Arnold Friedman says that he is a member of a “vanishing species” as a Holocaust survivor.
“Holocaust is not a Jewish issue. Holocaust is a Jewish tragedy,” he told a crowd of thirty at Whitney Hall last Thursday.
The scope of that tragedy was made all too clear earlier that day when students, faculty and city residents fought cold, rain and sleep deprivation in a 24-hour long recitation of the names of Holocaust victims.
The vigil, organized by the Jewish Students Union and the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, commemorated the nights of Kristallnacht. On November 9 and 10, 1938, Jews in Germany, Austria and Sudetenland were attacked their homes, workplaces and synagogues. An estimated 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps over these two days.
“The infamous day is dubbed Kristallnacht, as it evokes images of stained-glass windows crashing down into the streets—the stained glass windows of over 1,000 synagogues over the course of 24 hours,” said Nathaniel Lipkus, the event organizer.
Holocaust survivor Alex Levin opened the memorial by relating the hardships he and his brother faced during the 18 months they lived as fugitives in the woods, hiding from the Nazi authorities who had taken over his town and sent all its Jews to concentration camps. While he and his brother were fortunate enough to survive, his father, uncle and other family members died in the camps.
After Mr. Levin told his story, he and U of T President Robert Birgeneau began reading off the names together.
Later, Friedman described arriving in Auschwitz. “You suddenly realized you were in an inhumane facility,” he said.
“We all looked like a bunch of zombies—literally, we did not recognize each other,” he said as he described the way that he and others were stripped to have their hair cut, and then dressed in rags. He told stories of the concentration camps, where he and his friends were arbitrarily split into groups of sick and healthy, where the sick could be watched rising in flames from the crematorium hours later while the healthy were told to wave to their friends. Friedman ended stories about how he avoided death with, “that’s how I survived that time.”
Students attending Friedman’s talk were quiet and deeply attentive. In addition to the memorial, Alpha Epsilon Pi also conducted a fundraiser for Holocaust awareness, raising almost $1,500 to be donated to the Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto. Student campus groups, such as the LGBTOUT and the Campus Chaplains’ Association, participated in events to show their support. Lipkus stressed the importance of a multi-faith, multi-cultural remembrance.
“In commemorating the entire Holocaust, it is important that we identify the tragedy not only with Jews, but also with other denominations who were persecuted, including the handicapped, homosexuals, Armenians, Serbians and Roma,” he said.
