Liberated from Auschwitz in 1979

Graduation 1979, Dr. Rotbart with his parents and brother. Photo courtesy of NYT.

Read a really powerful essay this morning in the New York Times and thought I’d share it with you.

Poised to attend his daughter’s graduation from NYU this month, a man named Harley Rotbart, M.D. was reminded of his medical school graduation in May 1979. His father, a survivor of Auschwitz who was orphaned in the war, was never able to get a proper education past middle school. When he came to the states he made his living as a fruit peddler:

He was the most brilliant fruit peddler in the history of fruit peddling, the smartest man I ever knew,” writes Dr. Rotbart.

Yet, he had a crushing inferiority complex and felt he stood out for all the wrong reasons, mainly his lack of education and thick Polish accent. He was intimidated by all the accomplishments of those around him. But at his son’s graduation a curious thing happened. Dr. Rotbart describes the emotional scene that occurred immediately after the ceremony:

After hugs from my brother and Mom, I moved on to Dad. What happened at that moment I will never forget. Crying loudly, Dad fell to his knees in what can only be described as a total emotional breakdown. He shook and shivered and sobbed. People all around turned to stare, but he didn’t notice or didn’t care. The usual self-consciousness was gone. As I dropped to my knees to face him, he held me like never before. Everyone backed away to give us space; a few applauded. Strangers took pictures. Dad and I stayed on our knees, crying and hugging for a long time, until we both had the strength to stand up. Then, holding onto each other and to my Mom and brother, we made our way out of the auditorium. We didn’t stop at the reception for cookies or punch. We just kept walking until we felt the rain on our faces.

Only later did I fully realize what had happened. On that day, and again in a similar scene at my brother’s journalism school ceremony the next year, Dad was liberated from Auschwitz. He was no longer “142178,” a Nazi victim. My father could now stand face to face with doctors, journalists and other accomplished Americans. Although uneducated himself, he had educated his kids, and that was plenty good enough. Better than good enough: it was great. No longer bound by the restraints life had forced on him, he reveled in what this new country had given him. He reveled in his family and in his fruit truck. He reveled in personally defeating Hitler. At his sons’ graduations, he graduated to freedom.

I am so touched by this man’s capacity for love and understanding for his father.  The bittersweet release that his father felt, which took more than 34 years to occur, was certainly a long-time coming. It’s sad but it’s also happy. Many, perhaps most, survivors never get (or got) a sense of closure and freedom in their lifetime. But his father did, and it happened twice. Must’ve been a beautiful scene to happen upon. And I love Dr. Rotbart’s ability to tell it in such a sweet and loving way.

Oh, Dr. Rotbart is a pediatrician and author of several books about parenting, one of which is called, No Regrets Parenting. Sounds like he learned a lot from his dad. If you click through to the essay in the Times, you’ll see several photos of his dad. Take a close look at his smile in the two fruit-related pictures. It’s genuine and gorgeous. The best kind of smile.

French Olympian Swimmer: “I Am Nothing Without Them”

French swimmer Fabian Gilot celebrates his team’s gold medal.

Cri de joie! J’aime Fabien! C’est tres cool! (Pardon my rusty high-school French, s’il vous plaît)

Earlier this week the French won the gold in this year’s 4×100 meter Freestyle Relay. Magnifique!

When Fabien Gilot, one of the team members, cheered his heart out from the pool, the crowds saw an interesting tattoo. Well, actually, they would see it soon after when photographs were posted.

The tattoo, which is written in Hebrew, אני .כלום בלעדיהם, translates to, “I am nothing without them.”

Per Tablet, Gilot, who is not Jewish, got the tattoo in honor of his grandmother’s late husband, Max Goldschmidt, who although not his grandfather, “occupied that very particularly influential role for Gilot.”

Goldschmidt grew up in Berlin and survived internment at Auschwitz before moving to France. Gilot’s father, Michel Gilot, says Goldschmidt was an inspirational figure to his son and was witness to his many athletic triumphs. Sadly, he died earlier this year and didn’t see Gilot win the gold.

Gilot senior told Ynetnews, “Max was a Jew who survived the Holocaust and Auschwitz. He was born in Berlin and moved to France after the war, in Fabien’s eyes he was a hero. He admired him and was very attached to him.”

The tattoo was not news in the French media. Gilot has others, specifically Olympic rings and three stars, one for each of his brothers.

I love this story. Wonder if there’s a French word for verklempt?

Jewish Geography, the Concentration Camp Version

Jewish Geography (there's an App for that)

A few days ago I saw my neighbor and friend across the street talking to an older woman I didn’t recognize. She motioned for me to come over, which I did.

Turns out the older woman’s mother was a Holocaust survivor. My neighbor was excited to introduce us because of the book I’m writing about my mother-in-law who, as some readers of this blog know, was born in a concentration camp.

This older woman, whose name I never got, asked me which camp my mother-in-law was born in.

“Freiberg,” I said.

Her face clearly registered disappointment.

“Well, she was born in Freiberg but liberated in Mauthausen,” I countered.

