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Further holocaust stories forthcoming
Chiune Sugihara
THIS HERO DEFIED ALL THE ODDS AGAINST HIM AND REACHED THE HEIGHTS OF HEROISM. HE OBTAINED THE LIGHT OF CHRIST IN HIS CONVERSION FROM BUSHIDO TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY.THE HORRORS OF MANCHURIA LED TO THE RESIGNATION OF HIS POST . HE PURSUED A DEGREE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48967241.html
Stamped for Life
Defying the Samurai code of honor, Chiune Sugihara risked everything to save Jewish lives.
by Gavriel Horan
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When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Polish Jewry was trapped between two beasts, the Nazis to the West and the Communists to the East. On one side was certain death, on the other was spiritual destruction. There was nowhere to turn. As darkness set upon the European continent, the sun began to dawn in a far away land, where no one ever would have expected -- Japan, the land of the rising sun.
Polish and Lithuanian Jews sought to escape across the barren Soviet wasteland to the Far East. Underneath the Nazis' very nose, thousands of Jews took refuge in Japan, amongst the Nazis' own allies. How did they make it through the iron curtain to safety? As many as 10,000 Jews owe their salvation to the actions of one man and his wife, who defied everything but their own morals to save lives.
Rebel with a Cause
Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1, 1900, in Yaotsu, a rural area in Japan, into a middle class samurai family. Although the samurai clans put great emphasis on honor and tradition, Chiune was a rebel for most of his life. Instead of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a doctor, he deliberately failed the medical school entrance examination and instead pursued a degree in English literature with a hope to someday travel abroad. The Japanese Foreign Ministry eventually recruited him to serve as Foreign Minister in Manchuria in 1918 where he met with great success. While in Manchuria, Chiune became fluent in Russian and German and ended up converting to Orthodox Christianity. Despite his success, Chiune quit his post in Manchuria in protest over Japanese mistreatment of Chinese locals. In 1935, he returned to Japan, where he married Yukiko Kikuchi and together they had four sons.
In 1939, he became a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. When Russia took over Lithuania in 1940, annexing it to the Soviet Union, thousands of Jewish refugees attempted to obtain exit visas to escape the iron grip of Communism; they knew full well that if they remained behind, they would either be forced to give up their Torah lifestyle or be shipped off to the dreaded Siberia. Furthermore, everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and began his conquest of the Soviet Union. The refugees included several of the most prestigious yeshivas of Europe as well as many of the leading Rabbis of the time.
Leaving the Soviet grasp was not easy. The Soviets would only issue an exit visa to people possessing an entrance visa to a foreign country however it was almost impossible to find a foreign consulate who would grant such a visa. It was now Chiune Sugihara's moment to enter the stage.
He refused to take breaks to eat, knowing that every moment was a chance to save another life. Saving Lives Every Moment
Despite the refusal of the Japanese government in Tokyo to grant visas to anyone lacking the proper funds, Sugihara chose to defy official orders. From July 31 to August 28, 1940, Sugihara began to grant visas on his own initiative. During this time, he would spend 18 hours a day hand writing over 300 visas daily, more than one month's regular quota. He refused to take breaks to eat, knowing that every moment was a chance to save another life. At the end of each day, his wife recalled massaging his swollen hands.
He promised the crowds of refugees gathered outside the walls of the consulate that he would not abandon them. He would keep writing until every single person had a visa. "It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes," he said. "He cannot just help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes."(Levine, Hillel. [1996]. In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked His Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust, p259).
Sugihara continued to issue visas until he was forced to leave his post on September 4 when his consulate was dissolved due to the impending Nazi invasion. He continued to write visas while in transit, throwing them into the crowd of desperate refugees while he boarded his train. When the train began to depart from the station, he allegedly threw his visa stamp into the crowd, enabling the Jews to continue to write their own visas. If he was humanly capable of doing more he would have. He was forced to leave so many behind, and it broke his heart that he was unable to save more.
From Obscurity to Honor
Between 6000-10,000 Jews were rescued by his heroic efforts, second only in numbers to the Jews saved by Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg. Between 6000-10,000 Jews were rescued by his heroic efforts, second only in numbers to the Jews saved by Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg. Many of the refugees made it safely to Japan with no intention of continuing to another destination. Some 20,000 Jews survived the war in the Shanghai ghetto despite German pressure for the Japanese government to liquidate the Jewish refugees. In a legendary meeting between the Amshinover Rebbe and several Japanese generals, the question was posed as to why the German's hated the Jews so much. Without missing a beat the Amshinover Rebbe responded, "Because we are not Aryan like them, we are Asians."
In 1945, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Sugihara from his diplomatic service and to this day they deny that it was related to his behavior in Lithuania. From then on, he lived a low key existence for the rest of his life, working hard to make a living to support his family. He lived a quiet, humble life, and his story remained virtually unknown. He felt no need to talk about his accomplishments because he saw nothing extraordinary about them.
