Chilling tales of SA’s Holocaust survivors remembered

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Miriam Lichterman was 16 years old, still in high school and living with her parents and brother when Germany invaded Poland in September, 1939.

Speaking from Cape Town as part of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Commemoration Day, on Thursday via Zoom, Lichterman recounted how she and her family were forced into the Warsaw ghetto alongside all the remaining Jews who had thus far escaped being killed by the Nazis.

“There, large numbers died of hunger and disease during the next two years while many more were deported to the so-called labour camps,” Lichterman said.

“My brother died in the Warsaw ghetto uprising.”

A visitor views an exhibition at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance centre, on the eve of the ceremonies marking the Holocaust remembrance day in Jerusalem on April 6, 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Having survived a death march to Ravensbruck and another to Malakoff “with divine providence”, Lichterman and her sister – the sole survivors of her family – were eventually freed by the Allies.

“Over the years, I have always strived to use my experiences as a means of educating people regarding the evils of racial and anti-Semitic hatred and the values of tolerance and acceptance of difference,” said Lichterman.

TOPSHOT – Visitors walk from the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance centre, on the eve of the ceremonies marking the Holocaust remembrance day in Jerusalem on April 6, 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

She was one of six survivors who lit a memorial candle and gave testimony on how the lessons could be taken forward.

The theme of this year’s Yom HaShoah was Memory, Resilience and Hope, with the six candles representing the six million Jews who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.

Survivors are dwindling, with 11 from SA having died since the 2020 ceremony and the need to hear those who remain has become even more essential.

Holocaust survivor Yoel Slotine poses in front of an authentic German train, that transported Jews to extermination camps, in the Israeli city of Netanya during the Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 8, 2021. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Helene Sieff was born in Belgium, on 17 March, 1937, and together with her parents, survived due to the Belgian Jewish Resistance and the courage and humanity of the various Christians who hid them until Belgium was liberated in September 1944.

Undercover with a Christian family, Sieff was expected to know all about the religion.]

Helene Seiff. World War II Holocaust survivor.
Picture: Supplied

“During these darkest of times, when all justice, compassion and humanity seemed to have been banished, what mattered to [her rescuers] was not our religion, race or ethnicity, but that we were fellow human beings,” Sieff said, now living in Johannesburg.

In Canada, Pinchas Gutter lit a candle in honour of his twin sister Sabina, who was murdered by the Nazis in Majdanek.

“It is my belief that interaction with Holocaust survivors is vital for evoking the emotional response as well as empathy from participants,” said Gutter, who has been immortalised as an interactive hologram at the Toronto Holocaust Education Centre.

National chair of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies Shane Zagnoev said every year Yom HaShoah was commemorated was a recommitment to “fighting for a world where such evils will never be allowed to reoccur”.

Amanda Watson – amandaw@citizen.co.za