iom hashoa / yom hashoah / holocaust remembrance day

Five years ago I walked hand in hand from Auschwitz to Birkenau with Trudy, a Holocaust survivor, on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to remember the six million that perished, celebrate those who survived, and to show Hitler that he did not succeed. Five years later I remember what I was feeling on that walk, almost in a celebratory mood as I walked with thousands of people in a sea of blue and proud to be a part of something greater than myself. When we entered Birkenau we followed Trudy to one of the barracks where she proceeded to sit down and tell us her story sitting on the bunk of the bed where she once lived. I remember sitting on the floor of the barracks in Birkenau thinking about how terrible the atrocities that occurred but how I was so thankful to be able to have this experience, live freely, carry on the stories, and I vowed to never forget.

This year I had the opportunity to go to the memorial service held for the Buenos Aires community.  Thousands of people gathered to hear a collection of stories, poem, songs, and more. The part that touched me most was a Holocaust survivor telling her story. It was of course in Spanish so I will do my best to translate and paraphrase some of her main points. She discussed the marks that have been left on her since the Holocaust. First, she spoke about the number put on her arm at Auschwitz. When she entered the camp she told them she was 16 years old and the woman screamed at her "how dare you lie to me, you are 18, now go over there to the 18 and over line". Little did she know that this woman saved her life as all the children under 18 that day were led directly to the gas chambers. She also told us how she hurt her knee in the camp. During the final days in the camp, the Nazis came in and said everyone was being taken on a death march and they told everyone who couldn't march to stay. She was encouraged by her peers in the camp to walk and they pretty much held her up as they walked. She would not have made it otherwise. She also told us about the nonphysical marks that she is left with. For example, she is thankful every time she has a warm shower and mostly is thankful to wrap a towel around herself after a shower ("¡Que felicidad!" / What happiness!). She says it makes her quite upset when the "youngsters" complain that they do not like the food they are given because she is just so thankful to have food at all. Her ending struck me the most:

 "I still don't know why I lived, but I know for what. I want all of you to take my story and stories like mine and share them so my one story becomes retold to one, hundreds, thousands, millions of others. Until our stories are like a chorus, spread throughout the world, and never forgotten so we can ensure this will never happen again."

I vowed five years ago marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau to never forget. I feel so blessed every time I get to hear Holocaust survivors's stories and even more so hearing stories from all over the world because I am part of the last generation that gets to hear these stories directly from survivors. Taking part in a Yom Hashoah service on another continent filled me with so many emotions that ultimately boils down to a similar feeling I've had this whole year…the gratitude I have for being able to connect with our global Jewish world and do what I do each day.  I'm overcome with gratitude five years later that I got to be a part of this experience in Argentina, among thousands of others also vowing to never forget and retell the stories so a Holocaust never happens again.  

I went. I saw. I remember. And I'll never forget.