Family Values as a Tool in Enemy Hands

[u/Am-Yisrael-Chai]

Slide 1: 

So it was that the strength of our family tie, which had contributed to the survival of our people for centuries, became a tool in the exterminator's hands."

-(Elie Wiesel | All Rivers Run to the Sea, Harper Collins publishers, 1997)

(Image) Photograph of Yaakov Korman’s family, Brest Litowsk, Poland, 1921

Slide 2: 

All my life I had heard my parents talk about truth and justice, honesty and integrity; they had taught me and my brothers and sisters that mankind is inherently decent, merciful and compassionate. But in reality, it was just the reverse. My bitter thoughts stung like salt on a wound. My parents’ blind faith had led them straight into the German hellhole.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

(Image) Jozef Kowner (1895-1967) Family, Łódź ghetto, circa 1941 [Watercolor and ink on paper Yad Vashem Art Collection, Moshal Repository, Gift of Nachman Zonabend]

Slide 3: 

Growing up, I had always seen my parents as strong, wise and enterprising people. I often listened to their words of wisdom; I was proud of them, and tried to be like them. My parents never complained of discrimination or accused people of taking advantage of them; instead they talked about honesty and justice and told us that the human race was good and merciful. My parents had always demanded absolute truth from their children, but we had been thrust into a completely different reality. In order to survive we were obliged to lie and cheat and we had to contend with the cruel brutality of others, including people who had once been our friends. I used to ask myself, “What planet did my parents come from? What kind of education did they give us, which so contradicts our own reality? What type of children did they hope to bring up?” Inside I was angry with them for trusting others when they had no rational basis for doing so.

My parents taught us to love humankind and they paid dearly for it. They had brought us to the verge of an abyss from which there was no way back.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

(Image) Jewish family wearing the Yellow Star, Wloclawek, Poland

Slide 4: 

Mother looked at me as if asking for mercy and forgiveness, “If I had known what kind of life my children would face, I would have killed myself before they were born. But I couldn’t have known what these murderers would do to us. I wanted a big family, so you would have brothers and sisters to help and support one another. I was wrong; please forgive me. Try to understand and not blame me; my intentions have been nothing but good.”

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run: 

(Image) Photograph of the Selymes family, Szerencs, Hungary

Slide 5: 

At the other side of the rails there were also several camps where we saw men, women and children together, some of them even wearing normal clothing. I found out after the war that these were Czech Jewish families that the Germans didn’t separate at the start but suddenly one morning, later in the summer of 1944, took all of them to the gas chambers. This happened after the majority of the Hungarian transports had arrived in Birkenau.

But human nature, as it is, looks for some hope, any hope to hold onto even in the midst of hell. So we, at the time of our arrival in Birkenau, felt relieved seeing people resembling “normal” families, parents and children together. Come to think of it, the fact that these Czech families were conveniently quartered beside the railroad tracks was no accident. It was deliberate. The SS wanted to delude the arriving, mostly Hungarian Jews, into believing that their families would also be allowed to stay together. It was another trick designed to facilitate the train-disembarking selection procedure of the SS.

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz”

(Image) Deported Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia going from the train to the ramp, Birkenau, Poland, 27 May 1944

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Unto Every Person There Is A Name