In 1968, Sugihara was discovered by one of his beneficiaries, a diplomat to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo. He was granted the honor of Righteous among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1985. He passed away one year later and only when a large delegation of Jews from around the world appeared at his funeral, did his story become known to the Japanese people
When asked about his motivations, Sugihara replied by quoting an old samurai saying, Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge. "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't I would be disobeying God," he said. "There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives... The spirit of humanity, philanthropy... neighborly friendship...with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation -- and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage." (Levine, ibid)
Visas for Life
Chiune Sugihara's widow, Yukiko, passed away last month at 94. In her book, "Visas for Life," Yukiko describes her own feelings as she watched the crowds of Jews waiting outside the Japanese consulate in Lithuania: "We saw a little child standing behind his mother hiding himself in his mother's coat, and a girl with an expression of hunger and terror which made her look like an adult and some others crouching in fatigue." She had just given birth to her third child and recalled thinking that if those mothers loved their children as much as she loved hers, she must try to help them.
"I've heard that, as a people, the Jews never forget a promise." She stood firmly behind her husband and was the driving force to keep him going despite all odds. "The Jews who passed through Kaunas still treasure the visas which my husband issued," she said. "They didn't forget what they shouted when we were leaving Kaunas station. ‘We will never forget you. We will see you again.' I've heard that, as a people, the Jews never forget a promise."
Today, over half a century and two generations later, there are over 40,000 people who owe their lives to Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. We will never forget.
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48945006.html
Bubbie, Tell Me Your Life
Leah Kaufman's story of unfathomable horror and courage remained locked in memory's vault for half a century, until her granddaughter started asking her questions.
by Sheina Medwed
Tisha b'Av, 1492, was the final day for compliance with the edict of the Spanish expulsion. Although it was a day of national mourning, the rabbis of that generation declared, "Take up your instruments." Thus the Jewish community marched out of their host country with the musicians at the lead. Not only did the Rabbis want to infuse the refugees with hope, they also wanted to remind them that there is only one place in the world worthy of tears being shed when we must leave there. That place is Jerusalem.
The inner command to "take up our instruments"-- to begin again with renewed hope -- has been the mandate of the Jew throughout exile. In recent history the most moving and remarkable examples of this have been the survivors of the Holocaust. Having faced death so many times, having endured unspeakable physical tortures and difficulties, the liberated survivor needed a different kind of courage: the courage to face his tragic experiences and move on to rebuild his life.
Mrs. Leah Kaufman epitomizes such bravery on all fronts. Laden with nightmares of unimaginable personal horrors and losses, Mrs. Kaufman arrived in Canada, orphaned and penniless. She succeeded in rebuilding her life, becoming the proud mother of three sons, an outstanding educator, and an active member of the Jewish community. As for the past, it was locked in memory's vault, for half a century unseen and unmentioned.
There it would have remained perhaps forever had not the urgent need to speak out arisen. Lest the world forget and be bereft of its memories, Mrs. Kaufman bravely unlocked hers. Speaking not just for herself but for the hundreds of thousands whose voices were silenced, she relived the pain of Transnistria, a place whose horrors have long since gone untold because it left its survivors mute.
Although Mrs. Kaufman speaks to us all, it was as a mother and grandmother that she first began telling future generations about a past that must never be forgotten.
One afternoon in Montreal, as Mrs. Leah Kaufman stood at her kitchen sink preparing supper, her four-year-old son ran into the house, sobbing. "Mommy, Mommy," he cried, "do you know what happened to children in the Holocaust?" He put his arms around his mother and buried his face in her apron. Suddenly, his older brother, Seth, who had been in another room doing homework, ran out, grabbed him by the shoulders, and dragged him into their bedroom.
"David," he shouted, in a voice far more adult than his six years, "never, ever talk to Mommy about the war or about Nazis!"
Their mother held onto the kitchen counter unable to move. A memory flashed through her mind. It had happened a year ago, when she was in a local bookstore with Seth. There on a display counter they had encountered an oversized book with a big bold title: Transnistria. Seth had tugged at her hand, saying, "Mommy, isn't that where you were? Don't you want to buy the book?" She had hastily pulled him out of the store. Once outside, she bent down and looked deep into his eyes, which reflected confusion, and said, "I don't want to know. I just don't want to know."
She would speak only one language when it came to the Holocaust: the language of silence.Now, as she stood at the sink with the midafternoon sunlight slanting through the kitchen windows and the red geraniums blossoming in their white flower boxes, Mrs. Kaufman forced herself to pick up the vegetable peeler and continue her preparations for supper. Before her marriage, she had made the decision not to burden her children with her suffering. She wanted to raise them as normal, Canadian children. She would speak only one language when it came to the Holocaust: the language of silence.
* * *
Years passed since the scene in the kitchen. The boys grew, married, and raised families of their own. Pesach, 1991, found the Kaufmans at the home of Seth, now a doctor and leader in a Jewish community. A new generation of Jews was being raised, a delight to both parents and grandparents.
In the midst of the family gathering, Talia, then only eight, suddenly went over to her grandmother and said, "Bubbie, please come sit with me." Mrs. Kaufman willingly sat down on the couch next to the little granddaughter she loved so much. She was completely unprepared, though, for Talia's next words.
"Bubbie, please tell me what happened to you when you were a child."
"Just a minute, Talia," came the somewhat nervous reply, "and I'll come right back to sit with you." Mrs. Kaufman went over to her son and asked in hushed tones, "What should I do? Talia wants to know."
