23 our souls.