Are Holocaust Survivors Heroes?

Excelente trabajo. .Que H.S le de larga vida.

Lo queremos mucho

Bernardo y Perla

"I wondered if anyone had alerted Hitler that in the event that the final solution didn’t pan out, only the handful of Jews who actually fulfilled the stereotype of the Judenscheisse (because every group has a few) would remain to carry on the Jewish race—conniving, indestructible, taking and taking." (from Anne Breslaw's 'article' this article here was referring to)

I'm in utter disbelief. Did Anna Breslaw seriously suggest in her OUTRAGEOUS verbal diarrhea that those who survived the Holocaust were factually the real "Judenscheisse" Hitler wanted to get rid of???! How was she allowed to publish that, and how was she still allowed to publish anything anywhere after that??

Thank you, Elke Weiss, for this article, although you let her get away with this far too mildly. I'm absolutely dumbfound.

I believe holocaust survivors are some of the finest and blessed people in the world! We had a opportunity to have a survivor sit in our car one night after Shabbat service and tell us her testimony. It was awesome. I love the Jewish people like I do my own children. I have been to Israel in 1983 and love every minute of it.

Like you, I grew up in the Company of Holocaust Survivors. Up till I was 3 1/2, I met with my Bubbes sisters. No one prepared me for the aberrations present in their violent behaviour when they were called to the dinner table to eat. As a toddler, I had never seen such a sight and I screamed and ran away from them. Backwards as I recall. My Great Uncle, their brother, picked me up quickly in his arms and took me to another room. He calmed me, and when I was calm enough, he explained these Great Aunts met "very bad people.". I had many questions about this. We joined the family again and all was well for the rest of the visit. Further visits too. Once my Great Uncle passed away, I was eventually adopted by a Family in another State. In a Family of bad people. I learned. Many of the people I met also were Holocaust Survivors. I loved them all dearly. I was blessed to have then with me as I was growing up. Are they heroes? YES! "A person meets his destiny by taking the road to avoid it ". Fontaine

We do not have to look back in order to know what a holocaust is, but learn from the past to avoid it becomes a person's presence. I is time that we are also mourning the holocaust of the unborn in Israel, where more Jewish bloodline got lost than during the 2 World War. Every year about 35 thousand of them, but nobody seem wanting to talk about it. Let us to be sober and obey the six Commandment of God: You shall not kill. These I say not to diminish the suffering of the ones, which have lost their lives during the holocaust or are survivors of the same. I cam across one myself.

I saw a documentary series about the Holocaust. One man, who had been quite young, had helped (volunteered ?) to load the bodies into the fires. He might well have been one of them if he hadn't. Would I have done what he did, to save myself ? Of course I would. And, as he seems to have done, blamed and justified myself forever alfterwards. If he hadn't, someone else would have, he couldn't have stopped anything by refusing or not stepping forward. I'm sure that in his place, mine would have been the first hand raised. I can't fool myself that I'd have refused. My heart went out to him.

You seem to use the word nervy in a different way to the way we do; to me a nervy person is a nervous, timid one, but you seem to mean arrogant (?)

I used to wonder how, when two people from a family were the only survivors, they could bear to live in different countries and not see each other-but now I think that the pain could drive a wedge between people in a strange way. It could be that they could end up hardly able to bear to look at each other.

I have not much sympathy, if any, with the viewpoint that this all happened decades ago, the German people should be allowed to live it down. They should not, certainly not while there are any survivors and probably never.

He was LESS likely to survive by doing that. The Sunderkommando were regularly killed. Almost none of them survived; the Nazis usually killed them when they moved the other prisoners to different camps. And they were killed every few months and new Sunderkommando chosen.

The Sunderkommando were the ones who would give young children to the elderly, so their parents would have a chance to live. This was a major risk on their part, and many were reviled and hated for it by their fellow survivors. Many also thought they were kappos (because they got better food and clothing) though they were NOT. Because of this, many stayed silent after the war, which is a great pity, as no one can testify to the numbers better than they, who burned the bodies.

