Crackers Phinn
Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
However you feel about Jews, the sentiment of the story is what is important. I edited it down but the link to the full version is below.
Auschwitz survivor's 'duty to the dead'
Leon Schwarzbaum is one of the last survivors of Auschwitz -- the Nazi death camp that Chancellor Angela Merkel will be visiting for the first time on Friday. At 98, he says his "duty to the dead" is to bear witness about what happened to him.
"I had the good fortune to survive. My family did not," Schwarzbaum told AFP in an interview in his elegant apartment on the outskirts of Berlin. Schwarzbaum was sent to Auschwitz in occupied Poland at the age of 22. His parents were gassed to death on the day they arrived at the camp in July 1943. In total, 35 members of his family were killed.
Schwarzbaum survived two years in Auschwitz, working as a forced labourer for Siemens, until he was taken away by fleeing Nazi troops as the Allies advanced. For decades, Schwarzbaum kept his story to himself. "I did not know whom I could tell about these monstrosities," he said. Nobody wanted to hear the survivors. But in the 1970s, a wedding party on Wannsee lake outside Berlin brought back the horror. Someone sitting next to him at the party asked: "Where were you during the war, my friend? I was in the SS." Schwarzbaum's wife answered for him: "My husband was at Auschwitz".
- 'There is no forgiveness' -
In his last years, Schwarzbaum has started to bear witness more frequently to younger generations and in front of the courts. In February 2016, he told his story at the trial of former Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning, 93, one of the last on the Nazi era. Schwarzbaum came out of it profoundly disappointed. Hanning did not speak during the hearings, only providing a written confession. A few minutes before the verdict which sentenced him to five years in prison, Schwarzbaum gave him a letter that he now reads, sitting on the edge of his sofa. "There is no forgiveness. Only the people you killed as a member of the SS can forgive," he wrote. Hanning did not reply to the letter. He died in 2017.
Full story here.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/auschwitz-survivors-duty-to-the-dead/ar-BBXN55b?ocid=spartanntp
Auschwitz survivor's 'duty to the dead'
Leon Schwarzbaum is one of the last survivors of Auschwitz -- the Nazi death camp that Chancellor Angela Merkel will be visiting for the first time on Friday. At 98, he says his "duty to the dead" is to bear witness about what happened to him.
"I had the good fortune to survive. My family did not," Schwarzbaum told AFP in an interview in his elegant apartment on the outskirts of Berlin. Schwarzbaum was sent to Auschwitz in occupied Poland at the age of 22. His parents were gassed to death on the day they arrived at the camp in July 1943. In total, 35 members of his family were killed.
Schwarzbaum survived two years in Auschwitz, working as a forced labourer for Siemens, until he was taken away by fleeing Nazi troops as the Allies advanced. For decades, Schwarzbaum kept his story to himself. "I did not know whom I could tell about these monstrosities," he said. Nobody wanted to hear the survivors. But in the 1970s, a wedding party on Wannsee lake outside Berlin brought back the horror. Someone sitting next to him at the party asked: "Where were you during the war, my friend? I was in the SS." Schwarzbaum's wife answered for him: "My husband was at Auschwitz".
- 'There is no forgiveness' -
In his last years, Schwarzbaum has started to bear witness more frequently to younger generations and in front of the courts. In February 2016, he told his story at the trial of former Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning, 93, one of the last on the Nazi era. Schwarzbaum came out of it profoundly disappointed. Hanning did not speak during the hearings, only providing a written confession. A few minutes before the verdict which sentenced him to five years in prison, Schwarzbaum gave him a letter that he now reads, sitting on the edge of his sofa. "There is no forgiveness. Only the people you killed as a member of the SS can forgive," he wrote. Hanning did not reply to the letter. He died in 2017.
Full story here.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/auschwitz-survivors-duty-to-the-dead/ar-BBXN55b?ocid=spartanntp