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We Survived 35 Years of the March of the Living Photos by Ziv Koren

We Survived 35 Years of the March of the Living The last of the survivors retrace their journeys of survival on the March of the Living in Poland Removed from the gas chambers while still alive surviving endless selections spending months under the most inhumane conditions several Holocaust survivors leading this year s March of the Living revisit the places of which they came out alive against all odds A special photo project in collaboration with Yediot Ahronoth Ynet Ziv Koren and the International March of the Living International March of the Living Revital Yakin Krakovsky Text Iris Lifshitz Kliger Photos Ziv Koren Designed by www giraff co il Research and production Tal Speer Debby Communications

The memory of the survivors will not be dimmed The sand in the hourglass is running low There are just a few grains left the final bits of living memory single candles flickering in the fading light The number of Holocaust survivors witnesses to the greatest atrocity in the history of humanity is dwindling Each and every one of them represents a historical document a museum artifact of inestimable value They bear with them and pass on testimonies that leave no room for doubt it happened They remind humanity at large what racism antisemitism and hatred can lead to They are living monuments to hundreds of communities that no longer exist Never shall I forget that night the first night in camp which has turned my life into one long night seven times cursed and seven times sealed Never shall I forget that smoke Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky Elie Wiesel Holocaust Survivor One of the major educational missions of our time is instilling the lessons of the Holocaust within the young generation a mission in which the March of Living has been playing a pivotal role for 35 years The importance of this mission is further enhanced in light of the recent increase in hate and antisemitic incidents around the world One of the most important tools involved in transmitting the memory of the Holocaust are the survivors and their stories How will we succeed with the mission after the last of the survivors is called to heaven Fortunately we were able to hear and document the stories of thousands of survivors and they will remain with us for eternity Alongside them are the second generation to the survivors who heard testimonials of their valor and are able to tell their parents stories All of these are important but we have another tool more important than all values The timeless values of human dignity equality and striving for good that by instilling them in future generations will ensure that humanity will never again plummet to the chasms of evil introduced by the Nazis When we started out 35 years ago we carried the memory of the 6 million people who were murdered the survivors and the billions around the world even those yet unborn We undertook then and we declare once again that so long as our march continues their memory will not be dimmed We will continue to remind perpetuate teach and forever remember never again Just a few remain Of the hundreds of survivors that regularly joined the March of the Living only 40 accompanied us this year We are shrouded by a dark cloud when we think of survivors for whom this will be the last march Who will go back once again to the cursed crematoria where they witnessed the ashes of our people ascending into the dark sky Who will never again feel the rigidity of a dusty wooden bunk that served as a bed of despair shared with 30 prisoners Who will once again look into the amazed and shining eyes of youths thirstily absorbing their stories saving it in their hearts and pledging to pass them on Even if they no longer march with us on the death track between Auschwitz and Birkenau the march of the Holocaust survivors and ours will continue to resound until the end of time It is their will and testament it is our duty Phyllis Greenberg Heideman Dr Shmuel Rosenman President The International March of the Living Chair The International March of the Living

2023 March of the living

My daughter followed in my footsteps She came to the March of the Living with her own students Hedy Bohm 95 Toronto Canada I was born in Oradea Transylvania in 1928 the only daughter of Ignatius and Ersbeth I studied at a Girls Jewish school until the 10th grade In April 1944 we were sent to the Oradea Ghetto and from there we were deported to Auschwitz Birkenau I was subjected to forced labor in a munitions factory I was liberated by American forces in April 1945 When I was 17 years old I joined a group of orphans from Hungary with the help of the Jewish Agency in Prague and received an entry visa to Canada Once I retired I began investing effort in Holocaust education not only among Jews My daughter followed in my footsteps She s a high school teacher and she came to the March of the Living with her own students

I survived the selection I was saved from the gas chambers Fate luck or both kept me alive Arek Hersh 95 Leeds England Prisoner No B7608 I was born in Sieradz Poland in 1928 When the war broke out we had to flee to Lodz Shortly thereafter I was first sent to the Otosno camp I spent 18 damned months there Of 2500 men only 11 survived including me The Lodz Ghetto was liquidated in 1942 and my family was sent to the Chelmno death camp where they were murdered I was deported to Auschwitz along with 185 orphans I was 14 years old Against all odds I survived the selection I was saved from the gas chambers Only 40 of the 5000 people from my town survived the horrors Somehow fate luck or both kept me alive My granddaughter works in the White House We Jews will continue to reach everywhere and we won t let anyone persecute us The Holocaust must never happen again