The Sunderkommando once blew up a crematorium at Auschwitz. It didn’t slow down the killing, but it did have a morale effect. Unfortunately, the saboteurs were caught and burned alive. The plot of escape at Sobibor was also conceived by the Sonderkommando.

Hero has no place in identifying Hollacaust survivors or victims .
It is an overused and misused term .
Eisenhower can be said to be a Hero of that episode on the American side . Stallin and the 20 million Soviets who lost their lives FIGHTING HITLER paid the biggest price for victory . They could be considered heroes and martyrs .
Victims are victims and survivors are survivors . These are appropriate terms for the Jews during WW2 unless they were AMERICAN or Russian soldiers .

Good article! Yasher Koach!

Please travel and be our guest here in Melbourne Australia almost half the community here of Jewish people are survivors or children or grandchildren or now even great grandchildren of survivors of the Holocaust.

No one is 100 percent perfect but after such trauma who would be but see the wonderful Achievements

Both of my parents were holocaust survivors. I am their only child. I grew up listening to the many things that happened during the Holocaust from my mother. I listened intently. There were times that she cried at the loss of her parents and her four siblings. My father never spoke of the horrors he experienced, however, my mother did tell me that he lost a wife and three children. As I grew older, those stories haunted me, and to this day I cannot read books, or watch movies about the holocaust. It is just too painful for me.

for writing this. It made me cry. I have struggled and still struggle with nearly identical feelings of shame and regret at not having had the time to spend listening to my grandparents, because I was too busy being privileged as an American grandchild. It haunts me. I thought I was the only one.

Hero is the one who faced the daily roundup and stared at death in horror and disbelief of the extend of human brutality...The survivor is a hero, but only to himself as no one else can fathom someone else's survival..Death was certain, suffering was assured, life itself was a daily struggle, survival was beyond hope but a postponement of inevitable death...All we survivors can do is warn future generations of the evils of human capabilities when man is pitted against man...

I do not understand what your grandmother did wrong. I do understand that she has guilt feelings-maybe she thought she could help her sisters, which she could not done have anyway. But had she done differently, you would not be here today.

awesome article

bless you always

thank you for writing this. I too read the article on tablet magazine and was too sickened and overwhelmed to collect my thoughts enough to comment. i cant fathom how anyone would publish that bizarre, disgusting piece of writing. sorry for her to live in a headspace that twisted.

I wonder sometimes, certainly have wondered at the luck of other children of survivors who grew up with both a father and a mother - and even siblings! My catagory as the daughter born to a sole survivor - and as such in the Shoah - set me apart and I felt looked down up. Indeed, those children would not be friends with me and any effort to connect with them in my adult life - failed. Hierarchy - or are their ways of being in the world that are learned when one's family is whole - that I missed out on. My conclusion is that each of us comes into the world to fulfil some sort of mission known only to the soul - and whatever struggels, whatever lessons are thrust upon us - are to provide us a means to transcend whatever stood in my path certainly - for me to be both accepted by, included in the lifes of those fortunate enough to be born to familes that also had a father - In actuality challenges confront everyone - no matter the configuration - and my responsibility can only be mine. And to remember the blessing - amazing blessing - that I am here enabled by a force more powerful than any that any of us can imagine - for reasons that are perhaps not meant to distract us from the larger goal - the opportunity at life so we may grow and give to fellow human beings - the blessings of which the Shoah marytrs were deprived and among pain the deepest a human being can have at such a lose. Removed from the opportunity to give, and share who we are!

After reading the Breslaw article, I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach. I don't understand how someone can judge the survivors of the most horrific evil that was thrust on people since time began. It is sad, very sad..........

great response to an article that should never have been published on a Jewish website.

We can all tell each others stories of how we were raised, how we were protected and how we had learned at an early how we had to "survive"! The children of survivors are the next group of "survivors" and we do have stories to tell.

