Every man, woman and child has a story. For some it is found in the most unlikely of
places, during one of the most horrific of times, where actions of a few meant
life versus death. Mine is a story of
survival: my own and my family’s. A story that begins over seventy years ago
when my world became engulfed by the evils of Nazism, my family torn apart, my
life forever changed, and my childhood and innocence ripped away as a nine-year-old
boy hiding in a tiny, filthy attic in occupied Poland.
It is this month, during a time of remembrance when
the world commemorates seventy years since the end of the Holocaust, that I
pause and reflect on my own survival and find myself asking, “Why me? What was so
different about me that I had the luck to survive? What drove me to find the
courage to escape the ghetto when my entire town was being liquidated? Why did I not give up when a local farmer
told me to turn myself in because there was no future for people like me? How
did I find the strength, while hungry, cold and filled with fear, as I crawled on bare hands
and knees through three feet of snow to arrive at the place that would become
my hidden refuge for two years? Why was my sister Sarah discovered, pulled from
her hiding place and taken to Treblinka to be murdered? Why did only two
children from my town of 2,000 children survive? Why was it my sister Irene and
me?”
There are many stories to share, every Survivor
with their own unique experience. Every Survivor having confronted the darkest
depths of hatred with determination, courage and resilience. Every Survivor grasping
to a hope that perhaps they would be saved, believing in their hearts that they were meant to do something
greater. Like many Survivors,
I have to come to believe that we survived for a reason. Even seventy years
later, I don’t take a single moment for granted. Instead of deciding to let
hatred consume me and direct my actions in life, I decided early to let
hatred go and move forward. I believe that I survived to do what I have been
doing for the last 20 years – to tell my story, in memory of my family and the
millions of Jews whose own stories were silenced by the Holocaust. I survived
to share my pain so that others can connect with a life and history that they
will hopefully never have to confront.
Seventy years after the Holocaust, we Survivors face
a collapsing window of time in which to tell our stories. But
as decades pass, I have also come to believe that we cannot be the only ones to
tell our stories. Because this
generation will determine our future, Survivors must pass the torch to them
today so that they can protect our legacy for future generations.
When I speak to children every day at the Illinois
Holocaust Museum & Education Center, I ask that they take away two ideas
from my story. First, you must believe in yourself. It is essential to love, appreciate and
respect yourself above all. With this, you will discover that you are stronger
and smarter than you think you are. Second, I want children to learn that
prejudice and indifference will only lead to hatred and violence that will
impact innocent lives, including their own. As the decision makers of tomorrow,
our children must engage in the creation of new stories that speak to a more
hopeful world that doesn’t echo our past.