There are no words to convey what my thin and weakened body along with those of the other helpless prisoners were forced through during Mengele s experiments Irene Zisblatt 95 Miami Florida USA I was born in Ukraine My family was deported to the ghetto where we lived under harsh conditions From there we were deported to Auschwitz I am the only one of 40 members of my family who survived the inferno Mengele performed experiments on me that are beyond human comprehension Only a monstrous animal like him could plan experiments for the bodies of Jewish children and teenagers He tried to change my eye color I m not even sure there are words that can convey what my thin and weak body and those of the other helpless prisoners went through there The world will never understand I am one of the few who survived out of some 1000 children I was with I managed to get out of hell on the death march I survived As long as I am here on earth I will continue to tell my story I will be here for those who did not survive the horrors It is so important to tell so that you will continue to act as our voice for future generations Every step I take in this damned camp is a triumph I will come back here again and again because I am free Halina Birnbaum 94 Herzliya Israel Prisoner No 48693 I was born in Warsaw in 1929 the eldest daughter of Paula and Jacob Greenstein I was 10 years old when World War II broke out We were relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto I was there in a bunker during that ghetto uprising In 1943 we were sent to Majdanek My mother was shot immediately in the showers My young cousin and I were also brought into the showers It was quiet inside quiet outside We both knew we were going to die However the next day they took us out of there It turned out there was a shortage of gas Getting out of the gas chamber alive borders on a great miracle On that same day I was transferred to Auschwitz Today every step I take in this damned camp is a triumph I m here I m alive I speak The past lives on in me but I don t live it I will keep coming back here again and again because I can freely enter and leave as a free person

Fate saved me several times in Birkenau I survived Arie Pinsker 93 Moshav HaYogev Israel Prisoner No 112237 I was born in 1930 in Oradea a district of northern Transylvania Romania In 1942 at the age of 12 I began my journey of survival in the ghetto relocation to the concentration and extermination camps up until the death marches the moment of liberation and finally immigration to Israel For half of my adult life about 40 years I repressed all the horrible experiences I lived through Fate saved me from death in Birkenau several times Once after arriving to Birkenau on the trains I lost grasp of my father s had and in a flash my father disappeared forever Another time I was sent to the right line at a selection the one intended for the gas chambers but fate steered me back to the left line Twelve cursed weeks in Birkenau spent mostly suffering experiments devised by human scum We were force fed parts of frogs that lived in the filth of the surrounding swamps an experiment I survived I immigrated to Israel and became one of the founders of Moshav HaYogev Arie has been presenting testimonials on journeys to Poland since 2001

The Germans erased my memory of the parents who gave birth to me but they didn t erase us the survivors Each day that we survivors live on is our victory over hate Allan Hall 88 Miami Beach Florida USA I was born in Krakow Poland in 1935 At the end of the war in September 1939 my father insisted that we flee to the Soviet side while my mother thought otherwise She had faith in their German friends and never imagined that anything bad could happen We eventually packed up and fled to Lviv We stayed there hidden until November 1941 when we were provided with documentation under a fake Christian identity A doctor helped my parents forge documents that served as a proof that an illness forced us to move to Krakow with other patients The Russians liberated Krakow on January 19 1945 and we immigrated to the USA in late 1946 Anti Semitism is on the rise in America In my opinion anti Semitism belongs to the weak the defeatists Each day that we survivors still live on is our victory over their hatred That s how I live my days until they too run out Am Yisrael Chai Aviva Ptack 83 Montreal Canada I was born in Poland in 1941 When Hitler invaded Lithuania I was a one year old baby my parents gave me to a Polish family to keep me safe They were already aware of what was going on The Germans who took over the streets had a hobby of throwing babies in the air and shooting them as if they were chickens My parents rescued me but they didn t survive They were murdered So in fact I didn t know my parents I don t have any memories of them nor will I have any My way of preserving the memory of my erased past is by volunteering at the Holocaust Museum to tell the story and I wrote a book called The Making of a Family Although they erased my memory of the parents who gave birth to me they didn t erase us the survivors

The Red Army liberated us on January 18 1945 But we were never liberated from the difficult memories Gabor Kovacs 91 Budapest Hungary I was born in Budapest in 1932 I was in high school before the war Even then we suffered antisemitism Until the day came when we were forced to wear the yellow star II remember that we received our diplomas then because the war had started My father was deported in 1944 and he perished in Mauthausen in January 1945 Other family members were deported to Auschwitz and others were victims of the Final Solution I spent the most difficult moments of the war with my mother in the Budapest Ghetto Every hour every day is etched in my memory forever The Red Army liberated us on January 18 1945 But we were never liberated from the horrific memories I was planning to come to this year s March of the Living with my wife But she sadly passed away and I decided to come anyway to set foot here on the soil of Auschwitz a victory for her and our family who were burned alive here