"Mommy," said her son, his expression suddenly serious, "please don't repeat the mistake you made with me. Tell her. Use your own judgement. I trust you."
Mrs. Kaufman went to sit on the couch, took her granddaughter's hand, and began her story.
"You know, Talia, we can't always understand how God runs His world. There are many things that happened to me that are very sad. But look -- here we are sitting together and I want you to know that for whatever His reasons, God was always making incredible miracles for me and for many other people. He became our partner to help us in every way.
"My mother, your great-grandmother, was a midwife and healer. She helped anyone who came to her, Jew and non-Jew alike. When I was little, I would often be awakened by a loud banging on the window -- Boom! Boom! -- and shouts of, 'Domna Bracha, come quickly! We need you to deliver a baby!' My mother also knew what to do if someone was sick. She knew about herbs and special little cups to put on the skin and leeches to pull out the diseased blood from the body. She learned from her mother, my grandmother, who was also a healer.
"Anyway, I remember that one night when I was just about your age there was a banging on the window. This time, though, it wasn't an urgent call for my mother to help. No, it was to warn us to flee because the next day soldiers would be arriving. My mother woke me and my brothers and sisters and dressed us in layer after layer of clothing. When we left the house and made our way to the road, we saw many other families. They were all running away.
"We went to another city and took shelter in an empty house. We stayed there for a few days and prepared for Shabbos. On Shabbos, as we were sitting around the table with the wooden shutters closed, we suddenly heard a loud pounding on the shutters and the door. My mother and father told us to run and hide. My brothers and sisters and I obeyed.
"Soldiers burst in through the front door. They saw all the plates at the table and the leader shouted, 'Where is everybody!'
"My parents said nothing.
"Then he threatened, 'If they don't come out, we will shoot you.'
"My parents called us back into the room. The soldiers lined up all seven children one by one behind each other, with the tallest standing in the back and the smallest in the front. This was so that they could shoot all of us at once using only one bullet. We said good-bye to each other. They picked up their rifles and were about to pull the trigger when suddenly their leader shouted, 'Put down your guns!'
"'Why?'
"This woman brought me into the world and saved my life many times. I can't kill her. Let's go.""'Put down your guns!' he repeated in a booming voice. To this day, I can hear the boom of his voice inside my head. Then, in a much softer tone, the leader said, 'I can't kill her. This woman brought me into the world and saved my life many times. I can't kill her. Let's go.'
"That's the first time I was saved. But that was only the beginning of many difficult and terrible times. The Rumanian soldiers were brutal to the Jews and they forced us to walk in the freezing winter from place to place. We had to sleep in haystacks and on the frozen ground. Many people became sick and died just from the cold.
"One of the next places we stopped was right near a bakery. The delicious smell of the freshly baked bread made our hunger pains even worse. Small as I was, I was always a fighter. I said to myself, 'There must be some way we can help ourselves.' Everyone else was lying down but I was sitting up watching the door of the bakery. I saw a little girl go out of the bakery and I called to her in Rumanian. She was shocked. She had probably never talked to a Jewish child before. But she was curious, like most children, so she came over to me and said, 'What do you want?'
"I said, 'How old are you?' It turned out she was my age. 'Where are you going?' I asked her.
"'To school,' she replied.
"'Do you like school?'
"'I hate it -- because I'm not smart.'
"'What grade are you in?' I asked.
"She told me and I told her to bring me her books. She did. I took one look at what she was learning and said to myself, I'm going to be her tutor! I said to her, 'Don't go to school today. Sit with me and I'll help you. Tomorrow you'll know everything.'
"She sat with me and I helped her. Then she went into her house and told her mother. Her mother was so pleased that she sent out a loaf of bread. As long as we stayed there, we had bread everyday.
___________________________________________________________________
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/Haunting_Fragments.html
Haunting Fragments
My journey to the camps in Poland.
by Atara Gedalowitz
Standing in a train station inside the remains of the original cattle cars, I was standing where so many Jews had stood as they were transported to concentration camps. I heard people crying, but I could not react - I was in shock. These boards were soaked with horrible memories. How could I begin to take it in?
In the Lodz cemetery there were over 40,000 graves, all Jewish, and many from the people of the Lodz ghetto. As I visited different graves, I thought about the people who lay below the ground. How many of their hands could I have held? What would their eyes have looked like, if I could have looked into them? Who were their families, their descendants? There were so many stories saturated in this one place that I couldn't begin to absorb it all. From there it got worse. As the evidence of such tragedies overwhelmed me, my heart closed down.
I felt terrible. Not because the people died, but because I couldn't feel anything at their death.In the small town of Dubia, the inscription that once hung above the ark of a synagogue was now just a crumbling wall in a decrepit apartment attic. It was the single testimony to all those who were sent to the death camp in Chelmno. When I saw the ruins of the death camp, I felt terrible. Not because the people died, but because I couldn't feel anything at their death. My eyes stayed dry as I saw the rubble. I heard how they were driven in a gas truck to the mass graves or mass pyres, but I couldn't prod my heart to respond. Over 300,000 thousand people died in that place and I couldn't even shed one tear.
