{"id":933,"date":"2018-08-14T19:19:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T00:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/?p=933"},"modified":"2025-08-18T15:07:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:07:36","slug":"august-september-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/august-september-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"August\/September 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

EFTA Blog\u2014August 2018
\n75TH ANNIVERSARY<\/p>\n

It is a land is populated with ghosts\u2026 at least to me, it is.
\nNaftali. Chanah. Shamei. Toncia.
\nNames of four of my murdered family, four out of more than 80.
\nLives eradicated, and now in memory, resurrected.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just returned from Poland. It was 75 years ago, on August 1, 2, 3, 1943, when Jews from the Kamionka\/Strodula Ghetto\u2014 Jews from Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and the Zaglembia region of western Poland\u2014were deported to Auschwitz. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Entrance Gate at Auschwitz–Arbeit Macht Frei \/ Work Makes You Free<\/p><\/div>\n

In truth, I had no need to see Poland again; I had been there multiple times to copy, research and work on photographs from the liquidation of Bedzin Ghetto\u2014but this time was different. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Ann Weiss in 1988, copying photos at Auschwitz<\/p><\/div>\n

This time was the 75th anniversary of deportation of Jews from Zaglembie, many of whose photos appear in my book, film and traveling exhibition\u2014and 200 of their descendants would be coming. It was because of these descendants\u2014so we could talk, and together honor the memory of dead families\u2014that I felt compelled to return to this land of ghosts and blood.<\/p>\n

I was asked to give a presentation by the Zaglembie World Organization. In a crowded room in Krakow, I described finding unknown personal photos in a locked room at Auschwitz. And although millions of personal photos were carried into slave labor and death camps throughout the Third Reich, only the photos from this one large transport still existed! Others had been deliberately destroyed by the Nazis, as this one was supposed to have been\u2014I learned from Professor James Young (who learned it from artist Yehuda Bacom, who heard it directly from the Sondercommando, when Bacom was a prisoner at Auschwitz Birkenau) that there was even a special crematorium in Auschwitz just to burn these personal photos! <\/p>\n

Miraculously, however, in August 1943, David Schmulevitz, a leader of the Jewish Underground, ordered the teenage girls working in \u2018Canada\u2019 (the sorting warehouses of confiscated items) to save (and hide) photos from this large transport from Zaglembie. He understood that by late summer 1943, much of Polish Jewry had already been destroyed. As an Underground member told me, \u201cDavid Schmulevitz said, \u201cIf we can\u2019t save the people, let us at least try to save their memories!\u201d <\/p>\n

Vacation photos. Wedding portraits. School Outings. Formal and informal photographs of life, depicting precious moments shared with precious people. <\/p>\n

\"\"

This photo of a mother and daughter was brought to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1943<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Wedding portrait of Artur and Grete Huppert, brought to Auschwitz August 1943<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been researching these personal photos for over 30 years. Many faces now have names. Many names now have stories. Now, on the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the ghetto, I returned to this holy\/unholy blood soaked ground\u2014 to share, to memorialize and to listen. <\/p>\n

More took place than I could possibly have anticipated. More. Even more.<\/p>\n

A few highlights:<\/p>\n

FRANIA RUSINEK\u2014AND RELATIVES FROM AUSTRALIA AND ISRAEL<\/p>\n

I was able to show Rina Kahan, the trip\u2019s organizer, as well as David Ruschinek from Israel and his father Benjamin from Australia, a group of unknown photos of their beautiful relative, Frania Ruskinek. Their shock, and reverence, at seeing the face of their beautiful Frania can scarcely be described. At this writing, I have sent copies of Frania\u2019s photo to her family members, scattered around the globe, and they are in their hands right now.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Frania Rusinek (bottom left) of Bedzin, Poland<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Ben (father) from Australia and David (son) from Israel, both relatives of Frania Rusinek<\/p><\/div>\n

Other families in other countries received other photos. In turn, they have sent me remarkable accounts, of the families they lost, of the survivors that remained, and of the impact of seeing these photos that they never knew existed. These will be shared, after I receive their permission, at another time.<\/p>\n

We were honored to have with us, among the 200+ descendants, several surivors: Miriam and Fred Ferber of Detroit (Miriam was a baby in Sosnowiec when her mother saved her life by entrusting her, at 7-months, to a Polish family), Dasha Rittenberg, now of NYC, then of Bedzin, and Esther Peterseil, who with her daughter, gave an unforgettable presentation on our first Friday afternoon (just following my talk). Excerpts of Esther\u2019s words, once I ask permission, will be shared at another time. For now, just look at the face of a woman who, not only survived, but who triumphed over the Nazis by the way she has lived and by the family she has raised. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Ester Petersil with two of her grandsons<\/p><\/div>\n

