ARCHIVO – Foto de archivo, 10 de diciembre de 2009, de Elie Wiesel durante una conferencia de prensa en Budapest, Hungría. la muerte del premio Nobel y sobreviviente del holocausto fue anunciada por el Museo del Holocausto Yad Vashem de Israel el 2 de julio de 2016. (AP Foto/Bela Szandelszky, file) ** Usable by HOY, ELSENT and SD Only ** (Bela Szandelszky / AP)
When my wife, Steph, and I were first dating, she worked for Henri Landwirth as his personal assistant. I was an idealistic twenty-something, and his story shook my world. Holocaust survivor, visionary businessman, philanthropist, founder of Give Kids the World, Henri loved Steph like a daughter.
The first time the three of us went to lunch, I was filled with questions, none of which could I find the courage to ask. Instead, I picked at my french fries and listened to him talk, searched for allusions to his experience and hoped for answers to my unasked inquiries. What I heard was a sweet voice, a charming accent and an overwhelming commitment to give back to the world that had both taken so much and given so much. His voice is a constant reminder in my still-idealistic head.
I met Tess Wise a few years later. Founder of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida (the organization whose board I now proudly chair), Tess is a different kind of survivor. Intellectual, ambitious, determined, driven, she tells her story in a way that leaves little doubt that she didn’t survive the Holocaust; she emerged victorious. She pursued her new life with dogged determination, committed to ensuring that the Jewish people grow stronger with each generation. She concludes almost every conversation by telling me proudly that she is a great grandmother, four generations of her family thriving, as if to drive home the point that she won. She won!
My first impulse when I met Helen Greenspun was to give her a hug, this even before she told me her heart-wrenching story of being carted off to five different camps, and at each one believing it was the end. I wanted to hug her every time she paused during her story. “I was starving to death,” she said. Hug. “I was shoved into a freight car.” Hug. “I didn’t know what happened to my parents.” Hug. “I will never stop telling my story.” Hug.
I never met Elie Wiesel. I’ve read his words, watched his speeches and talked to people who spent time with him, but I don’t pretend to know him. And I’ll tell you why. Because what I learned from Henri, Tess, Helen and the many other survivors I’ve had the honor of meeting and talking to is that every one is different, each as unique and individual as you and I, and the only way to know them is to sit with them, share a cup of coffee and look them in the eye.
But Elie was special, if for no other reason than the fact that he opened himself up to the world, and the world listened. He was called “the conscience of the world,” and he gave a face to the atrocities of the Holocaust. He used his voice, his eloquence, his story and his humility in a way that compelled the world to confront what the Nazis did and what they were trying to do — the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
He made sure the world would never forget, and reminded us that it’s not just events of the magnitude of the Holocaust that need to be thwarted, but every single instance of hate, every single attempt to marginalize, every single act of prejudice and bigotry. Every single one.
I never met Elie Wiesel, but I have had the incredible fortune of meeting many of the survivors in Central Florida, listening to their stories, hearing how some speak with heart-wrenching emotion, voices cracking while describing events 75 years in the past. Others tell their stories with a professorial tone. Others offer only glimpses of what they endured, merely hinting at their inhuman experience, determined to focus not on the past but on the present and the future, even though that experience clearly impacted who they are and everything they’ve achieved.
I never met Elie Wiesel, but I wish I could share a cup of coffee with each of the 100,000 Holocaust survivors alive today, because I know that each of their stories would be unique and each would bring profound meaning to my life and how I live it.
I wish I could learn each of their stories because it will be a sad day when they are gone, their voices silent, and it will be up to me, and perhaps you, to keep those stories and the lessons of those stories alive.
Originally published HERE
