We wish you A Happy New Year !
Oana & the Romanian students
luni, 29 decembrie 2008
marți, 1 iulie 2008
Jewish Community in Barlad, Romania
The Jewish History in Romania
Among the most popular Yiddish hits in America was one which reminisced about life in the old country: "Romania, Romania, Romania!" Written by Aaron Lebedeff, a star of the Yiddish stage, "Romania" remains a beloved hit. Throughout the Diaspora, despite the bitter hardships to which Jews were subject to, they could still be sentimental about their old homes. "Once there was a beautiful land-Romania! Life was so good! No cares, just wine, mamaligeh (Romanian porridge), beautiful girls, and merriment!"
Romania is a country with a rich Jewish Heritage. The first Jews are believed to have arrived along with the Roman legions who invaded Dacia (today's Romania) in 101 AD. During the Middle Ages, Jewish immigrants began settling in Wallachia and Moldova. By the early 16th Century, their numbers once again swelled by the arrival of immigrants (Ashkenazim Jews) fleeing persecution in Poland and Ukraine. During the next two centuries the Romanian Jewish Community evolved into a prosperous middle class in charge of much of the country's trade. The modern history of Romania's Jews mirrors the experience of other European Jewish communities; a dynamic cultural and spiritual life in the face of recurrent periods of anti-Semitism. After 1948 emigration to Israel and other countries significantly reduced the number of Jews living in Romania.
The Jewish Community in Barlad
The first synagogue in Barlad was built in 1789.
In 1899 there were 5,883 Jews in Barlad, representing 24.2% of the entire population; nowadays there are 34 Jews.
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The Jewish community was a very important presence in Barlad, contributing to the prosperity of the town by building the first Jewish hospital in 1898 and an asylum for elderly people, in 1902.
.png)
In 1873 the first school, having three classrooms and 90 students was inaugurated under the initiative of the bureau of the “Bnei Brit Tzion” (”The Covenanters of Zion”) and with the sole investment of the Jewish community.
In 1896 the first school for girls “De Hirsch Baroness” was opened.
The first evening courses for adults were initiated by the community.
The Jewish High school functioned until 1944-1945.
Personalities
Some of the most reputed teachers of the town were of Jewish origin, for example Ioan Barbalat, teacher of mathematics with studies at Sorbonne.
Virgil Duda (Leibovici Rubin ) is a well known writer who says in memories about his hometown:" For me it (Barlad) has remained the center of the Universe”.
Radu Nichita Rapaport is known for having translated Shakespeare.
A. Axelrad, poet, began his literary activities under the influence of “The Emigration on Foot”
Marcel Saragea is considered the father of physiopathology in Romanian medical schools.
David Solomonovici-painter
Shimon Rubinstein-historian
Martin Bercovici- Energetic engineering
Barbu Zaharescu (Bercu Zukerman)-Social sciences
Marcel Saragea-honorary member of the Academy for Medical Sciences
Professor Dr. Miron Segall-Medical Sciences
Professor Dr . Paul Pruteanu (Pincu Solomonovici)-Researcher in the past of the Moldavian medicine
Industry and Economy
“In Barlad everybody knew when the Jewish celebrated their holidays since all the shops were closed”.-old townsman
Barlad served as a wheat marketing centre for all the neighbouring counties. In the year 1887, out of the 954 merchants, 389 were Jews.
Industrial enterprises founded by Jews in Barlad:
Zeilig-Saraga mill and sons;
Unirea mill - I. Edelstein; Knitwear factory - Adolf Cahane;
Wadding factory - Glasberg,
Iancu Rosenstein and Max Rosner - bakers.
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Mass Media
I. SCHECHTER
Editor for "Viata noastra" and editor-in-chief for "Izvoare", first editor at "Ultima ora". He was laureate of the Zion Price for literature. He was member of the Association of the Israeli Writers of Romanian Language. "The satire doesn't correct the customs, but it denounces them and makes fun of them… the villains are incurable". … Here are their "Ten Commandments"…
Ten Commandments I.Do not kill continuously. II.Do not steal in all foolishness. III.Do not endorse. IV.Be watchful in your sleep. V.Do not regret the crimes before committing them. VI.Do not be afraid to compromise yourself. VII.Be what you seem. VIII.Do otherwise. IX.Honor the ones who pay for it. X.Kiss yourself.
.png)
Persecution
In the year 1867 the Christians brought a libel against the Jews in Barlad accusing them of killing a monk. The rabble fell upon Jewish homes. The government ordered an investigation into the matter, and the Minister of the Interior announced in parliament that the Jews were at fault in this incident.
In 1868 another riot occurred because of the feud between a Greek and a Jew. In the year 1870 the French consul protested against the persecution of the Jews in Barlad and demanded intervention by the responsible world powers.
