Back to the Holocaust day, my father and King Alfred

I typically don't publish the same post twice, but today, due to the holocaust day, I am returning to something I published in this blog 3 years ago (and got many reactions upon it), the reason is that according to the statistics, during these 3 years the readers population for this Blog has grown significantly - so while old readers might remember it, I also want to share it with the newer ones,  This day is very much associated  in  my mind with my later father who was the only survivor of a big family.   Here is a picture of my father late in his life: 

I don't have any picture of him until after the  war, but here is a picture of the kitchen the  

Lodz Ghetto, where he worked at the beginning of the war (he said that he might be the person in the middle, but was not sure about it)

My father survived the war, while his parents and 7 brothers and sisters did not.

He never talked much about this period in life,  saying that this was on another planet, and cannot be described.  Once he told me that immediately after the war a relative found him in the survivors list and send him a letter asking him to describe whatever occurred to him during the war, my father answer was:

I will not tell you about what happened to me in the war, instead I will tell you the story of King Alfred  

King Alfred has escaped due to some revolt and was hiding in a farm, when the rebelling soldiers looking for him got there, the farmer hid the King below a big pile of straw; the soldiers started to look at the straw, they nearly removed all of it, and then decided to move on. At later time the King succeeded to overcome the mutiny and returned to his throne. At some point the farmer came to visit him and he said to him -- you save my life, I can give you whatever you wish, the farmer said: I am a modest person, don't need anything, have one question to you, what did you feel when the soldiers almost got all the straw removed. The king has shown an angry face and said: this is a very rude question, hang this man immediately. The farmer was about to be hanged, a rope was already tightened to his throat, and then the king said: stop, now you see what I felt.

La vita è bella

I have a tradition to write about the holocaust day, two years ago I have written about my father and the king Alfred,  a posting that brought me many reactions from around the world.   Today is the eve of the holocaust day in Israel, and the TV broadcasts all evening holocaust related programs an movies.   My daughters called me to watch a movie called: La vita è bella, an Italian speaking movie  (in Israel the movies are not dubbed, they are sub-titled talking about father and son, both Italian Jewish, sent to a concentration camp, and the father plays for the son as if everything is one big game, and saves him various times.   It is a great movie (three academy awards),  where besides the plot there is a lot of symbolics, the idea to view all the events in the concentration camp as a game, where in some points the child discovers the reality, and tells his father that he heard that they are doing buttons and soap from people, and burning them, and his father treats it as if it is all just a joke.   
As I have written before, my late father, who was a sole survivor of a big family, used to say that this period occurred on another planet, and people who were not there, cannot understand it.   I think that it is good that one day a year is dedicated here to educate the younger generation which is two generations removed and give them some glance on that dark period. 

On the holocaust and the use of negative thinking

It is Holocaust memorial day here, a year ago I have written in this Blog a story about my father and King Alfred. This story brought me a lot of reactions. This year, the holocaust memorial day for me is in the shadow of my recent research about the family history, which I have neglected to do until now. The picture above is the famous gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp. I never had uncles or first cousins from my father side. Unlike myself, my father has not been an only son, he had seven brothers and sisters, five of them ended their lives in a single day in this place, the other two ended their lives even before getting to Auschwitz in Ghetto Lodz. Until two weeks ago I did not know most of their names, ,my father rarely talked about his family. My family history research revealed me all the names. The Nazis were very thorough and documents everything, today one can find a lot of information on the Web, though some effort is needed. My father was the second of the eight children and the only survivor. His elder brother Yehuda, died in the Ghetto in the age of 19, another of his brother, Chanoch, died in the Ghetto at the ages of 12. In that day in Auschwitz, my aunts and uncles whom I never met, were poisoned in the Gas chambers, like the people in this picture who march to their death.

The names are: Chana who was 18 years old, Eliezer - 12, Roza - 11, Rivka -10, and Miriam - 8 years old.

I would like to take this opportunity and connect the holocaust to another thread of off-topic posts that gained a lot of reactions, the one that talked on positive and negative thinking. There are people with negative thinking who just waste their energy on looking at the world in a negative light, these people are often annoying, but the more dangerous people are those who use negative thinking in order to get support for their agenda. It is always easy to unite people behind negative message, behind common threats, whether existing or imaginary. People are getting support to their political agenda by turning people against groups of people, the negative sentiment is unfortunately very effective way to get people's support. This is what enabled the extermination of millions of people, in what is known as the holocaust. This is also a warning for the future.

Off Topic: Holocaust memorial day, my father, and King Alfred

Today I will take some time to write on an off-topic; in Israel we have a memorial day for the holocaust. I am a second generation survivor; my father (who passed away 11 years ago) was the only survivor of a big family, he started the world world II in the Lodz Ghetto where he worked in a kitchen, either the one shown in the picture above, or one other, transferred to Auschwitz, where he was selected to live, while most of his family were selected to die, and kept moving in various work camps, his final place was in Dachau, and at the end of the war, he also survived the Death March in Tyrol mountains that is documented here and in this picture.




I learned about his history during this period over the years bit by bit, since my father almost never talked about this period in his life, when I asked him once, he told me the following story instead of telling me about himself, the story of King Alfred.



King Alfred has escaped due to some revolt and was hiding in a farm, when the rebelling soldiers looking for him got there, the farmer hid the King below a big pile of straw; the soldiers started to look at the straw, they nearly removed all of it, and then decided to move on. At later time the King succeeded to overcome the mutiny and returned to his throne. At some point the farmer came to visit him and he said to him -- you save my life, I can give you whatever you wish, the farmer said: I am a modest person, don't need anything, have one question to you, what did you feel when the soldiers almost got all the straw removed. The king has shown an angry face and said: this is a very rude question, hang this man immediately. The farmer was about to be hanged, a rope was already tightened to his throat, and then the king said: stop, now you see what I felt.

(This is actually what my father wrote in a letter to a relative that found him in the survivals list and sent him a letter asked him to describe what happened to him in the war).

Only recently I learned that my father has documented the names of all his family members in Yad Vashem, that scanned all their archive to the web a few years ago, here is the webpage where my grandfather is documented which includes my father's scanned handwriting,

Back to professional Blogging -- later this week.