We had an amazing opportunity last night to listen to Edith Katz, a holocaust survivor, share her experiences at a fireside. We felt so blessed to be there and to be able to meet someone who had actually survived that horrible chapter in our history.
Edith lives in Haifa, Israel but her son, Avi works for one of the companies that Dad's parent company, DBSI, is involved with. Some of the DBSI/Kastera people traveled to Israel last month and met Edith and she shared her experiences there with them. Her son, Avi, lives in Palo Alto, CA, but she agreed to come to Boise to share her story with us.
She was 12 years old, living in Krakow, Poland when the Nazis invaded. When she was 14 her parents and younger brother were taken from their home while she was at a work camp and she never saw them again. She lived in the "ghetto" and continued to go to the work camp each day. She was forced to work in a salt mine right outside Krakow and after two days of working in the salt mine she and a friend decided to try and escape. They were captured by a Jewish police officer who fortunately only yelled at them and turned them back in. They were sent to 4 different "death camps" and ended up at Auschvitz. Many times she avoided the gas chambers when they told her to go right and those condemned to death went left. When she was 18, the Russians were advancing into Germany and Poland so the Nazis forced all their Jewish prisoners to go on a "death march" and they marched from camp to camp in the middle of the winter. They had no clothes, or food and subsisted on snow that they melted and drank. They all got typhoid fever. They made it to a camp outside Dresden, Germany where some fellow French prisoners of war shared their meager food and clothing. About that time, the American tanks came into their camp and liberated them. They were all starving to death and in the process of trying to save them, they fed them meat and protein which was the worst thing you could do. Many died from the protein after having none for so long. She eventually made it to Italy where a cousin took her in for a few months, then she was put on an "illegal" boat to Israel and arrived there in 1947 before it was officially given to the Jewish people by the UN. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent a year in the hospital in Israel but eventually married and had two sons.
Edith spoke humbly and thoughtfully. It was the first time she had spoken to such a large group. I am so thankful I had the chance to hear her story and see her prisoner number tattoed into her arm, and hug her and thank her for her courage in sharing it. It made me so thankful to live in the United States with the many freedoms and blessings that we enjoy!
4 comments:
Wow! Man's inhumanity to man upsets me worse than about anything, I think. What a privilege to hear her speak. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Well said Joan. The only thing I would add is that, amazingly, Edith was ostracized when she returned to Isreal. Those who had not gone through the holocaust, the "macho" Isreal, did not want to be reminded of a weak Zion being pushed around. So she never talked about it. Not even her son had heard her story until a few weeks ago when she talked to the small group of DBSI/Kastera folks as they visited the holocaust memorial in Isreal.
She sounds like an amazing woman. One of my favorite books is the "Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom-- her story of survival kind of reminds me of that. That is really strange she was ostracized when she got back to Israel-- I would have never guessed that kind of reaction. That's awful. I can't believe her son didn't even know her story.
What a wonderful oppportunity to have been able to listen to Mrs. Katz, I wish I could have been there. I do a Holocaust unit with my ELL students at the first quarter of the school year. We read Memories of Anne Frank and the kids are always amazed at how cruel people could be to other human beings, including inocent children. We hope that history will never repeat itself.
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