In the year 1886 a new wave of persecution occurred which brought about the beginnings of Jewish emigration out of the city.
In the fall of 1899 emigration from Barlad increased. Every two to three days about ten to fifteen families left. At the beginning of 1900 the flow of emigration had been established to such an extent that it was from Barlad that the initiative to emigrate spread throughout the country. It became the movement known as “Emigration on Foot”. In the spring of that year two organized groups of “Emigrants on Foot” left the country, one of them consisting of seventy-two souls and the second of thirty- eight.
The total number of Jews who left Barlad between the years 1899 and 1902 came to six hundred. The emigrees even published a newsletter for themselves, “Emigrantii”, “Dati Ajutor” and a newsletter for women with the Hebrew name, “Bat Ami” (”Daughter of My People”).
In 1907 an anti-Semitic club was established by teachers, priests and political leaders. This club incited the students of the gymnasium to riot against the Jews. Two of the students who took part in the riots were expelled from the school, and, in protest against their expulsion, the others organized and equipped themselves with axes and clubs, and burst into the Jewish quarter destroying and looting. Eighty shops owned by Jewish merchants and craftsmen were damaged during the rampage.
.png)
In the period between the two world wars Barlad was a center of pogroms. The Christian teachers in the government gymnasium, headed by the school principal Cezar Ursu,, used to regularly incite the students against the Jews. Their pogroms increased when the students in the Romanian universities began to demand a “numerus clausus” against Jews. Whenever the Jewish youth had any kind of cultural event, they used to organize anti-Semitic demonstrations.
During the Hollocaust
The sufferings of the local Jews increased during the days of the terror of the “Iron Guard”. In November 1940, Jewish males were taken for forced labor. After a short time the academics among them were let go. This was the result of protests from the Romanian academic community, who threatened that they too would come to work together with their Jewish colleagues. Four Jewish students were arrested and convicted of promulgating Communist opinions. They were tortured in order to extract their confessions. At the trial, which took place on November 19th, 1940, they were acquitted.
With the outbreak of war between Romania and the Soviet Union in June of 1941, all the Jews from the villages of the county were deported into Barlad. In the spring of 1943 the hospital, the old folk's home and the bath-house were confiscated by the “National Centre for Romanization”.
With their retreat from the advancing Red Army, the Al German forces under the command of General Woehler came into Barlad. The general suggested exterminating all the Jews of the place under the pretext that the Jews were trying to trade with his soldiers. Only the developments on the front, which were to the disadvantage of the Germans, spoiled this plan. Four Jews of Barlad, who were suspected of being Communists, were exiled to the camp at Vapniarca. They returned some time later.
After the war, life returned to normality, and the community continued its regular activities.
The chief of police in the time of the Holocaust, Ion Hagiu, who persecuted the Jews during his tenure, was sentenced in 1949 to three years in prison.
The Jewish Community nowadays
Nowadays only a few Jewish families live in Barlad (34, most of which old people).
The old synagogue was destroyed in the communist era. There is now a prayer house where the small community gathers every Sunday.
The Jewish cemetery, built in 1845 can still be visited.
The museum in Barlad houses the impressive collection of furniture belonging to Dr. Wainfeld.
The president of the community is Mr. Bernat User, born in 1927.
Resources:
Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities in Romania http://www.jewishgen.org
The Romanian Jewish Community
Photos from
private collections
.png)
Among the most popular Yiddish hits in America was one which reminisced about life in the old country: "Romania, Romania, Romania!" Written by Aaron Lebedeff, a star of the Yiddish stage, "Romania" remains a beloved hit. Throughout the Diaspora, despite the bitter hardships to which Jews were subject to, they could still be sentimental about their old homes. "Once there was a beautiful land-Romania! Life was so good! No cares, just wine, mamaligeh (Romanian porridge), beautiful girls, and merriment!"
Romania is a country with a rich Jewish Heritage. The first Jews are believed to have arrived along with the Roman legions who invaded Dacia (today's Romania) in 101 AD. During the Middle Ages, Jewish immigrants began settling in Wallachia and Moldova. By the early 16th Century, their numbers once again swelled by the arrival of immigrants (Ashkenazim Jews) fleeing persecution in Poland and Ukraine. During the next two centuries the Romanian Jewish Community evolved into a prosperous middle class in charge of much of the country's trade. The modern history of Romania's Jews mirrors the experience of other European Jewish communities; a dynamic cultural and spiritual life in the face of recurrent periods of anti-Semitism. After 1948 emigration to Israel and other countries significantly reduced the number of Jews living in Romania.
The Jewish Community in Barlad
The first synagogue in Barlad was built in 1789.
In 1899 there were 5,883 Jews in Barlad, representing 24.2% of the entire population; nowadays there are 34 Jews.
