Yom Hashoah 2018 Commemoration Video (Part 3)

Eli, Eli, She lo yigamer leolam Hakhol ve hayam Rishrush shel hamayim Berak hashamayim Tfilat ha'adam, Hakhol ve hayam Rishrush shel hamayim Berak hashamayim Tfilat ha'adam.

Oh Lord, my God, I pray these things never end The sand and the sea, the rush of the water, the lightning in the heavens, the prayer of man The sand and the sea, the rush of the water, the lightning in the heavens, the prayer of man.

My family was taken to the train station in Antwerp, Belgium during the summer of 1942. The train was destined for Auschwitz. My mother believed that because of my blonde hair and blue eyes, I'd have the best chance of surviving. She told me, just walk away from the train station. I never saw my family again. I was four years old. A nun found me wandering the streets and she took me to a house in Antwerp that served as a hiding place for Jewish children.

The house was raided and I ended up in an orphanage in Wiesenbeek where I lived for the next five years. After the war, a group of boys and I continued to live in the orphanage but with little adult supervision because the staff had left. We roamed the streets of Wiesenbeek for two years. I didn't have to account to anybody. I knew damn well that I had lost my parents. I was an orphan. By pure serendipity, my uncle found me in 1947 and I went to live with his family. It was a fiasco. I didn't know how to live with people. I didn't know how to be a mench. I was too much for them. After two years, my great aunt wanted me to live with her family in Montreal. My new parents were very patient with me and I was finally part of a family. I fully learned how to live with people. In high school, I recall, I realized that I was going to graduate. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I remember standing in front of a mirror saying, Fred, what are you going to do with yourself? And then I asked myself, if my dad and my mother were alive, what the hell would they want me to do? And the first thing that popped into my head was be a mench. By the time I went to college, I knew I would be a doctor and work with children because kids were the ones who needed the most help. I graduated from medical school in 1964 and after I completed training, I became a pediatric neurologist.

Years later, I was able to track down the woman who took care of me in the orphanage. I called her on the phone and told her what had become of me and I added, I finally became a mench. And I remember her saying, you weren't such a bad kid at all. If it weren't for the people who took risks, I wouldn't have survived. They put their necks in the noose every time they helped out because it was just the right thing to do. So let it be a red flag. When one human being tries to put another human being down.

I was born in Sarand, Hungary. My mother died when I was seven. I had six loving brothers and sisters and my wonderful father. I loved to go to the movies, love stories. That's what I liked the best. I read romance novels by Daphne DuBarriere, J.J. Cronin, and Margaret Mitchell. I never had a doll or a toy from a store. We made up our own toys. My best friend, Irene, who was not Jewish, lived across the street. When the Nazis told my family that we were being deported, I asked Irene to keep some of my clothes. I put the clothes on hangers and hung them on her back gate in the middle of the night. A few days later, I found my clothes hanging back on our gate. That was the last time Irene was in my life. The train ride to Auschwitz was 80 to 90 people in a cattle car with no windows and two buckets. One for water, the other a toilet. I found my older sister in the camp. Suddenly, I had a purpose, to take care of my sister.

I protected her, fought for water against thousands of others. I had to trample people down and would come back with blood on my face. In 1944, I was sent to a German labor camp. In 1945, our commander called a meeting. He told us the Americans were not far away and that he and his staff were leaving. We could follow them or scatter. A group of us headed for the woods.

Later, we learned the commander had ignored an order to take us to Buchenwald to be gassed. That man saved our lives. America was such conscious to what I left behind. I couldn't get over the vastness of it. I took night classes in typing, and several courses in banking. I was even asked to be on a jury. Most people wanted to get out of it, but I was happy to do it. Where I came from, I did not have a voice. I would love to be the oldest Holocaust survivor still speaking to kids. I want children to know it happened and to accept one another as human beings, no one better than their neighbor. That the bystander is as guilty as the perpetrator, and if we do not speak out, we're letting the voices of hate take charge.

Perhaps the young people will be able to prevent another Holocaust. Perhaps they will be the next generation of upstanders. Perhaps you will join them. Let it be a red flag when one human being tries to put another human being down.

So by now you've gotten the message. Let it be a red flag when one human being tries to put another human being down. Actually, that's only half the message. The other half is a question. What can I do to help? To witness discrimination and recognize it as a red flag is important and necessary. But if no action is taken, if silence or acceptance or lack of regard is the response, what use is the warning? So what can we do? Do what these nine Holocaust survivors hope we have the courage to do. Be an upstander. Do what we know is right, even if it makes us uncomfortable. Don't remain silent or passive or angry.

Lead by example. Be a mensch. In case you don't know where to begin, be an upstander is printed in the back of your program. Take it home. Use it where it will do the most good. If each of us does one thing on that list, hundreds of righteous acts will add to the strength of our community.

The Holocaust happened because the world let it happen. It didn't just happen to the six million who died and to those who survived. It's a history that belongs to all of us. Before we close with Hatikvah and the Star Spangled Banner, I want to sincerely thank you Lila, Milt, Bea, Polina, Esther, Marcel, Annette and Cantor Fettman, Fred and Kitty for sharing yourselves and your story and for telling us the things we need to hear. Finally, a sincere thanks to all of you who respectfully came to listen. Shalom bayit, peace in your home. Shalom baynenu, peace between us and shalom bayolam, peace in the world.

You can find the words for Hatikvah on page eight. Please rise. Kol od ba-lei-vav pe-ni-ma ne-fesh Ye-hu-di ho-mi-ya U-le-fa-a-tei miz-rach ka-di-ma, a-yin le-tsi-yon tso-fi-ya. Od lo a-ve-da tik-va-tei-nu ha-tik-va bat she-not al-pa-yim, li-he-yot am chof-shi be-ar-tsei-nu, be-e-rets tsi-yon Vi-ru-sha-la-yim. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there O say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Good evening.