Later as I was reciting Psalms, I apologized to G-d that I wasn't able to feel the pain of these terrible losses, and admitted how much my own apathy distressed me. One tear trickled down my face and then another. I was heartbroken over my own apparent indifference to the tragedy of my people. My friend noticed I was upset. When I explained to her what was wrong, she reassured me that it was okay to react this way. She helped me to realize how sad I was, and how my mind was protecting me from breaking down completely by erecting fences that sheltered me from the full horror of those deaths.
Yet my friend also provided an alternate perspective to simple sadness. She felt that our return to the very place where so many Jewish people had died gave honor to their memory. Through learning Torah and performing mitzvot n this very place, we testified that our people had survived. My friend was the catalyst for my slow transformation. She planted the first seeds of change in my mind. I began to see that I wanted to change because of what I had seen. I wanted to become a better person in order to honor those that had died. I didn't want their death to be in vain.
Related: A Poland Video Log
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Auschwitz and Birkenau
The very names of these places cause a lump to form in my throat that is part fear, part pain, and part revulsion. Next to the first train tracks that led to the area are hand-drawn, eye-witness pictures of Jews pouring out of the cattle cars and being rounded up for selection. A stone on which someone had painted 'Am Yisroel Chai’ -- ‘The Jewish nation lives’, had been placed on the lone car that stood there as a memorial. There was one more sight there worth noting, and it was by far the most dreadful. It was a bright yellow house right in front of the tracks. It made me angry at first. How dare they decide this was the best place to live in a big cottage painted the color of a rising sun? But then my anger dissolved into pity. What sort of life must they live if they had audacity or numbness or just plain stupidity to build a cheerful looking home next to a place of utter horror?
Birkenau was huge. It was literally miles wide by miles long. The gas chambers and crematorium were hidden, separated by a forest and large spaces. Jews stumbled off trains, were herded into lines and inspected, before being sent to have picnics prior to their deaths. That's right, picnics. The Nazis would give the children food and assure their mothers they would be taken care of before taking them off for "a shower". Then they would force other Jews to burn the bodies and throw the ashes into ponds outside. These ponds were one of two ghastly scenes from Birkenau that had the strongest impact on me.
The ponds looked so peaceful, and yet they symbolize what the Nazis did perfectly. They murdered and slaughtered innocent people, and then treated those peoples' remains with complete disrespect. Afterwards they tried to make their murder more tasteful by masking it with clinical language and false fronts. They dubbed their mass killings "extermination" and "liquidation". They called their cattle cars, packed with starving, thirsty crowds, "deportation" and "resettlement". They threw ashes of humans into calm, serene ponds.
The second place that affected me strongly was the location of the latrines. It was just a block of cement with two lines of holes housed in an ascetic hut. Hundreds of prisoners were rushed in at once and given ten minutes at most, no matter what their condition. I don’t think I'll ever be able to go to the restroom again without thanking God for His many kindnesses.
Horrifying mounds of hair lay behind pristine sheets of glass. Carefully labeled suitcases created haphazard towers.In Auschwitz I walked under the famous sign, 'Work makes you free'. Hidden between two barracks was a single wall where they shot 18,000 individuals. One barrack contained all sorts of things that the Nazis had taken away from people. Horrifying mounds of hair lay behind pristine sheets of glass. Carefully labeled suitcases created haphazard towers. Pots, pans, and cups formed a mosaic of lost kitchens. And then there were the shoes. Thousands of shoes. Both in Auschwitz and later in Majdaneck, the shoes made my heart clench. They were all shapes and sizes. Most had faded to a dusty black brown, most were rotting pieces of decrepit leather, but some were still colored, some were still whole. Small children’s shoes. Red heeled shoes. Sandals. Work boots. Laced, buckled, and slip-on. These shoes spoke with their silence. Where is my mother, my father, my brother? I tucked a bit of their soundless shrieking into my heart and bit my lip as I turned to go.
I left Auschwitz as the sun was setting. It was time for afternoon prayers, and I prayed right there. In front of the gates of Auschwitz I spoke to God. This was more than just a statement of revenge. This was a battle cry for the future: I don't care what they did; I will do what is right. Nazi terrorism had failed to eradicate the eternal prayer song of the Jewish people.
Majdaneck
Majdaneck was smaller than Birkenau, but it was equally difficult to handle. Standing next to ovens that burnt skin and bones was surreal and deeply chilling. Equally chilling were the showers, which sometimes froze and sometimes burned, both alternatives preferable to the other showers, the ones that rained Cyclone B death.
In Majdaneck again it was the containers of shoes that staggered me. I kept thinking, they probably never thought about their shoes. Why would they? They were just shoes. Yet to me they are so much more. They are a connection to those who stepped or danced or ran in those shoes. They symbolize life gone. As I marched away from the containers and toward the buses I thought of Nazi boots crunching their way on this ground, and the soft, tired stumbling of prisoners. I swallowed hard. Since we can't undo what's been done by others, we can only make a better future ourselves.
I am living proof that the Nazis were wrong.Poland was all about loss. Back in Israel I can’t help but overflow with gratitude at being here now. I'm not depressed by what I saw, though much of it was sad, and terrible. I'm proud that I'm a Jew and carrying on our traditions. I am living proof that the Nazis were wrong. Their meticulously planned experiment failed.