AUSCHWITZ BIRKENAU
\nIn sharp contrast to my first trip in October 1986, when the day was obscenely beautiful, and sky was the bluest of blues, on this 2018 trip, the sky was black with clouds and the rain pummeled us. This felt more right.<\/p>\n

Crowded together under Birkenau\u2019s iconic entrance, even with umbrellas, in minutes we were completely soaked. Wet and uncomfortable, it was hard not to think of other times when slave prisoners were cold, wet, starved, and had no relief at all. To us, it felt absolutely right that, soaking wet, today we were trudging though muddy Auschwitz II (also known as Birkenau), on the same terrain where the Zaglembie Jews walked 75 years ago.<\/p>\n

Through the pelting rain, we ran to one of the few wooden barracks still standing. Most had been burned by the retreating Nazis, with only brick chimneys remaining, as silent sentinels to mark the spot where so many had once suffered, and died.<\/p>\n

My own closest relatives did not die here. Instead they were forced to march many miles in the oppressive July 1943 heat, on Tisha B\u2019Av, where they were pushed into pits and shot. There they still remain in a mass grave at Janowska, which was then in Poland, and is now in Ukraine. This summer is the 75th anniversary of their murders as well. <\/p>\n

Although I am not related by blood to the Zaglembe Jews, whom we are honoring here, many years ago, several survivors \u2018admitted\u2019 me into the \u2018Zaglembie Club\u2019 with a simple explanation: \u201cYou\u2019ve been with us so long with your pictures, now you\u2019re one of us!\u201d And that\u2019s truly the way I feel.<\/p>\n

At Auschwitz I, where political prisoners were kept, we walked through brick buildings and tree-lined paths. As more than one participant commented: \u201cThis looked like a nice little brick village, not like the horror I expected!\u201d However, once you enter the \u2018Jewish Building\u2019 with its evidence of death still remaining\u2014mounds of hair, bent spectacles, gold wedding rings, thousands of broken shoes, prosthetic limbs\u2014the image of the \u2018nice little village\u2019 immediately disappears.<\/p>\n

Auschwitz looks both the same, and also quite different, from the way I remember. The hair clumps, matted together, seemed much smaller now. I asked the guide, \u201cWhere are those long braids tied with satin ribbons?\u201d They had broken my heart many years ago, when I first saw them, and now I could not find them at all. The guide simply replied, \u201cAuschwitz is not preserving the hair.\u201d <\/p>\n

Does that mean that the hair disintegrates and gets thrown away? The tour continues and there is no time to ask this kind of question. I had already lost my group again, and another \u2018handler\u2019 had come back to find me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even the piles of shoes looked different to me now. When I was lost here 32 years ago, Auschwitz was closed, except for the people in our small group. Then I was alone in that massive gallery of shoes. Now I was in a massive crowd of high school students, having lost my group again. [Note to future organzers: I was not then, nor am I now, very good at staying with my group!].<\/p>\n

The shoes, then and the shoes now, were overwhelming in number. 30,000 pair of shoes. Today I noticed a little display of shoes at the start of the gallery that I had not seen before, featuring the more unusual and more colorful shoes; and at the very front were the most heartbreaking of all: the shoes that once belonged to small children.<\/p>\n

\"\"

These shoes are several hundred of the 60,000 (30,000 pair) shoes left, from the last few days of Auschwitz-Birkenau, January 1945, when the Nazis operated the gas chambers, non-stop, to kill as many Jews as possible, before evacuating the camp, when the Soviet army was approaching.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND HENRI LUSTIGER-THALER<\/u>
\nDeputy Director Andrzej Kacorzyk of State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau was the capable point person for our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
\nHe believed that a visit to Auschwitz, where so much terror had already taken place, should now lead to more reflection, and should make visitors try to create a better world. I agree, with all my heart. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Deputy Director of Auschwitz, Andrzej Kacorzyk, with Ann Weiss and Professor Henri Lustiger-Thaler (holding papers) after tour of Auschwitz I and before tour and ceremony at Birkenau\/Auschwitz.<\/p><\/div>\n

Professor Henri Lustiger-Thaler gave several lectures. Among other projects, he is looking at remnants of pre-war Jewish life (with Karolina and Piortr Jakowenko) in a book and exhibit called Ghost LandsL Zaglembie and Upper Silesia<\/u>; and he is also examining the experiences of Orthodox Jews during the Shoah, a less researched topic in the canon of Holocaust Studies. In addition, with a cadre of talented colleagues, Henri is organizing a special exhibition, to be located at the entrance gate of Auschwitz I, in order to heighten visitors\u2019 empathy and humanity, as they enter. <\/p>\n