.png)
The Jewish community was a very important presence in Barlad, contributing to the prosperity of the town by building the first Jewish hospital in 1898 and an asylum for elderly people, in 1902.
.png)
In 1873 the first school, having three classrooms and 90 students was inaugurated under the initiative of the bureau of the “Bnei Brit Tzion” (”The Covenanters of Zion”) and with the sole investment of the Jewish community.
In 1896 the first school for girls “De Hirsch Baroness” was opened.
The first evening courses for adults were initiated by the community.
The Jewish High school functioned until 1944-1945.
Personalities
Some of the most reputed teachers of the town were of Jewish origin, for example Ioan Barbalat, teacher of mathematics with studies at Sorbonne.
Virgil Duda (Leibovici Rubin ) is a well known writer who says in memories about his hometown:" For me it (Barlad) has remained the center of the Universe”.
Radu Nichita Rapaport is known for having translated Shakespeare.
A. Axelrad, poet, began his literary activities under the influence of “The Emigration on Foot”
Marcel Saragea is considered the father of physiopathology in Romanian medical schools.
David Solomonovici-painter
Shimon Rubinstein-historian
Martin Bercovici- Energetic engineering
Barbu Zaharescu (Bercu Zukerman)-Social sciences
Marcel Saragea-honorary member of the Academy for Medical Sciences
Professor Dr. Miron Segall-Medical Sciences
Professor Dr . Paul Pruteanu (Pincu Solomonovici)-Researcher in the past of the Moldavian medicine
Industry and Economy
“In Barlad everybody knew when the Jewish celebrated their holidays since all the shops were closed”.-old townsman
Barlad served as a wheat marketing centre for all the neighbouring counties. In the year 1887, out of the 954 merchants, 389 were Jews.
Industrial enterprises founded by Jews in Barlad:
Zeilig-Saraga mill and sons;
Unirea mill - I. Edelstein; Knitwear factory - Adolf Cahane;
Wadding factory - Glasberg,
Iancu Rosenstein and Max Rosner - bakers.
.png)
Mass Media
I. SCHECHTER
Editor for "Viata noastra" and editor-in-chief for "Izvoare", first editor at "Ultima ora". He was laureate of the Zion Price for literature. He was member of the Association of the Israeli Writers of Romanian Language. "The satire doesn't correct the customs, but it denounces them and makes fun of them… the villains are incurable". … Here are their "Ten Commandments"…
Ten Commandments I.Do not kill continuously. II.Do not steal in all foolishness. III.Do not endorse. IV.Be watchful in your sleep. V.Do not regret the crimes before committing them. VI.Do not be afraid to compromise yourself. VII.Be what you seem. VIII.Do otherwise. IX.Honor the ones who pay for it. X.Kiss yourself.
.png)
Persecution
In the year 1867 the Christians brought a libel against the Jews in Barlad accusing them of killing a monk. The rabble fell upon Jewish homes. The government ordered an investigation into the matter, and the Minister of the Interior announced in parliament that the Jews were at fault in this incident.
In 1868 another riot occurred because of the feud between a Greek and a Jew. In the year 1870 the French consul protested against the persecution of the Jews in Barlad and demanded intervention by the responsible world powers.
In the year 1886 a new wave of persecution occurred which brought about the beginnings of Jewish emigration out of the city.
In the fall of 1899 emigration from Barlad increased. Every two to three days about ten to fifteen families left. At the beginning of 1900 the flow of emigration had been established to such an extent that it was from Barlad that the initiative to emigrate spread throughout the country. It became the movement known as “Emigration on Foot”. In the spring of that year two organized groups of “Emigrants on Foot” left the country, one of them consisting of seventy-two souls and the second of thirty- eight.
The total number of Jews who left Barlad between the years 1899 and 1902 came to six hundred. The emigrees even published a newsletter for themselves, “Emigrantii”, “Dati Ajutor” and a newsletter for women with the Hebrew name, “Bat Ami” (”Daughter of My People”).
In 1907 an anti-Semitic club was established by teachers, priests and political leaders. This club incited the students of the gymnasium to riot against the Jews. Two of the students who took part in the riots were expelled from the school, and, in protest against their expulsion, the others organized and equipped themselves with axes and clubs, and burst into the Jewish quarter destroying and looting. Eighty shops owned by Jewish merchants and craftsmen were damaged during the rampage.
.png)
In the period between the two world wars Barlad was a center of pogroms. The Christian teachers in the government gymnasium, headed by the school principal Cezar Ursu,, used to regularly incite the students against the Jews. Their pogroms increased when the students in the Romanian universities began to demand a “numerus clausus” against Jews. Whenever the Jewish youth had any kind of cultural event, they used to organize anti-Semitic demonstrations.