My challenge is not to hide in a forest so that no one will know I am Jewish, or even to walk proudly into a gas chamber. My challenge is to pray even on the days when it seems like there is nothing to pray for. My challenge is to choose to the correct path, when it’s easy to choose any direction. This is what I have taken away – a respect for the past heroes and all their trials can teach us about becoming the heroes of today, by carrying on their legacy.
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48952026.html
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/Murdered_at_Auschwitz.html
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48948571.html
the above three stories on another po
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/Why_My_Father_Ran.html
Why My Father Ran
What compelled a 60+-year-old man, who had been diagnosed previously with blockages of his heart but refused surgery, to begin running marathons? Here is an excerpt of his story in his own words.
Bilgoraj, Poland: It was a beautiful summer day. Everything was wonderful; the birds were singing, the fields and gardens were dressed like a holiday in velvet green. Children were playing soccer on the field. But all at once, everything becomes very still. Suddenly, overhead in the sky are a few airplanes. The people in the street below start to panic and so it begins -- everywhere in town, people are talking about war. The drummer on the street begins to beat his drum and he relays the bad news... Germany declares war on Poland.
The next day, the city starts to mobilize --people, horses, cars, wagons, even bicycles. The people start to panic and become frightened. The stores become packed with people looking to buy bread and other products. The bread is beginning to disappear. The people are staying many hours on long lines for a piece of bread. The local Polish storekeepers do not want to sell products to the Jews.
We hear the sad news; Germany wants to occupy the port and the city and Poland is stubborn and trying to bargain with Germany. It doesn't take long and the Germans get occupation of the city. With a fast pace, the Germans go forward. In a short time, the Germans take city after city. People say the Germans are not far from Lublin. Great Polish armies come to Bilgoraj and they camp near the new school by the City Hall. Everybody is nervous.
I sit with friends near the house and feed the pigeons and think how good it is for the pigeons. They have wings to fly wherever they want to, but we simple people must suffer through wars. But the time doesn't let me think for long; the fires begin. I run to the point of the roof of a local building; we see a great fire by the bridge and other streets that are burning. We don't see any firemen; only police running around like poisoned mice. They cannot stop the villagers from robbing the Jewish stores. Finally, the shop robbers are put onto wagons and taken away by the local police. The city Bilgoraj burns for three days.
The unlucky Jews whose homes were burned go to live with relatives and friends. Three or four families live in a house with three rooms. And Jews thank God that they got away with their lives. And I, not even 13 years old, feel that a strong cloud would soon fall down.
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Through all of this, the Jews do not lose their hope for a better tomorrow. But tragically, the town of Bilgoraj and so many other towns like it are devastated and emptied of almost all the Jews.
Where we were going we do not care, we just have to run.My family, consisting of my mother, my little sister and two brothers, run. We board a train to leave Bilgoraj. Where we were going we do not care, we just have to run.
The trains are packed with people. Once we make it on to the train, it stops at a station and my brother says to my mother, "I am going down to get you some water." He leaves the train for just a few moments for some water and suddenly the train begins to move again. I cry out in vain, "Stop!! Stop the train! My brother is not back on...."
But the train leaves the station and my brother is left behind. He cannot catch the train. This was a terrible day, which I will never forget for the rest of my life. The image of my brother standing before my eyes, running to catch the train and watching him get further and further away. My mother begins to cry and that, too, is an image I will never forget.
My pen is too poor to describe my mother's sadness and pain. How much I try to give her hope that it would not take long for my brother to catch up with us and be reunited with her again is useless. I am too young to ease her pain – I feel helpless.
My other brother is hit by falling shrapnel and taken to a hospital, but we never see him again because we are running further and further away.
So days and weeks run by and it is just me, my mother and my little sister left on the train from our family.
We finally stop at a town where we believe the war has not yet come. We rent a small room -- just the three of us. But my mother is grieving so much from losing her two sons, so much that one day I say to my mother that I will leave to go find them and bring them home to her.
She replies with tears in her eyes, "I lost two sons and now you want me to lose you too?" But, in my young mind, I think differently. In my mind I want to rescue my family from the town before the Germans came in. I did not understand nor did I ever think for a moment that I would never see my family again.
I beg my mother so much until she finally relents and says to go in good health and come back right away with peace. On such a dark unforgettable night, I kiss my beloved mother and unforgettable sister goodbye and sneak on to a boat and run.
I never do find my brothers – I run from one town to another – each time, the front getting closer. In the months following, I labor in coal mines in Siberia through hard winters, chop trees in the deep, thick forests, work in the fields from morning to night, and live with numerous families who are kind enough to take pity on a 13-year-old boy all alone.
Life goes on. The war finally ends and I want to return to Bilgoraj to find my family. I see some passing soldiers and they ask me where I am headed. I tell them I am returning to Bilgoraj to find my family. They say do not go back to Poland -- you will not find anyone. You will find only ruins... you will not find anybody that you once knew alive.
So I run again -- through Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, Israel, Cyprus, Israel and finally America.