Note: Henri is a relative of the famous French Cardinal Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926-2007) who, as a Jewish child pretending to be Catholic, was hidden during WWII. Although never renouncing his Judaism, Aaron converted to Catholocism after the war, at age 14, taking the name \u2018Jean-Marie\u2019. He rose to the highest ranks of the Catholic Church in France, and there was even speculation that Cardinal Lustiger might become the world\u2019s first \u201cJewish Pope\u201d! Alas, he did not. <\/p>\n

FRED FROM GERMANY<\/u>
\nWhile trudging through blinding rain in Birkenau, a tall giant of a man, Fred Frenkel from Munich, Germany, walked beside me and said these unforgettable words: \u201c Twelve years ago, a miracle happened in my life\u2014because of your book!\u201d He explained, \u201cNot only did I find my relative in your picture of Furstenberg Gymnasium (Note: Furstenberg was an elite high school in Bedzin), \u201cbut through this picture, I even discovered that my long time friend in Germany was also my relative! Your book started all this!\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"

Here is Fred\u2019s relative, Jonas Testyler, the start of Fred\u2019s \u2018miracle\u2019!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Fred Frenkel and Ann in Birkenau, in front of the bucolic grove where Hungarian Jews waited to be gassed<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Under rainbow umbrella, Ann and Miriam Scharf of Los Angeles, near railroad tracks at Birkenau .As you can see from Miriam\u2019s blue wet shirt, our umbrella was effective in only a limited way.<\/p><\/div>\n

How thrilled I am to learn that another connection was made through the book, The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau.<\/u> With letters arriving to me almost every day from people I met on the trip, it seems that we have many new connections being made.<\/p>\n

MEETING RELATIVES OF NUNBERG AND SCHWARTZBERG FAMILIES<\/u>
\nMany years ago, I interviewed Shaja Nunberg, who explained that his father\u2019s family (the Nunberg\u2019s) housed the Bes Yaakov School for religious girls in Bedzin on the 2nd floor of their family home, and that the Schwartzberg Family (his mother\u2019s family) housed the Rosh Yeshiva (Head of the Yeshiva). Now in Poland, I met a large contingent of Nunberg\u2019s and Schwartzberg\u2019s\u2014some siblings, some cousins\u2014 from DC\/Virginia; NYC; Oregon; Saranac Lake; New Jersey, etc.)\u2014Although the people (including Sam Weiss z\u201dl of Falls Church, VA) who shared their family stories with me are long since dead, it has been incredible to now be with the children, grandchildren and other descendants of this generous Bedzin family.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Noah and Rebecca Nunberg with Josh Schwartzberg and two of his three sons. Here we are at an extraordinary restaurant located in the Old Market Square (Starry Rynek); It was in this building, built in 1364, that we shared an unforgettable meal, in an unforgettable setting, with lively conversation, and a beautiuful surprise at the end: a Beethoven Sonata played on the grand piano in the \u2018Pompei Room\u2019 by an 18 year old waiter!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Harry Birnholz, a member of the Nunberg Family, with Ann in one of the few remaining barracks in Birkenau.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Closeup of a row of latrines in the Birkenau barrack<\/p><\/div>\n

Another Numberg relative is Harry Birnholz, with whom I explored latrines at Birkenau (I admit we make it look like more fun than is reasonable). It seems that \u2018gallows humor\u2019 \u2014where one can laugh even in the most un-funny of circumstances\u2014was at play here. Being in Auschwitz where so many suffered and died is certainly not funny, but being here together, with this group of descendants, not only made it extremely meaningful, but at certain moments\u2014like this one where we had a choice: to cry or laugh. At this moment, we chose to laugh. At others, the only choice possible was tears.<\/p>\n

There is a sauna building at far edge of Birkenau that I had never seen before. Despite my many trips to Auschwitz, I had never walked to this part of the complex, I didn\u2019t even know where it was\u2014and yet, it was an important destination for me. Over many years, people had mailed me photos of it to me, and shared stories about it. Why did they do this and why was this place so important to me? Both are reasonable questions. The answer is simple: Inside the sauna, on large panels, are mounted hundreds of photos\u2014and these photos are the very same ones I\u2019ve talking about, researching and looking at for over three decades! These are the photos from Zaglembia!<\/p>\n

I was scheduled to give a talk in front of that sauna wall of pictures but the weather on this day was so horrible that the Auschwitz personnel made it clear: there was no time to do both. If we were going to have the memorial ceremony at the site of the former gas chamber, there was no time to visit the sauna wall. <\/p>\n

