Blanche Porway remembers the guard tearing her from her mother’s hand as they stood in line at the Auschwitz concentration camp with hundreds of Jews and other prisoners. Her mother was led off to the gas chambers while Porway and her older sister were spared, only because the guards deemed them fit enough to work.
Porway, then 19, had already survived the ghetto in Lodz, Poland, where her father and brother had starved to death.
“My sister said, ‘I can’t take this,’ ” Porway recalled tearfully Sunday. “But I said, ‘We have to. We have to live to tell people.’ ”
Now 90, Porway shared her story at a brunch in Rockville to honor Holocaust survivors. The event, attended by about 40 survivors and their families, coincided with Monday’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah, in Israel. Most of the survivors were residents at the Charles E. Smith Life Communities senior facilities in Rockville, where officials say they have one of the largest groups of Holocaust survivors in the Washington area.
They came with their adult children, who had grown up hearing their painful stories, and with grandchildren, who they hoped would learn more. They told of fathers being arrested in the night after an abrupt knock on the door. They told of their synagogues burning, of being boarded onto trains with other Jewish children fleeing the Nazis, of the nuns who hid them in convents. They showed scars on their hands from being forced to work in German factories and cried as they recalled being forced to shovel dirt at gunpoint during years in a labor camp.
Many broke into tears as they told their stories, their accents still carrying traces of their native German, French and Polish.
“It’s hard to accept what happened, even now,” Porway, who lives in Chevy Chase, said in a Polish accent, as her voice shook and her eyes teared up. A few moments later, she added quietly, “I sometimes question if people want to hear it, or if they’ll get too upset.”
Very soon, there will be no Holocaust survivors. Do the math. WWII in Europe was over 69 years ago. Those few folks who survived were teenagers or young adults at the time. The average age of remaining survivors is probably around 90. Soon their voices will be silenced by time. They will become part of the ages.
Wack-jobs will continue to deny the Holocaust. Those types have always been around. What about the rest of us? Will we carry their story for them? How many of us have read the works of Elie Wiesel, Ann Frank, Primo Levi or Sylvia Rothchild? Who has studied the work of Simon Wiesenthal?
Yes, it is painful to read such accounts. I am not Jewish and it is still painful. My cultural ethnicity should have no bearing on my feelings of pain. It is past the time that we pick up their stories, simply because we are human beings. People must never forget what can happened when bad leaders get in office. People should be reminded what happens when governments go wrong and when governments are allowed by their people to target groups of people with anything less than full dignity. When we make it our responsibility to not only carry the message but vow to stand guard against the climate that allows horrible events to grow, then the voices will not have lived in vain.
We must pick up their stories and we must tell them. They must live on through us.
Izzy’s Story (video)
The password is izzy
Moon, let me see if I can get my 3rd cousin’s Izzy’s video recount of surviving Auschwitz and post the link!
Well stated, Moon.
I’ll never forget my visit to Auschwitz. The bare rooms with shower heads in
the ceiling to be used, not for water, but for deadly gas.
The ovens in the basement! Others were taking pictures; I could not do it.
The railroad tracks that ran through the “portal” with the words
“Arbeit macht frei”! It’s something one cannot forget.
Chilling and haunting. Not sure I could even go. I would want to be able to do it though.
You know Punchak, I visited Germany with my now husband, he had lived there as a teenager for three years. His friends, German of course, felt very uncomfortable at first with me. This was back in 1998 or so. She asked me if I hated all German and I said of course not. She was so sorry for what her people had done. I told her it wasn’t her fault. She seemed to want to talk about it but I did not. I use to have dreams about being put on a train when I was a teenager. I never visited the camps, I just couldn’t for some reason.
Listen to my 3rd cousin’s Izzy’s story of survival, it’s truly a miracle.
Someone most people have never heard of, Nicholas Winton, now Sir Nicholas Winton. He saved 669 Czechoslovakian children during WWII. These 669 children have now turned into some 15,000 people who directly or indirectly owe their lives to Winton. Here is a short video of this wonderful man who never once bragged about what he did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsmlVeLEXFM
He is now 104 years old and still very reticent to talk about what he did. CBS 60 Minutes had a wonder piece about him last night 4/17/14. The tears simply would not stop as I watched the interview.
@George S. Harris
“60 Minutes” had a wonderful interview with this most remarkable man
last night. His humble opinion of himself and of what he had done was
truly amazing. And the fact that someone 104 years old, was so vigorous
of mind, was a wonder to behold.
At the, end there was a scene where all the still living children who had been
saved, had gathered to give thanks. It was beautiful!
The “60 Minutes” story on Winton was great. Mrs. NBM sobbed a bit. A very humble man who never sought recognition for what he did. If we could elect people like him to most offices the vast majority of our problems in the world would cease. “60 Minutes” has all of its stories on its website.
I once visited Auschwitz, which is in Poland also. Virtually everyone in our group remained silent during the visit or was able only to utter brief and quiet words to each other. Everyone should visit at least once. I also visited townships in South Africa under Apartheid. One Afrikaner told me at the time that if necessary whites should do the same with the blacks as Hitler did with the Jews. Most South African whites did not take that attitude and fortunately Apartheid was ended relatively peacefully. Those comments were especially chilling given that I had previously visited Auschwitz. The world owes a debt of gratitude to Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk who proved that such things can be avoided by people of good will.
I’ve also spoken with many Germans regarding the Holocaust. I never met a Holocaust denier, but many in the older generation deny that they were aware of what was going on at the time.
There have been other things as well. Moon knows a lot of it. I’ve seen more of the worst of humanity than have most people. When you despair over the bad people in the world, remember that there are also the Wintons, de Klerks and Mandelas.
Do you have the link to that segment of Sixty Minutes?
It’s very important that we start keeping the holocaust victims’ voices alive. The historical narrative will change if we do not. The WWII narrative is already changing.
Too bad Ken Burns didn’t take on a Holocaust survivor task. He is a very thorough documentarian.
NBM,
Beautiful way to summarize. There are evil heinous people in the world, but there are also brave compassionate ones that deserve our gratitude.
I’ve did an interview with Jay Ipson of the Richmond Holocaust Museum. It tells the story of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Horrible.
He was living in a hole, a cave, dug in a potato field, with no end in sight when he was rescued by the Russians.
When the Soviets look good…. its bad.
On a lighter note, some countries did good: http://satwcomic.com/hurry-hurry-hurry
Moon, here’s the link to the Winton story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/saving-the-children-on-eve-of-world-war-11-60-minutes/
Thanks NBM.
What a great story. As in others, the hero is just a humble person doing what he thinks is right.