On June 8th we had our field trip to Yad Veshem which is on Mt. Herzel, meaning Mount of Remembrance. The words Yad Vashem mean "a name and a memorial" and are taken from a passage in Isaiah. This is to memorialize and remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. It is always a sobering experience to visit a Holocaust memorial but it is something that needs to be remembered. There were several different moments when my mind was just consumed in thoughts of unbelief and shock at everything that had occurred. We also had our Israel/Jewish History Professor with us as our guide. Mr. Yarden did a great job in leading the discussions and explaining the meaning behind all the memorials.
The three pictures below depict two reliefs that stand next to each other in a plaza. They are meant to represent the two different attitudes that the Jews had to the Holocaust. The first is the attitude of being like a sheep to the slaughter, having a passive outlook and willingly submitting without a fight. The second represents the Warsaw uprising where the Jews fought back and had an aggressive attitude towards what was happening to them.
It is extremely powerfully to have the two strikingly different reliefs next to one another!
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| We couldn't take pictures in the memorial so this is off the internet |
Last Wednesday night we also had a very special forum. We were extremely blessed to hear from Elias Feinsilberg, who is a Holocaust survivor. He doesn't know English but he spoke Spanish and a few of the students translated. It was really neat to be able to hear and understand him in Spanish. He shared his Holocaust experiences with us. I'll add his brief biography at the bottom of this post if you would like to read more about his experiences.
The thing that stood out to me is his positive attitude. He experienced all this horrific things in his life yet is one of the nicest guys. He was constantly thinking of other people and how to bless them. He just radiate joy and love!!!
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| Elias Feinzilberg is front row in the suspenders. |
ELIAS FEINZILBERG
Born in Lodz, Poland October 22, 1917
Family: 5 sisters, 2 brothers, mother and father
September 1, 1939 - start of WWII
A few days later the Nazis arrived in Lodz. Around April or May 1940 the entire family was forced to leave their home to live in the Lodz Ghetto.
I spent a few months in the ghetto. The conditions were horrible. Lack of food and daily essentials were a way of life. People died of disease and starvation.
Chaim Rumkowski, who managed the ghetto, asked for 400 strong men as volunteers to work for the Germans. I believed that if you didn't volunteer they still would take you. So I volunteered. First group of 200 left October 13, 1940. The second group, which I was part of, left October 16, 1940. Rumkowski said that we would get paid for the work, but obviously we never received any remuneration whatsoever.
I worked for two years building roads under extremely difficult conditions. The area was surrounded by barbwire and SS guards.
At the beginning of January 1943 I volunteered to work in a farm. They needed 63 men. SS guards were supposed to pick us up but didn’t show up. We were given a letter with special permission to travel and we went by ourselves to Berlin. Gestapo members stopped us at the train station wanting to know what we were doing. After showing them the letter that said that we were volunteers to work in a farm, they pointed the way where to go. It was all a trick and we ended going to Wittenberge, a concentration camp.
In Wittenberge I worked 9 months unloading cargo ships. I got sick and they sent me back to the Lodz Ghetto. This was around September or October 1943. The first thing I did was look for my family. From the neighbors I learned that my father had died in 1941 from hunger. In 1942 my mother, 5 sisters and one brother were taken to Chelmno, Poland (extermination camp). Almost certainly all were murdered there along with at least other 180,000 Jews. They were placed in special cars where they were gassed to death and their bodies burned. Only a handful of people managed to survive by escaping. If they had not escaped we would not know what happened in Chelmno.
I was alone and went to work making ear muffs for the Germans. At least I was fed a small bowl of soup a day. On my way to work I was taken by the SS in a small open wagon driven by two horses. I asked the driver to let me escape and he said he
Born in Lodz, Poland October 22, 1917
Family: 5 sisters, 2 brothers, mother and father
September 1, 1939 - start of WWII
A few days later the Nazis arrived in Lodz. Around April or May 1940 the entire family was forced to leave their home to live in the Lodz Ghetto.