Of course we chose the ceremony\u2014heart wrenching words, prayers, and feelings. After the powerful ceremony was finished, each person lit a yarzeit candle and wrote the names of their dead families on small white flag-like cards, which were then pushed into the resistant ground. I wrote the names of my murdered family on one. On the second, I wrote nothing\u2014and in its blankness, to me, the absence of names symbolized those millions whose names we do not yet know, and perhaps never will. [At Yad Vashem, in their \u2018To Each There is a Name\u2019 Project, they have collected roughly 4,000,000 of the 6,000,000 names of the murdered]. It is for these unknown, unremembered souls that I wanted a symbol of remembrance.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Candles and Signs at Gas Chamber following Memorial Ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Closeup of Memorial Signs with Names, and one with the absence of any names<\/p><\/div>\n

But, after the ceremony, when most people were being herded toward the waiting buses in the far distance, a small contingent\u2014led by an independent Israeli said, \u201cI didn\u2019t come this far to not see the sauna wall!\u201d And with that, he led a small insurrection of descendants who walked in the opposite direction\u2014not to the buses, but other way, to the sauna. I followed them.<\/p>\n

There, in front of faces in the photos that I knew so well, I began to tell stories to the descendants who were there. Genya Gutfreund Manela, the Zionist leader who taught her girls about pre-State Israel and about ways to live. Binim Cukierman, the uncle of my dear friend Cvi, the last member of the Cukierman Family, who owned Bedzin\u2019s favorite pastry shop. <\/p>\n

A few stories told to a few people. The same thing happened to me when it came time to leave: I could scarcely pull myself away, much like the first time I saw these photos\u2014but, thank goodness, there was a difference.That first time, virtually no one knew about these precious photos, and now people do know. As the former Director of the Auschwitz State Museum once said to me, \u201cBecause of the spotlight you have put on these pictures!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ann speaking at the Photo Wall at Sauna, discussing Genya Gutfreund Manella<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

View of the Sauna Wall<\/p><\/div>\n

As I stood in front of these precious personal photos, for me, it was important that I looked deeply into their eyes. They will never know how deep a part of my life they have become, but I know. And I always will. <\/p>\n

Now there was no one left in this corner of Birkenau. By this time, everyone except me was gone, was back on the bus, that is, everyone but Fred Frenkel. Wonderful Fred Frenkel had waited for me\u2014a crucial detail since I had no idea how to get out of Birkenau, nor how to find our group again. Together we walked through a silent Birkenau. As we walked, he told me stories I will not soon forget. <\/p>\n

Emilie S. Passow, professor and friend who accompanied me on this trip, noted, \u2018Ann, you were not just talking to the descendants, you were ministering to them!\u201d And I might add, because of the scope of these talks and the depth of these connections, in fact, I was not just ministering to them; we were ministering to each other.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Memorial Ceremony at Birkenau, at site of the gas chamber where families died<\/p><\/div>\n

More stories, more discoveries\u2014and although I thought I was almost finished, meeting these new people and with the new tributaries of the photos probably means more stories, more projects, and more everything. Before I rest, I will try to do whatever I can to keep their memory alive and, not only to remember their deaths, but to honor their lives.<\/p>\n

To read a detailed account of the whole journey, written by one of the organizers of the trip, Menachem Rosensaft, from his unique perseptive, please click on the link:<\/p>\n

My Journey To The Past<\/a> <\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Some (including Menachem in his article) have said that my life\u2019s mission is sharing these photos with the world. Actually that\u2019s only the beginning. Of course I believe that sharing these photos is important, so that others can see faces of people who looked just like them, innocent people whom the Nazis brutalized and murdered. But there is much more that I feel is important. Much, much more.<\/p>\n

Letting these people, long since dead, continue to help me teach tolerance, and promote actions that try to make the world a better and more humane place\u2014that is the essence of this work for me. <\/p>\n

As my dear friend, Charlie Dibner of Portland, Maine, so succinctly puts it, \u201cThe stories you tell are the story of all of us. Your life\u2019s work is to leave the world a little more hopeful.\u201d <\/p>\n

I hope I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EFTA Blog\u2014August 2018 75TH ANNIVERSARY It is a land is populated with ghosts\u2026 at least to me, it is. Naftali. Chanah. Shamei. Toncia. Names of four of my murdered family, four out of more than 80. Lives eradicated, and now in memory, resurrected. I\u2019ve just returned from Poland. It was 75 years ago, on August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fromann","category-previous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}