This is my bunk in Birkenau This is my first time coming back here again This time well dressed and at an excellent weight Nate Leipciger 95 Toronto Canada Prisoner No 133628 I was born in Chorz w Poland in February 1928 In September 1939 at 11 years old my life turned upside down when the Nazis decided to render Chorz w Judenrein and we were moved to the ghetto From there we were sent to Auschwitz I was separated from my mother and sister I survived Auschwitz Birkenau F nfteichen Gross Rosen Flossenb rg Leonberg M hldorf Braunau and two other Dachau subcamps I arrived to Birkenau Barracks No 3 here as a 15 year old boy This is my bunk I survived the worst Where was the world when millions of innocents were heinously murdered 1 5 million children where was God Since then I have returned to Auschwitz Birkenau 40 times as a Canadian representative of the Auschwitz Museum Of those times I participated in the March of the Living 20 times But this is the first time that I m lying here again on this bunk This time well dressed and at an excellent weight Every time I come back here I m a different man

I came to the March of the Living Coming back here means victory This is my first time on the March of the Living I had to come back here to tell my story to pass on to the next generation I cry every time I talk about it Steven Korda 84 Montreal Canada I was born in Budapest in 1939 My father was a successful jeweler with many German friends He saved my mother and me thanks to the gold he could offer to the Nazis I was 5 years old at the time Father arranged for me to go to the Red Cross in Buda I spent about a year there starving until one day the Germans came and took away all children over 10 1870 children were deported Only 20 returned to Miskolc My mother was sent to the Stutthof labor camp My grandparents were sent to Auschwitz There they were murdered in the gas chambers I m here today in Auschwitz for the first time to see where their lives were sacrificed so unjustly I cry every time I talk about it This is my first time on the March of the Living I had to come here to speak again and to ensure the story will pass on to the next generation I feel terrible to be here today in Auschwitz Am Yisrael Chai Reny Friedman 86 Toronto Canada My twin brother and I were born in 1937 With the help of the underground my family hid in the countryside and we wandered from place to place We spent our childhood hiding in a monastery for 4 dark years until the end of the war Having no choice we learned the Catholic prayers of the monastery Our mother was deported to Auschwitz and she miraculously survived When the war ended our father came back to pick us up and we soon returned to our Jewish roots My husband Chaim an Auschwitz survivor passed away 4 years ago I decided to come to the March of the Living to fulfill his wish coming back here means victory I had cancer 3 times Cancer will not beat me because my brother and I are among the children who defied death against all odds

I can never erase what my eyes have seen I never had a childhood but I have the present Shoshana Trister 87 Tel Aviv Israel Esther Fairbloom 81 Toronto Canada I was born in Khodoriv Poland in 1935 I was 4 years old when World War II broke out Before the war we had a wonderful life One day my father came home and announced that something terrible was about to happen in the city The deportations began in 1939 Children were separated from their parents and the men were taken to forced labor My mother hid my brother and I each in a box I sat crouched trembling and silent All around me I heard screams and shooting Once it became quiet I rose from the box and peered through the gaps in the wooden wall What my eyes saw then I can never erase ever there were several German officers who held a small baby shook him in the air holding his legs and finally throwing him to the stone paved yard A gush of blood splattered on the stones The joy and glee that came out of their mouths left me with terrible scars of post traumatic stress and I stopped talking for a long time A 4 year old girl whose voice is silent Gone 23 months we hid in a pit under a pigsty of a Polish peasant We survived thanks to the slop that the pigs were fed This year on the 35th March of the Living at the main ceremony in Birkenau camp I sang the song Come Mother along with the singer Ivri Lider He sang in Hebrew and I sang in Yiddish my mother s language and I will never stop missing her because there is only one Yiddishe Mama I was born in the Tarnopol Ghetto in Poland I was separated from my sister my mother put me in an orphanage operated by nuns in Zabrze and sent my older sister to a family that lived on a farm They kept us safe in return for meat from the slaughterhouse that my parents owned I was too young to remember my own name and date of birth details I will never know because my parents were murdered in the Holocaust After the war my aunt came looking for me and it was she who actually gave me my name Esther I remember my aunt insisted that I keep my rosary and cross I went to Canada with her after the war Through old photos I discovered one day that I have a sister in Israel and we were reunited at the age of 30 In retrospect I didn t have a childhood But I have a present and an unknown future I m still here and I don t intend on going anywhere anytime soon in order to be able to continue telling the story as much as possible