"For me, the Holocaust survivors in my life are the marrow in my bones, the steel in my spine and the humility in my heart. They remind me that evil still exists and they challenge me to fight it, they endowed me with the spiritual wish to live, to love life and its beauty." Amen!! This is why I stick at being an observant Jew when the rest of my mother's family denounce their Judaism. This is why I always remember to try to _LIVE_ the words of "Thank you for not making me a slave". This is why I take the insults hurled at me by gentiles and muslims and not fight back. If I were to turn my back on who I am (a Jew) I would insult not only the memories of my family members who perished in the Holocaust, but I would then be saying "so what?" to the 6 million who died so the rest of us could be proud to be Jewish.

Of course they are! They are a testamony to perseverence. They are the living evidence that Ha Shoah happened. They are to be appreciated! May we never forget lest this happen again.

Holocaust survivors are heroes. There are times when surviving is not enough to classify you as a hero, but in the case of the people who made it through this time and were left to rebuild the Jewish people the title does fit. I've written a book about my parents and what they went through. It is called Jew Face and the website I have set up to discuss the book and relevant Jewish issues is http://hollandsheroes.com/

OF COURSE! You godda be either seriously tough or very, very lucky to survive hell on earth (Or worse than hell... Probably)... Or have some kind of divine miracle happening to you. And yes, we, those, who were born in, say, 1987 and not 1937, enjoy a thing I'd like to call a "Juedische Version der Gnade der spaeten Geburt" (A/N: Yes, I'm livin in Germany now.), which translates into "Jewish version of the favour of late birth", derived from the "Gnade der spaeten Geburt" ("favour of late birth"). The original was made by Germans, who were born too late to be part of the generation of perpetrators and the Jewish version is made by the jews, who were born to late to be part of the generation of victims.

I am blinded by my tears....

I was disgusted by the Breslaw article. I have come across a survivor who wasn't heroic -- but so what? Of course an individual survivor might be nervy, pushy, or even villainous -- but that does not reflect on ALL or even many survivors. Frankly, Breslaw's article made me think she so thoroughly imbibed Nazi anti-Semitism that she herself was repeating the sort of lies and broad-brush smears that the Nazis used to slander the entire Jewish people and convince much of Germany and Eastern Europe that the only cure was to rid the world of Jews. And as Ms. Weiss states -- the majority of survivors' stories are ultimately not about how they got through the Holocaust, but their contributions ever since.

I did not read the Breslaw article until I followed the link here. She is a disgusting and pitiful person, and this article, as a foil to hers is impressive. As one with a similar past, and with family friends and relatives with the same situation as these articles, and felt that care, compassion, and understanding of the reasons for behaviors make all things clearer.

We will never forget what Nazi Germany and its allies did to the Jews in their vile attempt at world domination. Germany may perform miracles of achievements, but its past hovers over it like a long shadow that will never disappear. They set their own future, and now they have to live with it. It's gonna be one long, long time! We Jews are still talking about what the Egyptians did to us 5000 years ago. Germany doesn't have a chance!!

While we are in the mood of not forgetting............the Spanish Inquistion is right up there.

Al tirah mi pachad pitom. ooh mi shoaht rasha-im ki tavoh. -Mishlei 3:25 Anyone who stays in America now, should take the rest of this blessing to heart. But why stay there? Now you can easily come back to Eretz Yisrael. It's the time to come. Bring back the Torah, for it shall be brought back. Tiferet

I do not recall the Rebbe's name in this story. But, a certain Chassidische Rebbe wanted to make Aliya after WWII. A chassid of his asked, "But, Rebbe, who will answer my questions and receive my Kvitlach (prayer reqests? The Rebbe answered him saying, "When you go to shul in the morning, watch the other men put on their T'filin. When you see someone who is putting on his T'filin over the numbers tatooed on his arm, you can be certain. That man is worthy to receive your requests. There are no survivors or children of suirvivors in my family. All my relatives left Europe around the turn of the century. All my GRANDparents were born in the States, But, I agree with the Rebbe. Anyone who came through that with his faith in G-d intact; is a big, Big, BIG, hero in my eyes.

