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?

Who knew? Mario Balotelli is (sorta) Jewish.

Mario Balotelli at Auschwitz; photo: Getty

Mario Balotelli,  the  Ghana-born Italian soccer star who led Italy into the Euro 2012 soccer championship finals yesterday, was raised by a Jewish Italian foster mother from the age of three. Holy hummus on pita, Batman!

Out of courtesy and respect, Balotelli and his Man City teammates visited Auschwitz while in Poland for Euro 2012. At one point he sat down on the train tracks that transported millions of people to their death and stared silently into the distance. Later he told his teammates that three of his family members were among those killed in Auschwitz. According to the European Jewish Press, he’d never shared that information with anyone before.

Balotelli, who is 21 years old, told The Sun that when he was 18 he found letters and documents that revealed his mother’s tragic  past.

He dedicated his two goals against Germany to his mother, Silvia Balotelli, who had come from Italy to watch him play.

 “At the end of the game when I went to my mother, that was the best moment,” he said. “I told her these goals were for her. I waited a long time for this moment, especially as my mother is not young anymore and can’t travel far, so I had to make her happy when she came all the way here.”

Balotelli dedicates his two goals against Germany to his mom, Silvia Balotelli. photo: ejp.com

Miss Holocaust Survivor? Oy.

Waiting to hear their names called… photo: courtesy of The Sun

First they were fighting for their lives. Now they’re fighting for the crown?

Yesterday in Haifa, Israel, 14 female Holocaust survivors aged 74 to 97 competed in a beauty pageant for the title of Miss Holocaust Survivor (at the very least they could have extended the courtesy of Ms. Holocaust Survivor.) Shimon Sabag, director of Yad Ezer L’Haver (Helping Hand), the organization that produced this event, said that the pageant was a celebration of life and that “the fact that so many women entered prove that it’s a good idea.”

I beg to differ.

That so many women — the 14 contestants came from a pool of 300 — does not mean it was a good idea. I’m no scientist but if you’re going to use the words “fact” and (a variation of the word) “proof,” it should at least pass the smell test. And this pageant reeks of wrong on so many levels.

Critics have alternately described the pageant as macabre, inappropriate, misguided, offensive, and gimmicky. I believe it is all those things. And it’s surely in bad taste.

Ms. Sabag says  the winners were chosen based on their personal stories of survival and rebuilding their lives after the war.  She’s quick to note that “physical beauty was only a tiny part of the competition.” Grrr.

I wonder if she and the other organizers of this pageant were responding to the fact that survivors  —and their children and grandchildren — are desperate to keep the stories of the Holocaust alive. There are so many books and memoirs out there and many people complain that there’s nothing left to be said, or at least nothing new. This was a nice deflection perhaps, to offer up something new to talk about something that’s becoming increasingly old. But even so, it still feels crass and misguided.

I like what Gal Mor of Israeli site, Holes in the Net, wrote:

“Why should a decayed, competitive institution that emphasizes women’s appearance be used as inspiration, instead of allowing them to tell their story without gimmicks? This is one step short of ‘Survivor-Holocaust’ or ‘Big Brother Auschwitz.’ It leaves a bad taste.”

Indeed it does. What do you think?

Culling as Fast as She Can…

USHMM curator Kyra Schuster, right.
Photo credit: Bruce R. Bennett/The Palm Beach Post

Every few  weeks Kyra Schuster flies down to Palm Beach County in Florida to meet with Holocaust survivors. Yeah, so what, you may ask. Well, here’s what:

Ms. Schuster is a curator for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and makes these trips as often as she can to retrieve the precious artifacts and remnants that many survivors have carried with them all these years: diaries and suitcases and photos and postcards. All tangible reminders and in some instances testimony to their experiences.

Reminds me a bit of “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien‘s book about what soldiers carried with them in Vietnam. [I’m aware it’s a bit anachronistic to refer to an earlier war using a literary catchphrase from a later war, but please give me some slack, or at least some poetic license.]

“Kyra Schuster is a treasure hunter who measures her victories in tattered scraps of paper and suitcases that outlived their owners,” is how Lona O’Connor described her in last Sunday’s Palm Beach Post.