During the Hollocaust
The sufferings of the local Jews increased during the days of the terror of the “Iron Guard”. In November 1940, Jewish males were taken for forced labor. After a short time the academics among them were let go. This was the result of protests from the Romanian academic community, who threatened that they too would come to work together with their Jewish colleagues. Four Jewish students were arrested and convicted of promulgating Communist opinions. They were tortured in order to extract their confessions. At the trial, which took place on November 19th, 1940, they were acquitted.
With the outbreak of war between Romania and the Soviet Union in June of 1941, all the Jews from the villages of the county were deported into Barlad. In the spring of 1943 the hospital, the old folk's home and the bath-house were confiscated by the “National Centre for Romanization”.
With their retreat from the advancing Red Army, the Al German forces under the command of General Woehler came into Barlad. The general suggested exterminating all the Jews of the place under the pretext that the Jews were trying to trade with his soldiers. Only the developments on the front, which were to the disadvantage of the Germans, spoiled this plan. Four Jews of Barlad, who were suspected of being Communists, were exiled to the camp at Vapniarca. They returned some time later.
After the war, life returned to normality, and the community continued its regular activities.
The chief of police in the time of the Holocaust, Ion Hagiu, who persecuted the Jews during his tenure, was sentenced in 1949 to three years in prison.
The Jewish Community nowadays
Nowadays only a few Jewish families live in Barlad (34, most of which old people).
The old synagogue was destroyed in the communist era. There is now a prayer house where the small community gathers every Sunday.
The Jewish cemetery, built in 1845 can still be visited.
The museum in Barlad houses the impressive collection of furniture belonging to Dr. Wainfeld.
The president of the community is Mr. Bernat User, born in 1927.
Resources:
Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities in Romania http://www.jewishgen.org
The Romanian Jewish Community
Photos from
private collections
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marți, 10 iunie 2008
„People have caused this fate to people”
„There we sight glooms of eternal deaths from high position to infinite depths looking and eternal life.”
Jewish women and children, after selection, on their way to the Birkenau gas chambers.
June 14, 1940, when the first transport of Polish political prisoner deportees arrived in Auschwitz, is regarded as the date when it began to function.
At first, Poles were imprisoned and died in the camp. Afterwards, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and prisoners of other nationalities were also incarcerated there.
Beginning in 1942, the camp became first of all the site of the mass murder committed against the European Jews as part of the Nazi plan for their complete destruction.
Experiments on prisoners
The German physicians who ran SS and Wehrmacht medical institutions, along with medical personnel at lower levels, participated actively in carrying out Nazi extermination plans. SS physicians assigned to the concentration camps, including Auschwitz, played a special role. They conducted criminal medical experiments on prisoners and committed other acts that violated medical ethics. Having furthered the extermination program in the concentration camps, they have gone down in history as medical criminals
Throughout the period when the "infirmary" was in operation, SS physicians carried out various types of medical and pharmacological experiments that usually led to the death of prisoners or left them permanently injured.
So, in opinion of many prisoner, hospital was hell, on background of atrocities of the rest of camp even. In spite of it, obtaining was sole chance for many persons for hospital on survival
Crematoriums
The Crematorium IV building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses.
Thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned.
The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 768 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.
The apparatus of mass murder in this building functioned, with interruptions, from March 1943 until October 7, 1944. The building was burned down on the day of the mutiny of the Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando.
One of polish writer presents life of prisoner in one of book so
„(…)Wounds opened, they crucified injections… It made doctors. They have carried away us for other camp from there, for factory of ammunition.(…) They beat me awfully that (in order to) say come that (in order to) say come and that made at I. They beat me rubber bludgeon. As face eats it screen hand me break. Shows here else...(...) Now I will tell you about head counts in camp. When women died of head counts and they were reversed on land, laughed " protectress " and they digged it. It was necessary to look so and not help”
Has assembled material for in active time in main commission of research of nazi crime in 1945 year " Sophia Nałkowska „Medaliony”.
This book discharges debts in accordance with life art, truth about human reality commanding. It reminds of requirement of solidarity. Among alive solidarity, which hear late voice and it, which have survived.
It use internet information and
Sophie Nałkowska „Medaliony
Jewish women and children, after selection, on their way to the Birkenau gas chambers.
June 14, 1940, when the first transport of Polish political prisoner deportees arrived in Auschwitz, is regarded as the date when it began to function.
At first, Poles were imprisoned and died in the camp. Afterwards, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and prisoners of other nationalities were also incarcerated there.
Beginning in 1942, the camp became first of all the site of the mass murder committed against the European Jews as part of the Nazi plan for their complete destruction.
Experiments on prisoners
The German physicians who ran SS and Wehrmacht medical institutions, along with medical personnel at lower levels, participated actively in carrying out Nazi extermination plans. SS physicians assigned to the concentration camps, including Auschwitz, played a special role. They conducted criminal medical experiments on prisoners and committed other acts that violated medical ethics. Having furthered the extermination program in the concentration camps, they have gone down in history as medical criminals
Throughout the period when the "infirmary" was in operation, SS physicians carried out various types of medical and pharmacological experiments that usually led to the death of prisoners or left them permanently injured.