“Oh, I thought it was Auschwitz,” she said with obvious discern. “That’s where my mother was. Most people didn’t survive Auschwitz, but my mother did.”

I sensed pride in her voice.

For some odd reason I wanted to impress her so I told her that my mother-in-law was sort of in Auschwitz because she was a two-month old fetus in her mother’s belly at the time. Surely that would give her pause, yes?

Nope. She shook her head. My straw-grasping failed to impress.

Then it hit me. I was playing Jewish Geography, but the concentration camp version. This was sick. Twisted. What was I doing?

Luckily the conversation ended almost as quickly as it began because the older woman’s car was parked in front of a fire hydrant; she had to skedaddle before the parking police swooped in.

Now that I’m out there (meaning here, on this blog) and working hard to get this book written and out to the public (meaning in book stores and libraries), is this Concentration Camp version of Jewish Geography going to be a regular occurrence? It’s not that I don’t want to connect with other people — I do! — but not in a hierarchical competitive way. It felt so awkward and I was rather uncomfortable. This incident reminds me of my post about survivors trying to one-up each other in their suffering.

What do you think?

Auschwitz as Inspiration for Perspiration

A gym in Dubai called  The Circuit Factory posted an ad on its Facebook page featuring a photo of the entrance to Auschwitz with the headline, “Kiss your calories goodbye.”

Predictably, the response was good for business.

British owner Phil Parkinson told Arabian Business, “A huge number [of] people have researched or Googled … our YouTube channel has shot up, our group page got a hundred extra members in minutes and we have had about five times as many inquiries as before. It has got to the point I am nervous that I can’t cater for demand.”

Although Parkinson publicly apologized (via twitter) and took down the offensive ads, he says he used the Auschwitz photo to advertise his signature weight-loss and exercise class because “it’s like a calorie concentration camp”.

That this campaign was created doesn’t surprise me and the Anti-Defamation League hits on the very point of why that is:

“We are increasingly troubled by both the ignorance and mindset of a generation that appears to be so distant from a basic understanding of the Holocaust that it seems acceptable to use this horrific tragedy as a gimmick to bring attention to promoting losing weight.”

Parkinson took down the offensive ads and offered a public apology, but as one commenter named Momrules posted yesterday, “Phil Parkinson is 32 years old. I doubt that during his school years the holocaust was even mentioned. Maybe it is time for real history to be taught in schools again.”

By contrast, I do think Parkinson learned about the Holocaust in school, which is precisely why he knew it would cause the shitstorm it did. It’s a highly charged topic with live embers that are easily stirred. And he was well aware of the kind of reaction it would provoke. To wit, he told ThePostGame, “The way branding works is … you want people talking about your business. We want them talking about us, but we don’t want people to take offense at it.”

That last clause is disingenuous at best.

My concern is that Holocaust education today is suffering not so much from Holocaust fatigue as it is from  genocide fatigue. Genocide isn’t something that happened 66 years ago in Europe, it continued to happen after that and continues to this day. Desensitization is a dangerous thing.

Mengele, I Forgive You

Eva Kor

As many of us know first hand, hate takes a lot more energy than forgiveness, and yet for so many of us it’s hard to let go of the rage. It’s comfortable in a way because it doesn’t ask us to change, it doesn’t ask us to look deeper inside ourselves, it doesn’t ask us to consider the fragility of the other person, an enemy, someone we despise.

Eva Kor and her twin sister Miriam were among the 1,500 twins (amounting to 3,000 children) Dr. Josef Mengele experimented on in Auschwitz. After 50 years of carrying the weight of insurmountable hatred for Mengele, often called the “Angel of  Death,” Eva forgave him. That was in 1995, two years after Miriam died of bladder cancer at age 59, a direct result of being one of Mengele’s human guinea-pigs. “Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing,” says Eva on The Forgiveness Project website. “They remained the size of a child’s all her life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eva and Miriam were 10 years old when they arrived in Auschwitz. Mengele used them for many of his cruel genetic experiments, injecting them with potentially lethal strains of bacteria and not giving treatment. Mengele killed some of his twins immediately so he could dissect their bodies for research. Only 100 pairs (total of 200 children) survived his death lab. Eva and Miriam survived, if barely. There was a point when Mengele stood over a very ill Eva and said she’d be dead in two weeks.

Eva speaks eloquently about her decision to grant amnesty to Dr. Mengele: “Forgiveness is really nothing more than an act of self-healing and self-empowerment. I call it a miracle medicine. It is free, it works and has no side effects.

“I believe with every fiber of my being that every human being has the right to live without the pain of the past. For most people there is a big obstacle to forgiveness because society expects revenge. It seems we need to honor our victims but I always wonder if my dead loved ones would want me to live with pain and anger until the end of my life. Some survivors do not want to let go of the pain. They call me a traitor and accuse me of talking in their name. I have never done this. Forgiveness is as personal as chemotherapy – I do it for myself.”

If you want to learn more, watch this five-minute trailer for Forgiving Dr. Mengele, a 2006 documentary about Eva. Her dissenters, among them other surviving Mengele twins, are very vocal and given equal camera time to voice their outrage and opposition.