We must never forget the Holocaust

The past was present at Ryerson’s Holocaust Education Week 2018, and the spectre of Pittsburgh loomed over the centrepiece event.

At a Holocaust Memorial Ceremony on November 7, Polish-born survivor Sol Nayman shared his story, while reflecting on the political winds that have reinvigorated anti-Semitism.

“The Holocaust is 73 years past, yet today there is no shortage of the elements that lead to mass killings,” said Nayman. “Today, racism, fascism, intolerance, and anti-Semitism are at unprecedented highs. Even in democracies such as our beloved Canada, the U.S., England, France, Sweden—you name it.”

Nayman was born in 1935 in Stroczek Wegrowski, a small rural village in Poland that “had absolutely no strategic value—no railroads, no factories.” It was, however, 25 kilometres from what Nayman calls “my neighbourhood death camp,” Treblinka. “Had we not escaped when the war broke out, that’s where my ashes would have been.”

Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and by September 9 his army had reached Stroczek. Nayman’s family and others fled to a nearby forest, where, “from a distance, we could see the town on fire.” They moved 100 kilometres to Bialystock, which the Soviets had seized in eastern Poland, but their stay was short-lived. “The Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, one of the worst mass-killers in history, inadvertently saved our lives, and the lives of tens of thousands of Jews, by deporting us to Soviet forced labour camps,” said Nayman.

They were transported in a cattle-car to Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic, just south of the Arctic Circle. There, they were forced to live in abhorrent conditions—little food, no medication, and no sanitation. “It looked very much like any concentration camp, but with the exception that the Soviet soldiers did not beat us necessarily, and did not murder us necessarily. That was left to starvation, disease, hypothermia, etcetera.

“There was only one objective, and that was our ‘long-term strategy,’ so to speak: survive the day, and hope to see tomorrow.”

The war went on. Hitler broke his treaty with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin launched a scorched-earth policy that devastated the Ukrainian Republic while also forcing the Germans back. When it came time to rebuild the Republic, Nayman’s family was moved to work on a factory Haivoron, and they were helped by a nearby farming family. “It’s often said that nobody survives the Holocaust without some kindness from somebody,” said Nayman.

After the war ended, the family spent time in an occupation zone in a former S.S. Camp in Wetzlar, Germany. “It was there that we first heard of the Holocaust. It was there that we first heard the tremendous atrocities committed by the Nazis. Photos were circulated of the death camps after they were liberated. … In the Soviet Union, there was absolutely nothing publicized about the Holocaust. There was nothing in any papers for the entire duration of the war.

“It was the first time I saw tattoos on the arms of survivors. I held a bar of soap made of Jewish fat, with a Nazi swastika and an inscription ‘Rein Juden Fett’—true Jewish fat. It was there that I held a lampshade made of human skin. And for that, and other reasons, I never really felt that I was a survivor, compared to what we had seen in Wetzlar.”

After years of seeking a visa, Nayman’s family was finally permitted to move to Canada in fall 1948. Since then, says Nayman, “I’ve been blessed beyond words”—married for 57 years, with two sons and five grandchildren. “My life in Canada compensated me for the childhood that I lost during the Holocaust.”

But his “inner conflict about being a true survivor” lasted until a decade ago, when he visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. An inscription in the museum defined a Holocaust survivor as, “All those who were displaced, persecuted, or discriminated against due to the racial, religious, ethnic, and political policies of the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.” With this confirmation, said Nayman, “now I have to make up for lost time.”

And time is running out for survivors of the Holocaust. At 83, Nayman is one of the younger survivors, and denial and anti-Semitism will outlive him. The current youth generation will be the last to hear about the Holocaust first-hand from survivors, and Nayman knows his responsibility. “Holocaust education remains an important element of the world today, as do the other genocides which have resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent people,” from Armenia to Myanmar.

“We will forever honour Anne Frank. But we should also honour Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for daring to issue a blog that education was important for girls. She survived, and became the youngest Nobel laureate for her activism.” He also noted that Canada and the U.S. shut their doors to Jewish refugees when Hitler was in power. “If we forget history, it tends to repeat itself.”

Held on November 7, the Holocaust Memorial Ceremony was organized by Ryerson University, Hillel Ryerson, and the Ryerson Students’ Union, and included a memorial service to remember those that perished in the Holocaust.