Meant to Be and an Apology

It's the end of the semester, and I'm barely surviving. I have a half dozen emails that relate to this blog in my inbox that I simply can't answer right now. Others have called and asked for time. Dear friends, please be patient with me. After Tuesday, when final grades are filed, I will be free 'til June 2, when summer term begins. (And, yes, I will be at Radiohead in Dallas next weekend.) For now, I'm posting excerpts from an interview I did with Holocaust survivor Eliezer Ayalon. He was in town last weekend to speak at the Yom HaShoah program, and I did an advance on the event for the Gazette. This is material that didn't make the final story. As he mentions, his story is available in A Cup of Honey: The Story of a Young Holocaust Survivor; Eliezer Ayalon, by Neile Sue Friedman.

A side note: These are the kinds of stories that convince me that we need a new concept of God. I'm still not an atheist, but there aren't any God-stories out there I buy right now.

"I came to be part of the remembrance in OKC as a result of  meeting a UJC mission with Edie Roodman the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater OKC, whom I guided in June 2007 at Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem.

"During my guiding through the museum, it seems that I touched the mission participants, especially Edie Roodman, by sharing with them segments of my personal experiences as a young boy who lived and survived the Holocaust. In the end of the museum tour I stood on a balcony with the mission, my arms open wide toward Jerusalem exclaiming: 'Out of ashes, behold this Majesty.' This was the favorite moment to Edie after coming out from 'destruction to rebirth.' While having lunch together after touring the museum, an idea came up to bring a piece of that moment and my poignant story to OKC  and share it with the people living in the Community.

"That is how Edie Roodman with the Jewish Federation of Greater OKC  initiated to bring me with my wife from Israel for a two week tour in order to share my first hand testimony and to speak in schools, universities and civic meetings, as well as participating in the Holocaust Remembrance Day and the festivities of (the anniversary of) Israel's 60th (year of) Independence with the people of OKC.

"The parts of my story that I intend to highlight: My miraculous survival, (the single one of my entire family) during the horrors of the Holocaust. Beginning with the story of the separation from the family, especially from my mother who saved my life from the deportation of my hometown ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp where all my family—parents, brothers and sister—died in the gas chambers. At the age of 14, and for the next three years, I spent my childhood in five Nazi concentration and forced labor camps in Poland and Austria until the liberation by the US Army on May 5, 1945, in a death camp in Ebense, Austria.

"I think what people of OKC, in particular the young generation, should know is the struggle for my survival, a young boy who lived in Europe in those terrible days during the Holocaust. My faith, my hopes, my dreams which enable me to continue to live. They should learn about a Jewish boy born in Radom, Poland, where he was brought up in a Jewish religious and traditional home, the youngest of four children in the family, happy and protected. My life was joyful; I loved studying the Bible, singing in our Synagogue choir and playing soccer. With the German occupation of Poland and my home town in 1939, my life changed dramatically.

"Events began to happen so quickly that I ran out of time to be afraid. In 1941, I was compelled with my family to leave my home in which I was born and raised and forced to live in a Jewish ghetto that the Germans established for the 30.000 Jews of Radom. I survived the ghetto deportation thanks to my dear mother who succeeded to save one of her children, that was me. I can never forget that eve of our separation and how my mother handed me a cup filled with honey with a blessing that I will survive and will have a sweet life because everything is 'beshert', a word in Yiddish that literally means 'meant to be.'

"I survived  five Nazi concentration and death camps, among them Plaszow, which was filmed in Schindlers' List by Steven Spielberg, and Mauthasen in Austria. By the end of April 1945, I was in a stage of protracted starvation (such) that I could touch and feel my ribs on each side of my body.    
But I didn't want to die. I was still young. I remembered my mother's last words: 'You will survive and will have a sweet life.'

"One week later on May 5, 1945, I was liberated by the US Army with 18,000 other inmates in Ebense. Six months later I immigrated to the Land of Israel, our homeland. I was 17 years old when I arrived in the Land of Israel which looked like heaven. Here begins my new life with the Jewish people; I felt that I'm saved. Two and a half years later, the State of Israel was established. On this day I felt that I'm coming back to normal life.

"During all those years of the Nazi horrors and my suffering in concentration camps, I remember one thing: I never gave up hope, never stopped hoping. My willpower to remain on the side of the living helped me to overcome the suffering; the will to survive was always there; without it I wouldn't make it.

"To conclude my story: After my arrival in Israel, I was anxious to tell my story, but I realized that people really didn't believe us. Our stories were so incredible and in addition, sometimes you could hear like a hint that maybe I did something wrong to survive. This tension forced me to a stance of silence which I maintained for 37 years before I was able to express myself publicly, but above that to be able to tell my story to my own children, who knew very little about my life during the Holocaust.  Eventually, I began to speak because I felt that time is running out if I don't tell my story and this important part of my life will be lost forever.

"Consequently, I decided to put my story in writing and published a book in English entitled A Cup of Honey that became a symbol of my survival and the beginning of my new life. I'm part of the last generation of the firsthand witnesses of the horrors of the Holocaust which places a heavy burden on our shoulders to impart the story to the future generations. I will continue to tell the story as long as I stand on my feet. Our numbers are dwindling, and after we disappear, there will be no one who can utter those simple words: 'I was there! I experienced it! I remember!'  Therefore, for we survivors, participating in memorial ceremonies and telling our stories and educating the young in the lesson of history is like doing a Holy Labor.
   
"My wounds have healed, but scars remained. I accomplished what I wanted. This year I will turn 82. I'm married happily for 59 years. I have two wonderful children, five grandchildren and one great-grandson; the second is on his way. Three generations born and raised from the ashes of the Holocaust. Today I'm the happiest man in the world. My life is a continuing defeat for Hitler and the Nazis who hoped to destroy the entire Jewish people, but they did not succeed, because 'Am Israel Chai'—The Jewish nation is alive."  Eliezer Ayalon

Comments

[Leighton]

Hang in there. Busy times in a teaching schedule can be particularly hellish.

[Kokopelli]

Just one word - it's "Mauthausen" and "Ebensee". Scary places!

Thanks for this blog - it's great!