I am the only one of 105 family members who survived the Holocaust David Schaecter 94 Miami Florida USA Prisoner No 4172 I was born in 1929 near the village of Snina Slovakia In 1939 Slovakia signed an agreement with Nazi Germany In 1941 Jews were attacked and sent to labor and concentration camps My father was taken to a labor camp in 1940 followed by my mother and brother one year later Another brother who arrived at Auschwitz with me protected me until he died of dysentery in Buchenwald I am the last survivor of my area in Miami The only survivor among 105 members of my family I spent two years and 10 months in this damned place called Auschwitz Here in block 8 I didn t dare speak of it for many years I told the children that the number tattooed on my hand was their mother s phone number so I wouldn t forget I didn t get to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13 It wasn t until my son Neil reached 13 that we celebrated a Bar Mitzvah together for both of us and I read my Haftarah This is my 20th visit back to Auschwitz and I have 3 wishes I hope to see fulfilled before I finish my mission in this world that our story will reach every Jewish child that the whole world will know what happened in the Holocaust and that you the second generation and generations to come will serve as our mouthpiece because the last of us don t have much time left

We must never stop telling the world the story of the Holocaust Who will remember once we the last witnesses are no longer be here Gabriella Karin 92 Los Angeles California USA Eva Kuper 84 Montreal Canada I was born in Bratislava I hid with my family in an apartment in front of the Gestapo headquarters for 9 months We were saved by a righteous man who kept us hidden I decided to dedicate my life to passing down the memory of the Holocaust As an artist I sculpt My sculptures deal with the horrors of the Holocaust This is my way of telling the story that should forever be told I wear a medallion of a butterfly that I sculpted I distribute them on my website with one clear message as soon as I came out of hiding as soon as I was free and could go back to living fearlessly as a Jew at the end of the war I could finally spread my wings When I first became aware of this March of The Living program it fascinated me The idea of a worldwide gathering of Jewish people in solidarity marching to and through Holocaust history honoring those innocent millions that so brutally were murdered by the Nazis just fired me up It was a holy cause to me and I wanted to be an inseparable part of this movement I have gained from this experience a deep gratifying emotional balm that was soothing and healing My message to the younger generations is Do NOT ever be complacent Do NOT ever be apathetic or indifferent to emerging evil I was born in Sandomierz Poland in 1939 When the Holocaust began we were forced into the ghetto The ghetto s conditions were inhumane There was terrible overcrowding and people died of diseases After a period of time in the ghetto they began to send the Jews to their deaths There were rumors of that sort but we couldn t believe it was possible Until the day my mother stood in line for the train to Umschlagplatz But suddenly my mother s cousin ran towards us screaming that I was HER daughter Mother handed me over to life Mother knew that this was my chance to live she let go of my hand and said Go to your mother A mother s resourcefulness Thanks to her I am here now She was murdered I was saved from dysentery too against all odds As if the hand of God must have touched me Otherwise I have no explanation to this day And I will never know why I am alive and not my mother My journey of survival included hiding with a Pole named Hanke an illustrator of children s books who was already taking care of another Jewish girl named Zosia She took me in too But when she fell ill we were transferred to a monastery in Zakopane After the war my aunt who was still alive found out I survived too and took me to her house in Bielsko My father survived as well and we met after the war I treasure and remember my escape of the Holocaust with many miracles The question that bothers me is who will remember once we the last of the witnesses is no longer here That moment is right around the corner

A Vow In the presence of eyes which witnessed the slaughter Which saw the oppression the heart could not bear And as witness the heart that once taught compassion Until the days came to pass that crushed human feeling I have taken an oath To remember it all To remember not once to forget Forget not one thing to the last generation When degradation shall cease To the last to its ending When the rod of instruction shall have come to conclusion An oath Not in vain passed over the night of terror An oath No morning shall see me at flesh pots again An oath Lest from this we learned nothing Abraham Shlonsky translated by Herbert Bronstein

The International March of the Living is a world renowned educational program which brings students Holocaust survivors educators and distinguished leaders from around the world to learn the history of the Holocaust and the modern State of Israel With a successful 35 year record of meaningful impact on the lives of many millions around the world the March of the Living is one that dramatically enlightens a diverse population on the history implications and lessons of this darkest chapter in human history The highlight of the annual March of the Living experience culminates during the two most important days in recent Jewish history as participants observe Yom Hashoah Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland and Yom Ha atzmaut Independence Day in Israel The impressions gleaned during this journey from darkness to light are life changing and long lasting In addition to Poland marches are held throughout the year in Israel and in several European countries where Jews had lived and flourished prior to their annihilation We march whenever possible to declare NEVER MEANS NEVER SUPPORT THE INTERNATIONAL MARCH OF THE LIVING 35 MOTL ORG DONATE 2 WEST 45TH STREET SUITE 1500 NEW YORK NY 10036 75