I think (?) The Satmar Rebbe REb Yoel TZL ZYA said this

After growing up in close proximity to people who were all Holocost survivors I think it is almost impossible to understand them unless you would experience what they experienced yourself.

I was greatly moved by Elke Weiss's "Casting Holocaust survivors as nervy, pushy villains is a moral perversion." My only wish is that piece had come my way while I was still an active teacher in the NYC school system. It would have made a powerful companion piece in my unit on NIGHT, along with Simon Wiesenthal's "Two Candles for Sammy." My family was already in the United States prior to 1938, but my father and my uncles all served in WWII. Casting Holocaust survivors as villains denigrates them, and it further denigrates those brave soldiers who fought the heinous criminals who perpetrated the Holocaust.

Anyone who has read Anna Breslaw's screed - as I have - must be shocked, horrified and quite simply stunned that a young Jewish person could write that kind of twisted rhetoric. That's why I'm so impressed with this response. My own response would not have been so polite, but I think that's what makes this one stronger than anything I might have written. It's written from the heart, with feelings of love rather than the anger I felt. And it makes me glad that I didn't put my thoughts into words, and instead was able to read these. Thank you

No just surviving the hell did not make them heroes, but the fact that they went on to build a nation, and families and homes, and to nurture. To restore the code of ethical living that they had lived by before, that makes them heroes. The fact that they were willing to see the worst in man, and yet still believe enough to have families, that makes them heroes. Surviving is only how you get through it, what you do after it decides if you are indeed a hero.

My father was a survivor. We talked about whether he considered himself a hero. He did not consider himself a hero; even though he had won the battle against Hitler. He survived. It took a lot of miracles and friends he made in the camps to keep him alive.

The Native Americans ask that you," don't judge e until you have walked five miles in my moccasens(sp?). Anyone who survived the Holocaust has to have had scars too deep to cure. Don't focus on their faults. Say a prayer of thanks that they survived and are here to verify just how horrific the Holocaust really was.

as above

In the last few years I have heard the word "hero" refer to those civilians who died on 9/11 in the WTC, sports figures and other celebrities. To me, the word is over-used and wrongly used. According to Wikipedia, a hero is someone "who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity. " The firefighters who died in the WTC trying to save others fit that definition. Sports figures and celebrities do not. They may be role models to some, but not "heroes". The question is whether it should refer to those who died in the Holocaust and/or those who survived. I would say that all who died in the holocaust are martyrs ("somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious". Those who died in the holocaust trying to save others are heroes. Those who survived and rebuilt their lives I would prefer to call role models.

Anna Breslaw's article in Tablet was truly disturbed. Thank you for taking it on.

Thank you for sharing. May I share this article with the Holocaust Education group I work with?

Thank you for reading! I would be honored if you shared it!

Thank you for sharing your beautiful story!

I enjoyed reading your post. I agree with your conclusion, that the portrayal of Holocaust victims as "nervy, pushy villain's is a moral perversion." I wonder however, if there aren't circumstances in which certain behaviour could be frowned upon or is any behaviour under these extreme circumstances acceptable? It is worth discussing I think because I remember as a child, when taking history lessons how our teacher made the point that we should not judge other's actions too harshly as it was a different time, and different circumstances. This comment has always stuck with me. Now as an adult, I understand more acutely how important it is not to judge other's less "you've walked a mile in their shoes." However, I am aware that there is such a thing as "natural law", a God given law written on our hearts that tells us right from wrong. What do you think?

Dear Elke, You should not even have dignified this author(excuse for writing) a comment. Breslaw's writing of Survivor evil is so disgusting, it's beyond my imagination. I have never seen anyone with such an insane idea.

I thought a lot about speaking up and basically this started as a private email to my friend, and she encouraged me to speak up. After talking to my grandfather, I decided to respond because I wanted to make it clear that there are grandchildren of survivors who love and respect their grandparents for what they endured.

How is it possible that the grandchildren of the Holocaust victims have a posttraumatic syndrome? Is that an iniguity?