Ms. Schuster says she loves her job and from my vantage point, what’s not to love? Sure, the subject of the Holocaust is inherently a downer but I kind of have a bit of job envy here. What an endlessly fascinating project to be working on. Well, not endlessly, obviously, and that’s kind of the point.

Per stats mentioned in the article, the median age of survivors in Palm Beach County (which has the second largest community of survivors in the country, estimated to be between 12,000 and 18,000) is 85. That means Ms. Schuster has to cull these artifacts as fast as she can, before they are lost to history by death and default.

A lot of people work best under pressure; deadlines impose a ticking clock and death is the ultimate deadline. Schuster seems to handle it with grace.

Her retrieval and acquisition of these items is not really about the objects themselves, but about the people who donate them. She hears their stories and weaves them into the exhibition for historical context.

The USHMM receives more than 800 calls a year from people with artifacts from Jews living during the Nazi era and the post-war displaced persons camps. My mother-in-law Hana Berger Moran, who was born in German concentration camp, was one of those callers. A baby born in a camp seems unfathomable, but it happened and Hana is living proof. A few years ago she donated her newborn clothes to the museum. They were made by women in her mother’s camp who managed to scrounge up scraps of cloth to make her a shirt and hat. They even found a bit of colored thread to stitch both a pink and a blue flower,  not sure if the baby would be a girl or a boy.

Holocaust Humor, Sardonically Yours

Stumbled upon this comic strip called Edge City, “a groundbreaking comic strip that follows a hip Jewish-American family.” It just ended a three-week stint of a Holocaust-themed storyline. Not an easy thing to do, for sure, and as can be expected, some worked better than others. I’ve selected four to share. If you’re interested in the story behind the story, check out this Q&A with the cartoonist, Terry LaBan.

I Was Born in a Concentration Camp Too!

(Mad Men Spoiler Alert!)

Mad Men, that perennially hot TV show that kept fans waiting 16 months between fixes, now has a Jewish copywriter. His name is Michael Ginsberg. Being a Jewish copywriter myself (or, more accurately, a copywriter who happens to be Jewish), I was initially intrigued by this new character. But last night’s episode threw me for a loop. Michael told fellow copywriter Peggy Olson that he was born in a concentration camp. (For those less familiar with Mad Men, it’s a period-based show set in late 1960s New York City). Peggy, obviously disturbed by this pronouncement, later told her boyfriend that it just couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Michael feels it can’t be true either, and feels his stepfather must have lied to him. His stepfather also “conveniently” told him that his real mother died in the camp.

I’m interested to see where this particular storyline goes since it’s eerily like the basis of my book about my mother-in-law who really was born in a concentration camp. In 2001 when my then-boyfriend — now husband — first told me his mom was born in a camp, I was shocked. I didn’t believe it was even possible, as I assumed all pregnant women were killed and if one was lucky enough to slip by Mengele, I figured that child would instantly be killed at birth. Apparently, that isn’t necessarily so.

My very much alive-and-kicking mother-in-law, Hana Berger Moran (age 67), was indeed born in a concentration camp. In fact, there are at least three babies who were born in concentration camps that I’m aware of, which leads me to believe there must be others. Each of these babies and their mothers defied the odds to survive, which I believe was due much in part to circumstance and luck. But of course, that’s only part of the story.

Can’t wait to see where the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, goes with this subplot. He best not disappoint.

Yom Hashoah, From Far Away…

My husband, Thomas Dov Berger, was born in Israel and lived there until he was nine years old. I spoke with him earlier today (he’s away on a business trip) and asked him to put down his thoughts about Yom Hashoah. It’s a much different memorial in Israel than it is here in the States. Here, let him tell you…

Israeli traffic stops for 2 minutes for Yom Hashoah

At 10am today, did you hear sirens?

At 10am did cars stop on the freeways? Did trains stop in their tracks? Did planes stop on taxiways?

At 10am, did everyone stop what they were doing, stand at attention, and for two minutes, while the sirens wailed, remember the six million dead?