I spent a few months in the ghetto. The conditions were horrible. Lack of food and daily essentials were a way of life. People died of disease and starvation.
Chaim Rumkowski, who managed the ghetto, asked for 400 strong men as volunteers to work for the Germans. I believed that if you didn't volunteer they still would take you. So I volunteered. First group of 200 left October 13, 1940. The second group, which I was part of, left October 16, 1940. Rumkowski said that we would get paid for the work, but obviously we never received any remuneration whatsoever.
I worked for two years building roads under extremely difficult conditions. The area was surrounded by barbwire and SS guards.
At the beginning of January 1943 I volunteered to work in a farm. They needed 63 men. SS guards were supposed to pick us up but didn’t show up. We were given a letter with special permission to travel and we went by ourselves to Berlin. Gestapo members stopped us at the train station wanting to know what we were doing. After showing them the letter that said that we were volunteers to work in a farm, they pointed the way where to go. It was all a trick and we ended going to Wittenberge, a concentration camp.
In Wittenberge I worked 9 months unloading cargo ships. I got sick and they sent me back to the Lodz Ghetto. This was around September or October 1943. The first thing I did was look for my family. From the neighbors I learned that my father had died in 1941 from hunger. In 1942 my mother, 5 sisters and one brother were taken to Chelmno, Poland (extermination camp). Almost certainly all were murdered there along with at least other 180,000 Jews. They were placed in special cars where they were gassed to death and their bodies burned. Only a handful of people managed to survive by escaping. If they had not escaped we would not know what happened in Chelmno.
I was alone and went to work making ear muffs for the Germans. At least I was fed a small bowl of soup a day. On my way to work I was taken by the SS in a small open wagon driven by two horses. I asked the driver to let me escape and he said he
couldn’t because right behind was the SS guards. But it was dark and I jumped and
escaped.
Later on, once again, I was sent to another concentration camp Bilkeno-Auschwitz in Poland. It was so horrible that I thought this was the end. I was there for some time before they asked for volunteers for work. In order to survive I volunteered but they didn’t want to take me. I went to the side where the guards couldn’t see me and I hit my face in order to gain some color (as my complexion had become a sickly white). I got in line again and they accepted me and gave me a tattoo on my left forearm with the number B-1259. I was sent to Jaworzno, about 30 kilometers from Auschwitz. There I worked in the coal mines.
The English bombed the area. We were evacuated and the SS made us walk for two weeks surviving on only two small potatoes in the evening. No water or liquids provided. This was around December, 1944. During this two week walk many people died either from hunger, exhaustion or killed by the SS. They were left behind in the snow.
When we arrived at Gross-Rosen they gave us soup. Later we were put inside open train wagons that took us to Buchenwald, a very large Concentration Camp. I was there for a few months. There was very little food. We were provided with a small slice of bread and watery soup. People died every day. You could see literally mountains of dead people. There was no place to sleep, I slept on the floor.
One day they called the identification number tattooed on my arm in order to be transported by train inside wagons used for transporting cows. With a group of people we were transported to Bisingen near Stuttgart, Germany. I worked in Bisingen making oil by burning flowers where the oil would go inside pipelines.
Later on, after the SS took my shoes and left me barefoot, a group of us were sent to Dachau, Germany. I saw a mountain of dead people and I took the shoes from a dead person.
About 5,000 of us were placed in closed train wagons which had about 50 people and two SS guards inside each wagon. We were being sent to Tirol in the Austrian Alps. The SS gave each person a large empty potato sack, the purpose of the sack, we learned later, was for the person to climb into the sack for the SS to seal and then throw into the river where we would drown.
