Opinion
We must and will always share their testimony
Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock reflects on the sad fact that Shoah survivors will soon no longer be with us
January 30, 2020 17:39
2 min read
Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock reflects on the sad fact that Shoah survivors will soon no longer be with us
January 30, 2020 17:39As we arrived at the gates, she was shaking. I asked if she was OK. She said she was nervous but this time she could leave whenever she wanted - not a right she was entitled to when she was an inmate over 75 years ago.
Renee Salt survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. She remembers arriving on the train — her father jumped off, she jumped after. By the time she got down he had already disappeared into the crowd. She never saw him again.
Aged 90, Renee and many others like her returned to the place of their nightmares. For Renee, it is to be her last visit. She told me “I’m still alive, Hitler’s dead. That’s my satisfaction.”
Many of us felt a similar satisfaction the week before, as Prime Ministers, Presidents, and Royalty from across the world gathered in Yad Vashem in Israel — the world’s only Jewish State, born out of the ashes of the Shoah — to remember the Holocaust and pledge to combat antisemitism wherever it is found.
It is now 75 years after Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated and the world began to grapple with the reality that the Jews of Europe had been imprisoned, starved, tortured, beaten and gassed to death. This week the world came together to remember.
Surrounded by survivors, their families, dignitaries and the world’s media — right by the very spot where Renee and so many like her were separated from their loved ones for the last time, was a humbling experience.
And as we sat together, marking the 75th anniversary, I was sharply reminded that soon our survivors, the eyewitnesses, won’t be with us anymore.
Their message is clear — they want us to remember that they were there, that this happened. They want us to remember those without a voice — those who did not spend a single day in the camp, but went straight to the gas chambers. They want us to know what happens when the world turns its back. They have a message of tolerance, of kindness. Marian Turski, an Auschwitz survivor called on us at the main ceremony “to remember the eleventh commandment — thou shalt not be indifferent” — a call that has such resonance for us all.
75 years after we watched newsreels about the horrors inflicted on Jewish people in Europe, this year our future monarchs led the commemorations — in Israel, at Auschwitz and here in the UK. The Duchess of Cornwall lit a candle close to the ruins of the gas chamber at Birkenau.
Prince Charles warned of “the hatred and intolerance that still lurks in the human heart”. Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess Cambridge reassured survivors that their experiences would be known for years to come. Their presence sent a powerful message about the important place the Holocaust has in the collective memory of our country.
75 years after the remnants of European Jewry tried to return home, only to find in most cases that there was no-one and nothing left to return to, the world’s media ran non-stop footage of Auschwitz, putting the spotlight on the stories of survivors and paying tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.
But when you strip back all of the flashlights, when the media has moved on to the next story, what remains is the feeling that this has ignited in our survivors — that people care and they will remember.
These elderly people, in their 80s and 90s, feel heard. They have been interviewed, again and again. They have ended Holocaust Memorial Day exhausted but determined. While there is breath in their body, they remain determined to tell people what happened.
This week we tell the survivors — while there is breath in our bodies, we will continue to share their testimonies and carry their legacy.
We are their witnesses. Future generations will know the very depth of depravity that took place and will know the strength and humanity of our eyewitnesses.
Their story is our story. It will not be forgotten.