So, in opinion of many prisoner, hospital was hell, on background of atrocities of the rest of camp even. In spite of it, obtaining was sole chance for many persons for hospital on survival
Crematoriums
The Crematorium IV building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses.
Thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned.
The bodies of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners who died in the concentration camp were also burned here. According to calculations by the German authorities, 768 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours. According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.
The apparatus of mass murder in this building functioned, with interruptions, from March 1943 until October 7, 1944. The building was burned down on the day of the mutiny of the Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando.
One of polish writer presents life of prisoner in one of book so
„(…)Wounds opened, they crucified injections… It made doctors. They have carried away us for other camp from there, for factory of ammunition.(…) They beat me awfully that (in order to) say come that (in order to) say come and that made at I. They beat me rubber bludgeon. As face eats it screen hand me break. Shows here else...(...) Now I will tell you about head counts in camp. When women died of head counts and they were reversed on land, laughed " protectress " and they digged it. It was necessary to look so and not help”
Has assembled material for in active time in main commission of research of nazi crime in 1945 year " Sophia Nałkowska „Medaliony”.
This book discharges debts in accordance with life art, truth about human reality commanding. It reminds of requirement of solidarity. Among alive solidarity, which hear late voice and it, which have survived.
It use internet information and
Sophie Nałkowska „Medaliony
Remember The Past To Build The Future
The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late 19th century, it has been used primarily to refer to disasters or catastrophes.
The biblical word Shoa (שואה) (also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s. Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."
The word antisemitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. The Holocaust, the state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945, is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism.
Here is an example of antisemitic children's book published in 1936 in Nuremberg, Germany. The title, in German, is translated as "You Can't Trust a Fox in the Heath and a Jew on his Oath".
The number of children killed by Hitler and his Nazis is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of the children will never be known. Estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children.
Here are some of the letters they sent to their parents, who were far from them.
"Chere Maman, I send you 10000000000 kisses. Your son who loves you very much. There are big mountains and the village is very pretty. There are a lot of farms and we look for blackberries and raspberries and white mulberries. I hug you with all my heart. Georgy
Raluca Teodoru, Class 9F2
"WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND" Gimnazjum No. 2 in Brzeszcze
A group of pupils from classes: Ib, Ic, Id, Ie and IIa ( 33 pupils in total ) from Gimnazjum No. 2 in Brzeszcze undertook the realization of project having on aim learning the history of their hometown and the closest neighbourhood. Young people are particularly interested in the period of world war II because they live in the vicinity of the largest extermination camp – KL Auschwitz - Birkenau, and in their hometown was one of many sub-camps - KL Jawischowitz.
The first task, they set for themselves was participation in the opening of the museum, which came into being in the former camp baths buildning on the premises of the mentioned sub-camp.
The participants of the ceremony heard a lecture by Mrs A. Papla, a retired teacher who at present is a tour guide at State Museum KL Auschwitz - Birkenau. She told us about the history of this place and introduced life and working conditions of the prisoners.
We found out many details about the everyday existence of placed here people, we heard from doctor A. Strzelecki's mouth information about organization of work, treatment of prisoners, their mutual relations, unimaginable everyday hardships and relations with neighbouring civil population, which in very many incidents helped the prisoners despite that such help was severely forbidden and even more severely punished.
The pictures portray expositions and souvenirs from that period – all exhibits are authentic.
After the opening ceremony of the museum we went to Culture Centre in Brzeszcze for a meeting with unusual guest, Mr August Kowalczyk.
In specially prepared for this occasion scenery our guest told us his war story.
We listened to it in full concentration.We heard an incredible story of a man who as a seventeen-year-old boy landed in KL Auschwitz - Birkenau with the first political prisoners transport from Tarnow only because he wanted to cross the Romanian border and fight for the freedom of his country. We found out that he managed to run away and survive thanks to help of neighbouring civil population. This meeting made a huge impression on us, because we heard a man who in an exceptionally interesting way told us what he himself survived.
We believe that such meetings carry unusual emotional load, because they tell authentic stories of real people which cannot be substituted by even the best book or film, therefore we will try during the realization of this project reach the people who have survived so they could tell us their story.
The first task, they set for themselves was participation in the opening of the museum, which came into being in the former camp baths buildning on the premises of the mentioned sub-camp.
The participants of the ceremony heard a lecture by Mrs A. Papla, a retired teacher who at present is a tour guide at State Museum KL Auschwitz - Birkenau. She told us about the history of this place and introduced life and working conditions of the prisoners.