Because Tirol is in very high terrain the train couldn’t quite make it to the top. So they disconnected half of the wagons. I was in the wagons left behind. This was about the end of April 1945. Three days later the train came back. As the German train got close to Tirol the SS discovered that the Americans were there. They connected all the wagons to the train and took us back to Dachau. Prior to arriving in Dachau the Germans discovered that the Americans had liberated Dachau. We stayed in the train between Dachau and Tirol still guarded by the SS. Two days prior to being liberated a large truck from the Red Cross arrived with supplies. They gave us a package of food
Later on, once again, I was sent to another concentration camp Bilkeno-Auschwitz in Poland. It was so horrible that I thought this was the end. I was there for some time before they asked for volunteers for work. In order to survive I volunteered but they didn’t want to take me. I went to the side where the guards couldn’t see me and I hit my face in order to gain some color (as my complexion had become a sickly white). I got in line again and they accepted me and gave me a tattoo on my left forearm with the number B-1259. I was sent to Jaworzno, about 30 kilometers from Auschwitz. There I worked in the coal mines.
The English bombed the area. We were evacuated and the SS made us walk for two weeks surviving on only two small potatoes in the evening. No water or liquids provided. This was around December, 1944. During this two week walk many people died either from hunger, exhaustion or killed by the SS. They were left behind in the snow.
When we arrived at Gross-Rosen they gave us soup. Later we were put inside open train wagons that took us to Buchenwald, a very large Concentration Camp. I was there for a few months. There was very little food. We were provided with a small slice of bread and watery soup. People died every day. You could see literally mountains of dead people. There was no place to sleep, I slept on the floor.
One day they called the identification number tattooed on my arm in order to be transported by train inside wagons used for transporting cows. With a group of people we were transported to Bisingen near Stuttgart, Germany. I worked in Bisingen making oil by burning flowers where the oil would go inside pipelines.
Later on, after the SS took my shoes and left me barefoot, a group of us were sent to Dachau, Germany. I saw a mountain of dead people and I took the shoes from a dead person.
About 5,000 of us were placed in closed train wagons which had about 50 people and two SS guards inside each wagon. We were being sent to Tirol in the Austrian Alps. The SS gave each person a large empty potato sack, the purpose of the sack, we learned later, was for the person to climb into the sack for the SS to seal and then throw into the river where we would drown.
Because Tirol is in very high terrain the train couldn’t quite make it to the top. So they disconnected half of the wagons. I was in the wagons left behind. This was about the end of April 1945. Three days later the train came back. As the German train got close to Tirol the SS discovered that the Americans were there. They connected all the wagons to the train and took us back to Dachau. Prior to arriving in Dachau the Germans discovered that the Americans had liberated Dachau. We stayed in the train between Dachau and Tirol still guarded by the SS. Two days prior to being liberated a large truck from the Red Cross arrived with supplies. They gave us a package of food
and quietly, so that the SS could not hear, told us we were going to be freed. I thought
to myself, how can I be free if I’m still being guarded by the SS and had to return to the
train.
The next day night, May 1, 1945, the Americans came in with tanks and liberated us. A group of us found a home near the train tracks where we slept for 3 days in a row. I ate the whole package of food given to us by the Red Cross and ended up with terrible diarrhea.
Later, black American soldiers in army trucks took us to Feldafing, an American military camp. It was the first time I had ever seen a black person.
In Feldafing I worked in the kitchen serving food. That is where I met my wife, which I married in the camp on July 3, 1946.
We traveled by cargo boat to Guatemala (I had an uncle that lived there). We lived in Guatemala for 22 years and raised a family of 2 boys and one girl. In Nov. 6,1969 we moved to Jerusalem, Israel where I presently reside.
To date I’ve been blessed with seven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.
The next day night, May 1, 1945, the Americans came in with tanks and liberated us. A group of us found a home near the train tracks where we slept for 3 days in a row. I ate the whole package of food given to us by the Red Cross and ended up with terrible diarrhea.
Later, black American soldiers in army trucks took us to Feldafing, an American military camp. It was the first time I had ever seen a black person.
In Feldafing I worked in the kitchen serving food. That is where I met my wife, which I married in the camp on July 3, 1946.
We traveled by cargo boat to Guatemala (I had an uncle that lived there). We lived in Guatemala for 22 years and raised a family of 2 boys and one girl. In Nov. 6,1969 we moved to Jerusalem, Israel where I presently reside.
To date I’ve been blessed with seven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.
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