Oświęcim, Poland—Scores of aging Holocaust survivors, some clutching walking canes or walkers in hand, made their way through the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz on Wednesday ahead of the annual March of the Living, some retracing the steps of their darkened childhood anew in their golden years. They did so in the backdrop of a worldwide uptick in antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The events of that day have been likened to the Holocaust—atrocities that included murdering human beings, many by fire. It created a new generation of traumatized Jews in Israel and hit home for elderly survivors who had hoped those days were behind them.
This year marked eight decades since the liberation of Auschwitz by Russian forces on Jan. 27, 1945—a number not lost on those present.
“Eighty years since this place took millions of lives, we realize that the words of Elie Weisel—that antisemitism did not die in Auschwitz, our people died in Auschwitz—are more poignant than ever in the wake of Oct. 7,” Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, president of the International March of the Living, told JNS.
It was especially relevant to Merrill Eisenhower, the great-grandson of U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who toured the Ohrdruf concentration camp, near the town of Gotha, Germany, in April 1945 and worked to draw awareness to its horrors and document its inhuman realities.
“I cannot tell you how important it is to be here and for the world to understand what happened here,” he told the tearful survivors. “We must bear witness so that the same thing does not happen again.”
Pledging to carry on his family legacy, Eisenhower stated that “change does not happen in one sweeping motion, but in one kindness, one act at a time.”
His great-grandfather went on to become the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
‘Such evil people in the world’
For the last generation of Holocaust survivors alive who came to the event—all of them in their 80s and 90s—Oct. 7 returned them to the horrors of their youth.
Naftali Furst, 92, a Czechoslovakian who survived four Nazi camps, including Auschwitz, in a period of three years as a young boy recounted how his own granddaughter survived the Oct. 7 massacre, although her in-laws were murdered.
“You cannot get into your head that there are such evil people in the world,” said Swedish-born Arne Rabuchin, 81, just a baby when World War II began in 1939. He was saved with the Jews of Sweden by Denmark. “Even as a Holocaust survivor, it is hard to believe what happened here.”
The younger generations stood between time, as witnesses to what happened in Israel 18 months ago and, gathered there at Auschwitz, observers of those reliving a past nearly a century ago.
Natalie Sanandaji, 29, of New York, who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, said that “being here and seeing the scale of the murder reminds me once again the difference between my hours of fear and what the Jews experienced during the Holocaust. After the Holocaust, we knew that we could never again leave it in other people’s hands to protect us because no one was going to.”
‘I am glad I am here’
For the elderly, surviving was their penultimate victory—that and going on to have Jewish families of their own.
“It’s so very moving and emotional, but I am glad to be here,” said Romanian-born Suzana Leibowitz, 85, of the Israeli city of Haifa.
Her father survived Auschwitz since he was a boot maker, she recounted, scouring the Book of Names for relatives killed in the Holocaust. That tome, compiled by Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was displayed in Block 27 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, one of the camp’s most well-known buildings, where Jewish inmates lived.
“I wanted to say farewell to my aunt,” said Azriel Ziperberg, 95, at another corner of the room as he perused the listing of some 4.8 million names.
Berlin-born George Shefi, 93, of Givat Ze’ev just outside of Jerusalem, was sent on a children’s transport to England five weeks before the war. He found the names of his mother and her sister on the listing.
Shefi noted that he took part in a film, “Journey of Hope: Retracing the Kindertransport After 85 Years,” recreating his escape from the clutches of Nazi Germany the very day after the Oct. 7 massacre, underlining how the tragedies had become intertwined.
Standing with his daughters and grandchildren, he said: “I am glad I am here, because the alternative would be much worse.”
“We have our own Holocaust, Oct. 7—that’s what people have to realize,” said Susanne Reyto, 81, of Los Angeles, who was saved as an infant in Budapest, Hungary, because her uncle worked in the Swiss consulate, and her mother obtained both Swiss and Swedish papers. “To see what people endured here is very hard, but very inspiring.”