We found out many details about the everyday existence of placed here people, we heard from doctor A. Strzelecki's mouth information about organization of work, treatment of prisoners, their mutual relations, unimaginable everyday hardships and relations with neighbouring civil population, which in very many incidents helped the prisoners despite that such help was severely forbidden and even more severely punished.
The pictures portray expositions and souvenirs from that period – all exhibits are authentic.
After the opening ceremony of the museum we went to Culture Centre in Brzeszcze for a meeting with unusual guest, Mr August Kowalczyk.
In specially prepared for this occasion scenery our guest told us his war story.
We listened to it in full concentration.We heard an incredible story of a man who as a seventeen-year-old boy landed in KL Auschwitz - Birkenau with the first political prisoners transport from Tarnow only because he wanted to cross the Romanian border and fight for the freedom of his country. We found out that he managed to run away and survive thanks to help of neighbouring civil population. This meeting made a huge impression on us, because we heard a man who in an exceptionally interesting way told us what he himself survived.
We believe that such meetings carry unusual emotional load, because they tell authentic stories of real people which cannot be substituted by even the best book or film, therefore we will try during the realization of this project reach the people who have survived so they could tell us their story.
duminică, 25 mai 2008
The Hollocaust
It is said that history can repeat , but if you know what happened in the past it is less possible to make the same mistakes that other people have done.
Do YOU know what happened at Auschwitz??
Auschwitz is a name that has come to symbolize the holocaust of the Second World War. In this place an estimated as 3 million people of various races, but mostly Jews, were murdered by Nazi Germany. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nazi Germany's largest concentration and extermination camp facility, was located nearby the provincial Polish town of Oshwiecim in Galacia .Auschwitz was the place where the Nazis perfected the machinery of extermination, starting off as quite a small camp but rapidly expanding to form other camps as they had to cope with increasing numbers of victims transported in by trains from all over Europe. When the Germans retreated in 1945, they tried to conceal the incriminating evidence of their crimes but the advance of the allies was so rapid and Auschwitz so massive that they simply did not have time to finish their work. When camp survivors started to tell of life inside Auschwitz, their stories were of crimes of such depravity and on such a scale that it was far beyond human comprehension.
As a permanent sign of respect to the people who suffered in Auschwitz, the Polish Parliament declared it a National Monument and Museum - a grim reminder to all of us of what humans are capable of doing to one another.
Many horrifying things happened there .Most of the people killed ,9 out of 10 were Jews and the rest were gypsies or soviet POWs . The people who weren’t killed through gassing, starvation, diseases, shooting or burning were used and killed in terrible experiments and those people were especially children
At Auschwitz children were often killed upon arrival. Children born in the camp were generally killed on the spot. Near the end of the war, in order to cut expenses and save gas, cost-accountant considerations led to an order to place living children directly into the ovens or throw them into open burning pits. “Special” children and twins were supposed to experiments by the ones called camp doctors. The worst doctor was Josef Mengele. He putted children into pressure chambers , tested drugs on them , children were castrated or suffered many traumas.
One twin recalls the death of his brother:
"Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore. I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken away my father, my mother, my two older brothers - and now, my twin ..."
These terrors occurred in Block 10 of Auschwitz I. Josef Mengele was nicknamed the Angel of Death for the inhuman experiments he conducted.
At that time nobody cared about those people lives about their injuries or feelings or dreams, all they wanted to do was to make a pour human race: Private diaries of Goebbels and Himmler unearthed from the secret Soviet archives show that Adolf Hitler personally ordered the mass extermination of the Jews during a meeting of Nazi German regional governors in the chancellery. As Goebbels wrote "With regard to the Jewish question, the Fuhrer decided to make a clean sweep ..."This cleaning didn’t skip Romania , jews and gypsies were deported to Auschwitz .Some of the Romanian survivors told to others their stories or even written it . Many of them were from Transilvania and were deported by the hortists, but in fact Romania never came under direct German rule, and consequently very few Romanian Jews were deported to German camps. The Romanian government pursued an anti-Semitic policy of its own, and Hitler was satisfied with it. Most of Romanian jews deported from the county Moldavia, from Basarabia and Bukovina were killed in Transnistria. Transnistria was a geographic invention, but a historic reality. The name was coined by Romanian fascists in World War II to designate a territory chosen for the annihilation of Jews deported from Romania. It was an area situated in south-western Ukraine, between the River Dniester to the west, the River Bug to the east, the Black Sea to the south, and a line beyond the city of Moghilev-Podolsky to the north. In Romanian the river is called The Nistru. TRANS-NISTRIA meant "beyond the River Dniester".Territorially, Transnistria was the largest killing field in the Holocaust. Many authors refer to it as "The Romanian Auschwitz". But even having this killing area ,Romania sent some jews to Auscwitz too, especially from Transilvania were deported to Auschwitz almost 150.000 jewish people : For example Eva Mozes Kor was a Romanian Jewish sent there which survived of Dr. Mengele's experiments:
“Mengele came in every morning after roll call to count us. He wanted to know every morning how many” guinea pigs” he had.