I run because they could not. I eventually marry and have two children of my own and years later, I get the news that I have heart trouble and blockages that could end up causing a stroke or worse. I am told that I need an operation and begin to lose all hope. Fear sets in. I pray to God and ask Him to help me. Then I make an immediate decision -- I will not lose my faith! I will face this with courage, as I have had to do so many times before.
I begin to walk a little at a time, and each time I think of my friends and family I left behind so long ago and imagine them walking beside me. Each day I walk a bit farther and farther until one day I see some marathoners running and I ask them where they were going. They say they are in a race and tell me the direction they are headed. So I begin to run along. As I run, I see the images of my mother and my family running beside me, so I run harder. Eventually, I finish the short marathon with the runners. The feeling of pride and accomplishment are so strong, I decide to run a little each day. Each time I run, I picture a different friend or family member that I left behind in Poland running alongside me. I run because they could not. I will continue to search for my family and keep running until I find them.
Dad continued his search for his family. He even returned to Bilgoraj in the 1990's but could not find them. He also continued entering and finishing marathons for many many years. He kept putting off the surgery but the need for it eventually caught up with him and in his mid 70's, he passed away. However, before my dad died, he had entered over 50 races and marathons and never stopped searching for his family.
"Everything disappeared like a dream." That is what my father wrote in his memoirs. Why My Father Ran is now published and available on Amazon. It is the riveting story of Sam Shatz - a holocaust survivor - who's motto was 'Never Give Up.' That is how he miraculously survived through the holocaust and how he lived his life after the war. Each survivor's story teaches us important lessons about who we are and each story must be told. Here is Sam's story. Visit www.whymyfatherran.webs.com to view photos and to see his DP Camp carvings. Click here for international orders.
My father began running when he was a young boy fleeing from the Nazis.
by Henia Stein
http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48944861.html
THE PROTECTED RABBI
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THE NAZI MASCOT
The Nazi Mascot
Almost all his life Alex Kurzem has kept a lonely secret.
by Olga Craig
Born in Koidanov in the Minsk region of Belarus in 1935, he emigrated to Australia at 15, married and raised a family in Melbourne.
His sons grew up listening, spellbound, to their father's poignant, though light-hearted, wartime tale: of how, as a five-year-old pigherd, he became separated from his peasant family and had to fend for himself for months in a forest before being found by a kindly Latvian family who brought him up.
It was little more than a fairy story: the truth of Mr Kurzem's early life was, in fact, even more extraordinary and so brutally shocking that he had all but obliterated it from his memory.
The reality was that as a five-year-old boy he had witnessed the massacre of his fellow Jewish villagers, among them his mother, baby brother and sister. Kurzem escaped into nearby woods where he survived by scavenging and stealing clothes from dead bodies, until he was found and handed over to Latvian police, who "adopted" him as a mascot.
When the battalion changed its identity to that of a Nazi SS unit, it had a miniature uniform made for Kurzem, complete with the SS insignia and a full-length black leather coat and pistol. He was paraded for newsreels and newspapers as ''the Reich's youngest Nazi'' and taken to the Russian front with his squad.
The whole time, the young Kurzem was frantically trying to hide a secret that would have meant certain death for him: he, too, was a Jew.There he witnessed atrocities. He saw rapes, murders and massacres of Jews, and on one occasion was forced to fire his pistol at a Jewish teenager captured by the soldiers, as the unit rampaged across the country. On another, he had to watch the slaughter of 1,600 Jews who were herded into a synagogue at Slonim.
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The whole time, the young Kurzem was frantically trying to hide a secret that would have meant certain death for him: he, too, was a Jew. He watched atrocity after atrocity, unable to show the slightest compassion for those of his own faith.
His commandant was Karlis Lobe, a notorious Latvian Nazi responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews. Mr Kurzem is unsure, but suspects that the unit was responsible for the slaughter of his family.
Still, when the war ended the child had no choice but to speak up for Lobe: the man who had sadistically murdered so many of Kurzem's countrymen had also protected him and ensured his survival while all around Jews were dying in massacres, in concentration camps and in the gas chambers.
Today, Mr Kurzem is a grey-haired man in his seventies. He believes himself to be 72, though is uncertain of his exact age. His lined face and pained expression are testament to his torturous past.
Until a decade ago, he kept his solitary secret. Then, one night in 1997, no longer able to live with his nightmares, or his sketchy memories, he began haltingly to pour out the true story to his son Mark.
He gave a statement to the Holocaust Commission but, to his horror, it dismissed his tale, saying it could find no trace of the massacre in his home village, and going so far as to suggest he was a collaborator who was complicit in Lobe's war crimes.
"I was devastated," Mr Kurzem says. "During those terrible years with the SS I could trust no one. My own people, the Russians, despised me because I wore the Nazi uniform. I was terrified the Nazis would discover I was Jewish.
"Lobe was a monster, but he saved me and survival was all I had. I had to keep so many secrets that secrecy was a way of life. And then, to find that my own people didn't believe me when I finally told my story, was heart-breaking."
But Kurzem's son was determined to discover the truth. Painstakingly, over the past 10 years he has investigated his father's past. Finally able to verify it all with documents and pictures, the Holocaust Commission has reversed its decision and Mark has now written a powerful book, The Mascot, revealing his father's remarkable and horrific story.
