It is a race against time. Soon, the last Survivors of the Shoah will no longer be able to tell their story. About the fight to keep the memory of the unprecedented crime still awake.
Éva Fahidi, 93, is one of the last Survivors of Auschwitz. Here you may intend for 2015 together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (on the left), the liberation of the concentration camp
Her Silence lasted 59 years.
59 years not a word about the smoke you saw from the crematoria in the sky to rise. 59 years not a word about the Close, the thirst, and the loud cry of it, which she had to endure for weeks.
59 years not a word about Auschwitz.
Then Éva decides Fahidi, all suspend again. On 1. July 2003, driving her back. Since then, she can’t stop talking about Auschwitz. Especially because you want to ensure that this hell of a device on earth, never forgotten.
The entrance gate to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Éva Fahidi and her family were deported in 1944 here
Two lives – one before, one after Auschwitz
The Hungarian Gendarmerie takes Éva Fahidi and your family in April 1944, on behalf of the German Nazis, they are deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Fahidis mother and sister are gassed, her father dies in the camp. They must toil as a forced laborer for a German explosives factory. In 1945, she is sent on a death March, survived, and is able to flee.
Today, the Hungarian Fahidi says that she has two lives, one in front of Auschwitz, a then. The time between these two life she can’t talk long. In the meantime, she’s doing it more frequently in schools, at events, in the Thuringian Landtag.
Why? “Otherwise, I’d go crazy.”
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To talk about Auschwitz, a redemption is
On the small stage in Berlin Éva Fahidi sits upright, a bright pink scarf wrapped around your shoulders, your fingernails are painted in the same color. Because the German resistance memorial center dedicates her exhibition, she has taken the journey from Budapest.
If you listen to Fahidi, you will laugh because you can tell so well, a fine joke to be sprayed. And at the same time, the tears swallow, when she remembers Auschwitz, and the horrors that she has experienced there. Auschwitz is called Fahidi her Trauma: “For me, it’s really a relief that I can now talk about it as much as I want,” she says.
“We don’t have to live with the Faith that it will happen again”
Éva Fahidi, 93 years old, is one of the last Survivors of the Holocaust. What happens if you and the others who still remember, are there? Fahidi want to believe that the memory can still remain awake. “This must not and can not happen again.” You would have to live with this Faith.
“Then the books are there, then the documents are there. Something must necessarily remain. It is the places of memory that must remain…”, Fahidi makes a small Pause, thinking: “This must work”.
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“This must not happen again”
In Berlin Fahidi also speaks of her return to Auschwitz. On the day exactly 59 years after they had been deported with her family there. Since then, she is regularly speaks in front of groups, in the youth meeting centre in Oswiecim, Polish for Auschwitz.
Leszek szuster technical worskhop, the Director of the International youth meeting centre in Oświęcim, is the first point of contact for witnesses, such as Éva Fahidi, if you are here. Over the years it had become less and less. “In the 33 years of our existence we were with 50 of Auschwitz Survivors in close contact,” says szuster technical worskhop. Now only four to five come to speak to groups about their experiences. Many are deceased.
Szuster technical worskhop is aware that time is running. With the few remaining Survivors, he speaks regularly to be able to as much as possible on the eyes and their stories: “I’m on the phone almost daily with Zofia Posmysz against 23 PM, and the talks take forever,” says szuster technical worskhop.
Nevertheless: “the report of a time witness, we never come.”
Leszek szuster technical worskhop I don’t, that the memory of the Holocaust dies
That’s why you have movies already, the Meeting of Survivors with young people for the time after that. And they host Workshops, tell for example, what is Zofia Posmysz. She was arrested as an 18-Year-old in Krakow, as they distributed the leaflets, and to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau deported. Szuster technical worskhop want to shake the youth awake: about Auschwitz to tell the story, to warn against the dangers of today – anti-Semitism, populism, hatred against refugees.
He fears that “when 80. Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz will probably be no-one among us who has experienced everything.” Yes, what he was doing was beginning to Worry, he says. The conversation with the time witness was with the young people is always the highlight of the visit, much more than the tours through the former extermination camp.
Letters against Forgetting
Almost 1000 kilometers further West, in North Rhine-Westphalia, a group of young volunteer on the race against time to the task. As a “second witness” to relieve the Survivors. Many are even too weak to speak in front of groups of students. They go in schools, the history of the witnesses and not to worry, that their fate is extinguished with her death. At the end of such a conversation, letters against Forgetting are always “on”. Since the “second witness” want to tell in person, not to speak of Mrs. de Vries and Mr. Pluznik, but by Erna and Siegmund. Due to this proximity, many students despise the Survivors in her letters, as here:
Dear Erna,
I find it incredible how you survive could. You came with a 15 in a stock. And you came to Auschwitz. You died because of a disease and survived it (unbelievable). I think it is a pity that someone of your 20. Birthday stole your bread.
Many Greetings,
Meiko (11)
or:
Dear Siegmund,
also, if you can’t read this letter, I hope that you know that many people who have heard your story, are grateful that you share them with us. Your story is poignant. I would have met you personally.
Simon (14)
The social networks as a place of memory
On the big question of “What comes next?” are also trying to find other answers. For example, the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem. The Holocaust Museum puts on social media. Information about four and one-half of the six million victims of the Shoah are online stored in a database. Anyone who logs in with name and country of origin, gets one of the victims assigned to, and can share his picture and story on Twitter or Facebook. A short click as a means to Forget.
In the Jewish Heritage Museum avatars tell about their memories of the Holocaust
In New York, the Jewish Heritage Museum, two Holocaust-Survivor as avatars in virtual life. The two witnesses responded to hundreds of questions and could shoot it. Museum visitors can consult the avatars about your past, what is it exactly that you answer will be determined by the algorithm. Digital time-the race against time witnesses to stop them? To replace at least a part of the conversation with a Survivor of flesh and blood?
“I’m open to experiments”
Leszek szuster technical worskhop says, “the wider the selection, the better”. With avatars, you do not cross the border. The memory of the Holocaust should be no Disneyland. But: “If the facts are correct and the story of the Survivors is authentically told, then I’m open for experiments.”
Very controversial szuster technical worskhop art actions such as the Polish concept artist Zbigniew Libera, a few years ago, the Auschwitz concentration camp with LEGO bricks reconstructed: “A place of destruction as a toy can lead to misunderstandings, regardless of the intentions of the artist.”
Back in Berlin, on the small stage in the case of Éva Fahidi. The Holocaust was a terrible shock for humanity, she says. And: people will maybe realise “if we are not there anymore”. The “time after” could usher in a new kind of culture of remembrance, in which, as Fahidi puts it, hopefully all the people, “you must participate”.