“Three times a week both of my arms would be tied to restrict the blood flow, and they took a lot of blood from my left arm. At the same time they would give me a minimum of five injections into my right arm.
“After one of those injections I became extremely ill and Dr Mengele came in next morning with four other doctors. He looked at my fever chart and he said, laughing sarcastically, he said: ‘Too bad, she is so young. She has only two weeks to live.’ I would fade in and out of consciousness. I would keep telling myself: I must survive. I must survive.”
“Would I have died, my twin sister Miriam would have been rushed immediately to Mengele’s lab, killed with an injection to the heart. Then Mengele would have done the comparative autopsies. That is the way most of the twins died."
Another Romanian Jew who survived at Auschwitz was Leopold Schobel who was from a village near Sighisoara , in Transilvania. He stayed 8 months at Auschwitz .He was deported by train with his mother, with his brother’s wife and her daughter. He was the one of his family that survived. At first he was taken at Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau ) and then moved in Auschwitz 1 .He was tattooed a number on his arm A-13221; he was the prisoner number A-13221, now he didn’t have a name anymore.He was a lucky man because the work he had to do there was not so exhausting as other works and he resisted for 8 months. He survived but he says that a part of him remained there with his family.
Oliver Lustig was another Romanian Jewish survivor which described the life at Auschwitz and also described some vivid images of his camp experience:
“ I am Oliver Lustig. On May 3, 1944, soon after 4 o’clock in the morning, our house was invaded by a group of Hungarian gendarmes. We were living in the commune of Soimeni, in Cluj County. I hadn’t turned 18 yet. Concurrently, in all the villages and communes of northern Transylvania, without exception, at the same hour, and following the same procedure, the Hungarian gendarmes knocked on the doors of all the Jewish houses with their rifle butts and seized every living Jew. They gave us a few hours to pack and prepare ourselves to leave. They warned us not to carry more than a total of 50 kilos per family. They took us out of our homes, put us on carts pulled by oxen and herded us to the Cluj ghetto. …
…The journey from Cluj to Birkenau-Auschwitz lasted 4 days and 3 nights…
… I looked at my mother drifting away with her children. She held the youngest by the hand and the other two were close to her. They began marching to their deaths. There were only 1,000-1,200 steps to the gas chamber and the crematory. I watched them march until I lost sight of them. They were unsuspectingly approaching the end. “
What happened at Auschwitz was horrible for the Jews and for the entire humanity . It is said that now after so many years, at Auschwitz crematory you can feel the bitter smell of burnt human corpses.
The author of this project is
Anca Adriana Pasarin
Book review-"Life in the Death's Empire" by Oliver Lustig
"Not long ago, I was living my life monotonously, without thinking what my life has in store for me. Everything looked simple to me, because I had everything that I wanted without fighting for my possessions, for liberty or even for life. But I was frightened when, one day, I found out about the massacre that took place around 1940-1945.
In the extermination camps from Auschwitz hundred of thousands of innocent Jews were killed, only because of Nazi’s wish to create a “pure race” !
Since this subject seemed interesting to me, I went at the library and I borrowed a book about Holocaust, “Life in The Death’s Empire”, by the Romanian writer Oliver Lustig, born Haftering.
He wrote this book in the memory of his mother, Iolanda, killed at Auschwitz, of his father, Edmund, killed at Maulhousen, of his twin brothers, Cornel and Cornelia, killed in the gas chambers from Birkenau- Auschwitz, when they just reached the age of 14, and of his little brother, Valentin, aged only 8.
He also says that he dedicated this book “to all those at whose fight and death I was eye witness in Birkenau – Auschwitz, Kaufering no.4, Kaufering no. 9 and Landsberg camps “, also to “all the deported persons and antifascists fighters who were taken in the Nazi concentration - camps that studded Europe - , and who died convinced that the fascism will be defeated, that the life will win over death “
This way, I found out things at which I have never thought, things that my outlook refuses to perceive. What fault had those people that they were born Jews? Or… who gave the fascists the right to end the life of so many people? Did they really have no mercy? These are questions at which no one can answer.
After the Jews were taken from their homes, they were transported to camps in ware wagons, 60 people in each one, without water and food, so that not many Jews arrived alive at destination.
Once they arrived, the ones able to work were separated from the others and the old ones, the children, the invalids and the ones weakened because of the long travel, were taken directly to the gas chambers.
To avoid the panic that would have been made because of the separation of the families, the soldiers told the Jews that they were separated because they had to go much more and they didn’t have vehicles available for everybody, so that the ones still in power had to walk. These people went calm, not knowing that that was the last time when they saw their old parents.
