One of the downsides of working as a reporter is the almost constant loss of innocence regarding individuals and organizations you once believed beyond reproach. Contrary to popular belief journalists are not born cynical. We get this way after being disappointed time and again by those from whom we expect more.
Not that I thought that every survivor was an angel, but I still had a naive belief that what these people had been through had instilled in them something else, a more exalted set of ideals and a noble attitude to life. I still believe that is true of many of them (besides, what right do I or anyone else have to hold them to a higher standard?), but still the last few weeks have been an eye-opener.
The levels of chicanery and back-stabbing between the various survivors' organizations over pensions and other delicate Holocaust money issues easily rival those of Israeli politics.
Perhaps we have no right to expect the survivors to behave any better, but that doesn't stop me from being disappointed.
The upside is that I have come to appreciate those survivors who reinforce my original belief system. One was Sara Epstein Zarkin, the savior of over a hundred fellow-Jews from the Kovna Ghetto, whom I profiled last week, two others were the couple of friends from the same small shtetl in Poland who met last week at a wedding near Jerusalem. Both graduates of the most 'prestigious' death camps, they sat reminiscing in Yiddish about the people they had known 70 years ago.
With each newly recalled name eliciting chuckles and more old stories, jacket sleeves covering camp tattoos on their arms, an outsider looking on could have had no idea that the old world they were recreating had gone up in smoke.
My Yiddish is rudimentary at best, but it didn't matter that I understood perhaps only every tenth word. I sat beside them raptly absorbing every word, all my old views of Holocaust survivors restored.
Previous entries:August 23, 2007: Would Anne Frank even have wanted German money? August 21, 2007: The truth about the Satmar 'victory'August 17, 2007: A few observations on the richest Jew on the planetAugust 12, 2007: Fuchs isn't the only 'bastard'August 10, 2007: Too tired to blog, but...August 8, 2007: 'You bet I'm going on this march'August 7, 2007: Training for the war that won't beAugust 6, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
going thru a holocaust.i have read the stories of how some turned traitor against their own in the camps and of how some died trying to help their fellows survive just another day when they themselves went to their deaths and i have seen how some came out worse than they went in some becoming "doctors"that think abortion is a good idea to "save"children from having to suffer in this world.the experience of a holocaust can drive a normal person insane.then of course some came out stronger than they went in.just living in this age is enough trauma for me-i dont think i'm strong enough to survive a holocaust.
As A therapist who has had to deal with the traumas of survivors and their children, I hope you never understand.That is a blessing to you. you cannot imagine what that young boy, went thru', and obviously never tried.Do you have any idea of his emotional scars? obviously not. do you know what courage it takes to talk about such trauma? obviously not. So spare us the obvious and remain silent on a topic that is beyond you.
If you proper English man then it is no surprise to me of your reactions. IF you are a Jew you should be ashamed to call yourself one. Tell me where you there? If you were then you have a right to say something. If you were not there then do us a favor and shut up. As for the writer who is he to tell us that all people are saints. People want to survive and some did what ever they could to do that. Do judge others for you do not know what you would have done in the same situation.
#7 who are you to criticize how a person handles the tragic death of his family and what this man was exposed to at the age of 12. HOW DARE YOU!! Maybe this is this person?s way of dealing with his grief all these years. You don?t mention if he was married and you know if he has a job or not. Can you imagine what it is like to lose your immediate family and your extended family at such a young age? It was a traumatic experience for adults let alone children. Put yourself at the age of 12 and think of how you might have turned out. Most of my father?s family perished in Auschwitz and the few who survived (5 out of over 100) have made lives for themselves. My father?s cousin went on to open successful business, receive a higher education, had careers, have family, have children, have grandchildren and even great grand children. From two people who survived there is now living over 20 descendants.
"May be we don't have the rigth to judge them" That's what you say. So Why are you disapointed? This is a personal feeling of no interest for us. Specially if this is the only thing that you have to say. Shalom
When I came to Israel in 2000, i heard an American Jew speak at a "reconciliation and peace" meeting, supposedly giving his story. Obviously in his 70s, he was still dining out on - maybe living off - his terrible experiences as a 12 year old escaping from Nazis who took the rest of his family. His account was repeatedly punctuated by repetition of "But I was only a little tiny boy . . ." Age 12 ? - come on. He was pathetic, quavering through a story that he said he relates to some group or another about once a week. He worked up some of his hearers into distraught hysterical sobbing, a reaction which seemed to be acceptable to the Christian organizers of the meeting. Unsurprisingly, I changed my mind about a planned visit to Yad Vashem the next day. Someone in USA should have helped this "little tiny boy" to grow up and move on to being thankful for his escape and to working for reconciliation in a wider world. That would be a triumphant survival as described in the article.
It's a random collection of people with all the flaws of any random collection of people.
Over three hundred words to say nothing. Wonder if your self righteousness kept you from taking payment for this. Ha'aretz must have been desperate to fill space.
It's not enough what they went through in the shoah, you have to criticize them for not coming out of it as saints? We all understand today that survivors of terror attacks have post-traumatic stress, and that was often just a one-time event. The fact that they survived and became contributing members of society; maybe even, G-d willing, raised children; why can't that be enough?
Judaism teaches that no human is infallible, and that no one should be worshipped as G-d but G-d. I find this teaching to be extremely valuable in understanding the world. The survivors of the Shoah were heroic in their survival all these decades, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for this heroic feat and for imparting to us the Jewish tradition. But to deny questioning their behavior in any matter contradicts the most fundamental teaching of Judaism itself. With that said, I think we Jews owe our survivors a comfortable life, after all that they have had to endure. I just hope that any dispensation is just and fair for all survivors concerned.
I think that, in sympathy with all that they had to endure in the concentration camps, we believe that the survivors should all personify hope in the midst of darkness. As beautiful as this ideal is, it is also erroneous. In the end, people are people, and this principle applies equally to the survivors of the Shoah as it does to anyone else. There are those who are good and noble and wise, living up to our ideals, and then there are those whose attitude and behavior are below the standard. Obviously, this does not justify the misery to which they were subjected, but it also shows that nobody, regardless of what they have had to endure, is beyond reproach.
I am surprised that most of the survivors are not killers with what they went through. Look at America and look at how we blame ourselves for the killings yes plural since the Civil Rights came into being. So they are no angels, how would you react after going through what they did.