THE MASSACRE
His first clear memory is of October 21, 1941, the day his family was slaughtered.Kurzem, of course, is not Alex's real name: that was the name given to him by the soldiers. He now knows he was born Ilya Galperin. His first clear memory is of October 21, 1941, the day his family was slaughtered. The day before his father and the men of the village had been shot.
That night two soldiers broke in and beat his mother. Once they departed, leaving her bloodied and bruised, she told her eldest son: "We are all going to die tomorrow." She knew the massacre of the Jewish women and children would be the next morning.
She told him he must be brave and help her with his brother and sister. That night the young boy awoke thinking: "I don't want to die." In his nightclothes he fled, stumbling through pits filled with the bodies of the Jews shot the day before. In the morning he awoke to the sound of screams. From the tree in which he was hidden, he saw women and children, weeping in terror, being lined up in front of newly dug pits.
"If only I had not looked," Mr Kurzem says softly. But he did. In front of him he saw his mother and siblings among those waiting to be shot. "I could see soldiers forcing people down the hill, using the bayonets. Then I saw my family. I wanted to call out. I wanted to go to her, but I couldn't. The soldiers shot my mother. They put the bayonets into my brother and sister. I had to bite my hands to stop myself screaming."
As he recalls his family's deaths, Kurzem grows pale and his hands tremble. "People have asked me why I didn't take my brother and sister with me when I fled, but I had no idea where I was going. I was just a child myself. Then, to see them murdered. I did not want to watch but I could not look away. I felt I owed it to my mother. If she could bear to endure it, then surely I should bear to watch and be with her in my heart."
Kurzem was in the woods for about nine months. He ate berries and dragged the great coat off a dead soldier. "What I remember most is the terrible cold and the constant hunger. And being so very alone," he recalls.
Of "ARYAN" APPEARANCE
On July 12, 1942, he was found by a local who was not a Jew and handed over to the Latvian soldiers. Lined up along with others to be shot, he knew he had to take any opportunity. While others cowered, he ran to the soldiers, begging on bended knee for bread. His antics amused them and one, a Sgt Kulis, took pity on him and dragged him out of the line. He decided to clean up the filthy little boy and bathed him. When he saw Kurzem naked, he saw he had been circumcised and realized that, although the child was fair haired and of "Aryan" appearance, he was a Jew.
"I will never know why he saved and protected me," Mr Kurzem says. "But he did. He warned me no one must know or it would be certain death for us both."
Before long the little boy, now about six, had become the Latvian SS's famous mascot. In his uniform he was feted before the Führer, filmed keeping charge of German children ("Me, a Jew.Had they but known," he says incredulously) and taken to the Russian Front.
"I hated the soldiers' brutality, their inhumanity. But I don't deny that, as a little boy, I at times loved being the center of attention. I was doing it to survive. To please them. But all the time I was terrified they would discover my real identity and I would also be shot for my faith."
Kurzem witnessed the infamous Slonim massacre in which 1,600 Jews were burned alive.It was at the front that he witnessed the infamous Slonim massacre in which 1,600 Jews were burned alive. "Soldiers were prodding people into the synagogue, then they hammered wooden planks across the doors and windows. They put bunches of burning sticks and branches against the building and in a flash it caught fire. The flames spread quickly and then terrible wails began. Women and children broke out, running into the road in flames. No one helped them, they burned where they fell."
On another occasion, the soldiers used the young boy to lure local girls to their camp where they savagely beat and raped them. And when the unit was used to round up Jews for the cattle trains to the death camps, Kurzem, resplendent in his uniform, was given the task of handing out chocolate bars to lure them inside.
"They were smiling, they thought it a kindness. I didn't know where these trains were going but I had heard enough of the soldiers' talk to know they were going to despair and death."
In 1944, as the tide of the war started to turn against the Nazis, Lobe sent Kurzem to live with a Latvian family who bullied him into writing an affidavit exonerating Lobe. Before long he was receiving anonymous hate mail from Jews who knew the truth of Lobe's atrocities.
A NEW LIFE
Terrified, he booked a working passage to Australia aboard the SS Nelly, late in 1949. "I just wanted to start a new life, away from all the memories that I wanted to lose." His only luggage was a battered brown suitcase in which he kept photographs and documents of his past life. He took odd jobs, one of them with a circus. Eventually, he set up his own carpentry business and set about assimilating himself into his adopted country. He never, he told friends, wanted to return to Eastern Europe. He told his wife, Patricia, and his children nothing of the truth of his past.
Then, that night in 1997, he could keep silent no longer. Since then, he and his son have travelled to his home village many times. He found pictures of his parents under the wardrobe of his old home and, when he summoned the courage, stood by the tree from which he had watched his mother and his siblings murdered.
"Finally, after all this time, I have been able to lay a rose on the grave of my mother," he says, smiling at the memory. "But when I stood at that spot, as a grown man, where I saw her die so bravely, I still had to cram my fist in my mouth to stop screaming."
Mr Kurzem is silent, his eyes moist. "Should I have been standing there with her, holding her hand? Holding the little ones? I have tortured myself with this. But one thing I know: my mother would have died desperately hoping I had survived."