Those who were chosen for work were undressed and they were given other used and signed clothes. In the camps they were taken, they didn’t have enough space not even to move, they slept in barracks, one next to the other, so that they couldn’t even stretch their legs. They were given food only in the evening, a slice of bread each.
They were working from the early morning till evening, and those who fainted or collapsed because of being tired, were shot. When they stopped working, they couldn’t even think of what was waiting for them. They lost trust, hope and they were willing to die faster in order to get rid of the torture.
Every time, at the evening control, the thinner ones were chosen and taken to the crematory.
So that’s how days, months, even years passed, while thousands of people died, until the fascism was defeated.
When the Nazi felt threatened, they started to wipe off their tracks, they burnt to the ground the crematories and fled.
Before that, they poisoned those who remained alive. Only a few survived from the hundreds of Jews and other populations.
Reading this book, I realized that even a second can be fatal, when you don’t do anything to prevent this kind of events. I learnt to cherish more every second of my life and everything I have got. In my opinion, it is important to know these things to avoid a replay of history and to build our future on moral values and on tolerance.
We are fortunate that some of those people who experienced Auschwitz are still alive, because in this way we can find out about it directly from the source, and together we can learn the most important lesson History has ever taught human kind: that the greatest evils are prejudice, discrimination and intolerance.
We should be more confident, we should not let ourselves influenced by doctrines and we have to choose our leaders carefully.
As long as we know about our past and we support each other, no one will be able to take control over our lives."
Alina Valentina Cazan, Class 9F2
In the extermination camps from Auschwitz hundred of thousands of innocent Jews were killed, only because of Nazi’s wish to create a “pure race” !
Since this subject seemed interesting to me, I went at the library and I borrowed a book about Holocaust, “Life in The Death’s Empire”, by the Romanian writer Oliver Lustig, born Haftering.
He wrote this book in the memory of his mother, Iolanda, killed at Auschwitz, of his father, Edmund, killed at Maulhousen, of his twin brothers, Cornel and Cornelia, killed in the gas chambers from Birkenau- Auschwitz, when they just reached the age of 14, and of his little brother, Valentin, aged only 8.
He also says that he dedicated this book “to all those at whose fight and death I was eye witness in Birkenau – Auschwitz, Kaufering no.4, Kaufering no. 9 and Landsberg camps “, also to “all the deported persons and antifascists fighters who were taken in the Nazi concentration - camps that studded Europe - , and who died convinced that the fascism will be defeated, that the life will win over death “
This way, I found out things at which I have never thought, things that my outlook refuses to perceive. What fault had those people that they were born Jews? Or… who gave the fascists the right to end the life of so many people? Did they really have no mercy? These are questions at which no one can answer.
After the Jews were taken from their homes, they were transported to camps in ware wagons, 60 people in each one, without water and food, so that not many Jews arrived alive at destination.
Once they arrived, the ones able to work were separated from the others and the old ones, the children, the invalids and the ones weakened because of the long travel, were taken directly to the gas chambers.
To avoid the panic that would have been made because of the separation of the families, the soldiers told the Jews that they were separated because they had to go much more and they didn’t have vehicles available for everybody, so that the ones still in power had to walk. These people went calm, not knowing that that was the last time when they saw their old parents.
Those who were chosen for work were undressed and they were given other used and signed clothes. In the camps they were taken, they didn’t have enough space not even to move, they slept in barracks, one next to the other, so that they couldn’t even stretch their legs. They were given food only in the evening, a slice of bread each.
They were working from the early morning till evening, and those who fainted or collapsed because of being tired, were shot. When they stopped working, they couldn’t even think of what was waiting for them. They lost trust, hope and they were willing to die faster in order to get rid of the torture.
Every time, at the evening control, the thinner ones were chosen and taken to the crematory.
So that’s how days, months, even years passed, while thousands of people died, until the fascism was defeated.
When the Nazi felt threatened, they started to wipe off their tracks, they burnt to the ground the crematories and fled.
Before that, they poisoned those who remained alive. Only a few survived from the hundreds of Jews and other populations.
Reading this book, I realized that even a second can be fatal, when you don’t do anything to prevent this kind of events. I learnt to cherish more every second of my life and everything I have got. In my opinion, it is important to know these things to avoid a replay of history and to build our future on moral values and on tolerance.
We are fortunate that some of those people who experienced Auschwitz are still alive, because in this way we can find out about it directly from the source, and together we can learn the most important lesson History has ever taught human kind: that the greatest evils are prejudice, discrimination and intolerance.
We should be more confident, we should not let ourselves influenced by doctrines and we have to choose our leaders carefully.
As long as we know about our past and we support each other, no one will be able to take control over our lives."
Alina Valentina Cazan, Class 9F2
marți, 20 mai 2008
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