Imagine, if you can, growing up in a country, as I did, where you set aside a day to remember your ancestors who were murdered in a systematic and industrial manner. There are no barbeques on this day, there are no white sales on this day. This is a day for reflection and quiet. This day forces you to come to terms with everything about your beliefs and your heritage and that you, as a people, were almost wiped completely from the face of the earth.

This day, Yom HaShoah, marks the beginning of a week of remembrance that culminates with Yom Hazikaron, Israeli memorial day, our day for remembering our war dead, and ends with Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day.

Yom HaShoah is the day to remember the grandfather I never knew, my mom’s father, the father she never knew [killed by Nazis a couple months before she was born in a concentration camp]. I also remember the countless relatives whose names I will never know, who are simply gone, without a trace, without a marker.

Most of all, however, this day reminds me that I should never forget, and I should never forgive. And I hold that feeling to this day, in this country, where I am sitting in my hotel room, 2500 miles away from my family, preparing for my work day, where as I proceed through my business meetings and presentations to clients, everyone around me will have no idea what this day means to me. I hold it inside. I keep it to myself. And I remember: לא נשכח ולא נסלח

Tom

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?

Hard-Rocking the Holocaust

David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed

Rich Cohen is going to have to add this guy to his list of Tough Jews.

No, he’s not a 1930s Jewish gangster, he’s 21st century rock star David Draiman, the gravel-voiced lead singer of popular heavy-metal band Disturbed. And he comes by his musical talent honestly:

The person that they say I get my voice from was my great-grandfather who was the head cantor of the Gerrer Hasidische bes medresh in Jerusalem. I basically spent 17 years studying the Talmud and the Tanach, and Judaism in general, and was probably about, I would say, two or three years away from smicha, from being ordained.”

A piece in The Jerusalem Post last year describes him as, “one of the few high-profile hard rock singers who are defiantly Jewish – imagine a young Ozzy Osbourne as the spokesman for the Jewish Defense League.”

When asked how he deals with the inevitable skinhead fans of Disturbed, he replies,

I’m incredibly defiant against neo-Nazis and skinheads…I’ve always been very proud of my heritage and where I come from, and I’ve defended it to the extent of being bloodied on many occasions. In fact, most of the fights I’ve [had] in my life – and there have been many – have been because I was defending my family or my faith. And I don’t apologize for it.”

All I can say is this guy is one bad-ass Jew. Glad he’s on my side.

Let me leave you with this little gem from his podcast with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:

I think I do enough good as an individual in terms of setting tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people free and making them feel stronger than they did when they came in the building, on a relatively nightly basis. So, there you go. That’s God’s work.”

When “Never Again” Means “Maybe”

Movie still from "In Darkness," courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

After the success of her 1990 film Europa, Europa, director Agnieszka Holland swore she’d never do another  Holocaust movie. 

“I feel like I said all I wanted to say,” she tells SFGate.com. She even lists the potential dangers of fictionalizing the Holocaust in an interview with the Washington Post:

Being moralistic, being sentimental, looking for some good-feeling lesson coming from this experience, because I think it’s impossible to have one. Making all the Jewish characters some kind of faceless angels. To make it black and white. To make it accusatory. To re-create clichés that have already been told many times.”

Oh, and then there are these beauties, in reference to being pursued by a screenwriter and producer team:

They wanted to make it as an English film with some American star playing the lead. I have seen these English-speaking Holocaust films, and I think they are bad.

I didn’t want to make another Holocaust story in English. I just felt that it would be fake.”

And yet, In Darkness, her new Holocaust film about a Polish petty thief who helped save Jews by helping them navigate the sewer system, is up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. What made this one different?

The screenwriter kept coming back to me, and at some point I started having dreams about it, so I thought maybe I better do it. And they agreed to shoot it in the original languages (Polish, German, Yiddish and Ukrainian). I wanted the audience to experience the movie, to really have the feeling that they made the journey and I think language is important to that.”

I haven’t seen the film yet, but it’s on my list. If you’ve seen it, please share your thoughts (without disclosing any spoilers, of course) in the space below.