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The Protected Rabbi
Why the Nazi's paid a life-long pension to a chassidic rabbi, and provided stormtroopers to safeguard his yeshiva.
by Leah Abramowitz
Is it possible that there are still new tales to relate from the Holocaust? Hasn't everything been told already? Indeed it turns out that there are always new stories coming to the fore from that horrendous, yet heroic period. One of the organizations which delves into Shoah history, called "Synagogue Memorial," is dedicated to memorializing all the houses of prayer that were destroyed on the infamous Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938 in Germany.
Prof. Meier Schwarz, the director of Synagogue Memorial, a Holocaust survivor himself, discovered a fascinating nugget of history. A rabbi had a yeshiva, located on 35 Munz Street in the middle of Berlin, which was not only left standing on Kristallnacht, but armed SS guards were actually placed in front of the rabbi's house, bodily protecting him and his disciples from Nazi hooligans.
Even months earlier when all the Polish Jews residing in Germany were expelled, this man, Rabbi Kupperstock, and his disciples were not only left alone, but the rabbi continued to draw a stipend from the Nazi German government, as he had for two decades previously. (As documented in the Berlin newspaper "Aktuell" in a 1996 article written by German journalist, Gerald Boceian.)
It seems that many years before the war, Rabbi Kupperstock lived in Warsaw, and already as a young man headed a yeshiva. The Russians occupied that part of Poland and drafted many young Poles to help them in their war efforts. Anyone who deserted was killed instantly. Two of Rabbi Kupperstock's yeshiva students who were forced into the Russian army, suffered terribly. Despite the death penalty for deserting, they chose the lesser of two evils and ran away. Unfortunately they were caught and tried and doomed to death that very day.
Amid a jeering crowd in the city square, Russian officers hung the two yeshiva students.Amid a jeering crowd of Polish and Russian anti-Semites, the two young Yeshiva lads were brought into the city square. There, in front of the huge crowd, the Russian officers had them strung up and hung publicly as an example. Rabbi Kupperstock was forced to witness this horror and on the spot he vowed to take his revenge against the Russian officers and their government.
World War One broke out and the German troops seemed far superior to their enemies on the East. The Germans found themselves fighting under adverse weather conditions and on terrain that was unfamiliar to them. It seemed that they would be unable to break through the Russian fortifications. Moreover their troops were concentrated on an additional front, in France and England to the West.
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Nevertheless, and contrary to all logic and predictions, the German army managed to conquer some of the most strategic fortifications on the Eastern front. The defense efforts collapsed and the Russians eventually sued for peace. As everyone knows, shortly thereafter the Russian Czar was ousted and eventually the Communists came to power. The German generals were greatly lauded for their stupendous victory on foreign soil, and prayers of thanks were recited in churches and even in synagogues throughout Germany.
However, it was not solely due to the German superior military skills, nor to the bravery of their leading generals, Hindenburg and Ludendorf, that the Russian front fell so quickly. It was partially due to a lone Jew, Rabbi Kupperstock, who had somehow infiltrated the Russian forces and obtained plans for secret tunnels leading to Russian fortifications. The rabbi then passed this information to the German army. Still seething with rage over the murder of his two students, he helped change the tide of the battle and bring about the Russian surrender. But that fact was kept in complete secrecy.
For years, no one knew why the chassidic rabbi and his students were invited to move to the safe house in the middle of Berlin, and why he was granted German citizenship, a lifelong pension, and a subsidy for his yeshiva. He was even the official Jewish representative at government public celebrations, e.g. when President Hindenburg's birthday was commemorated at a state reception. The rabbi, magnificently garbed in his long, black satin frock, carrying his silver-handled walking stick, was always treated with honor and reverence by the leading German ministers. But no one knew the reason why.
Two years after Hindenburg came to power in 1931, he was forced to appoint Adolph Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. The rabbi ceased to attend official gatherings, but his pension and stipend for the yeshiva continued until his death in 1941. Thus during the early years of the Holocaust, while Jews were being deported or put into slave labor all over Europe, while anti-Semitism became official policy and synagogues and other Jewish institutions were burning, the German government continued to support one chassidic rabbi and his followers in the middle of their capital city - even setting up guards outside his house to protect him - in repayment for the "glorious German victory" which he helped secure in World War One.
When Rabbi Kupperstock died, the yeshiva was confiscated and his students were deported to concentration camps. Undoubtedly the rabbi and his disciples were greatly distressed by the persecution of their fellow Jews going on around them, and they realized that they too would be killed or deported were there no special "historic" arrangement. Like all the Jews of Europe, they held out hope that the war would end much sooner.
Unfortunately, all this lasted only until Rabbi Kupperstock died, from natural causes. The yeshiva was confiscated and his students were deported to concentration camps. There is no record of what became of them. But the story shows us the resourcefulness of someone that seemed so removed from political and military affairs, a man immersed in spiritual matters and holiness, yet who could change the tide of history, motivated by a distant injustice and the verse, "Plague the Midianites and smite them, For they have plagued you…" (Numbers 25:17-18)
More recently, Prof. Schwarz of Synagogue Memorial has petitioned the Berlin Municipality to establish a suitable memorial for this extraordinary rabbi, perhaps naming a street in his memory and thereby bringing to light an unusual chapter in 20th century Jewish-German history.
