All Olympic Games have their astounding moments of agony and ecstasy. Nowadays those moments are intensified by media hype that approaches soap operatic quality.


The media hounded Lindsey Jacobellis after her incredible finish in the Snowboard cross event. A shoo-in for an American gold-medal, Lindsey was a second away from winning a gold-medal and so far ahead she was moved to do a little hot-dogging maneuver that caused her to fall down. She recovered and got a silver medal and was immediately bombarded by the media. “How do you feel, why did you do it, was it worth it, were you showing off?” Etc., etc. They banged away at her seeming self-indulgence, wondering how badly she must now feel.
To her great credit, Lindsey did not shy away. She said she was so far ahead and felt so exhilarated that she couldn’t resist a little showing off. She knows it cost her the gold-medal, but said an Olympic silver medal is a great honor for her and her country. “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and want to thank my family and friends for their support. “

Lindsey will undoubtedly take from this experience that all certainty is fleeting, but I also hope she will always remember the excitement of that moment and the ecstasy that made her want to leap for joy. We will all indulge ourselves and we will all fall, but Lindsey Jacobellis got up, said thank you for opportunity she’d been given, and didn’t let it steal her joy.
Then there was Joey Cheek, the 26-year-old American who got the gold-medal in the 500 meter speed skating event. At his post race press conference, Joey took his “few seconds of microphone time” to talk about the genocide in the Dafur region of Sudan. He said, “I have this unique opportunity, so I am going to take advantage of it.” He said he is donating his $25,000 in prize money to a program to help the 60,000 displaced children in refugee camps, saying “it is empowering to think of someone other than yourself.”


These are two clean cut American athletes, gold and silver medal winners, who made America proud, reminding us that we will stand up for ourselves and we will stand up for others.

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I hate buying a car at a used car lot even more than getting a root canal. The shameless come-ons and manipulation drive me crazy. Alas, my 12-year-old convertible was nearing the end of its days, so I went to a dealer that featured just the car I was looking for. I called and spoke to a salesman who assured me it was there and to come on down. By the time I got there (well you know the rest of the story), that specific car had just been sold, apparently while we were talking on the phone. I had to control the urge to throttle him.


My entrepreneurial son told me to check out buying a car on eBay. He had bought a boat, house trailer and a limo online. He told me there were pictures of the vehicle, they’d send me a car-fax with an accurate history of the car, and I could check out the dealer by seeing what customers said about them. I found an on-line dealer who had my car, and he had 800 customers who filed an e-mail evaluation, not a single one with anything bad to say. I made a bid on-line and then called the dealer. He told me he wouldn’t sell it until a minimum reserve bid was made. I asked him what that was and he quoted me a great price, so I said I’d like to come over and see it. “Come on down,” he said and I gave a cynical chortle reciting my recent “bait and switch” experience. He assured me he’d keep it for me, so I went later that afternoon.

When I get to the lot, Jan the salesman, is a tough-looking, muscular, middle-aged, balding guy with a diamond stud in his ear. I say I’m the guy who just called about the convertible, and he says, “The car isn’t here.” I’m ready to explode in an apoplectic frenzy, and he sees me beginning to foam at the mouth. Smiling at me, he says he’s having the grill changed because there was a scratch on it; but instead of covering it up, he decided to replace the whole grill. Then he tells me I needed to have more faith, because this is going to be a good experience for me. We talk, I am taken by this guy, and buy the car sight unseen. He says he’ll deliver it to my house the next day and bring all the paper work then. He did and the whole transaction was a pleasure.

That night I had this dream. I was a used car salesman and people were coming to buy cars from me, but I couldn’t make a sale. I tried to convince them I was trustworthy, caring, that I identified with them, but nobody believed me. Musing about it over morning coffee, I was revolted by that unsavory image. I know I fall short in many ways, but an image of myself as a disreputable used car salesman, made me shudder.

Then it occurs to me that I am in the middle of writing a book proposal. Part of a book proposal is a “market analysis,” whose purpose is to convince a publisher that there is a need for your book, an audience who is dying to hear you and a story only you can tell. I say my credibility and experience are staggeringly unique, and that nobody else has ever told this story quite this way. It is an exaggerated piece of used car salesman puffery and excess, but I’m doing it.


Then I thought about the diamond-studded weightlifter, who just taught me that even a used car salesman can deal and sell a good product and it made me feel a little less pimpish.

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One of my signature stories is about a German juggler who forced me to look at my preconceptions. Many of you are aware of my history as the first-born son of Holocaust survivors. I was raised with a distrust of Germans that bordered on frank hatred. You can’t carry around that much suspicion and anger because it interferes with your ability to heal. I wanted to unload some of it, but it took until my mid-forties when I went Germany for the first time.


I had been feeling pretty good — visited my parent’s hometown, was surprisingly comfortable with language and customs — when after a week, I heard an anti-Semitic remark. I joined a circle of about 100 people outside a museum who were surrounding a young juggler in his early twenties. Riding a unicycle, he juggled everything from fire to fruits, all of which he also ate while delivering a hilarious comedic rap. While juggling grapefruits, which he was catching with his palms facing downward, he said, “ Wenn Juden es so gefangen hattet, dann werde die ganze geschichte von welt verendert.” This translates to, “If Jews had learned how to juggle this way, the whole history of civilization would be different.” The audience laughed, but I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even know what it meant, but I knew it wasn’t funny.

He passed around a hat, and when everybody was gone, I walked up to him and told him something he said upset me. How could he have made such a crack? He looked at me in amazement and asked what he’d said. “When you were juggling those grapefruits,” I told him. “What did I say,” he asked pleadingly. So I told him, and then with a hint of recognition he said, “Ich habe nicht ‘Juden’ gesagt.” (I didn’t say ‘Jews’ [Juden]). “Ich habe ‘Newton’ gesagt.” (I said Newton.)

Sir Isaac Newton. In German they sound almost identical, he said “Newton.” I heard “Juden.” If Newton had learned to juggle that way, he would never have discovered the laws of gravity. I heard what I wanted to hear, what I was prepared to hear so I could keep seeing and doing it like I’ve always done it. Many of us are similarly crippled by our preconceptions. I hugged him, thanked him for helping me to grow. He had a profound impact on my life, and I never saw him again.

I’ve gone back to Germany several times since, and I recently conducted a workshop for mental health professionals where I told the juggler story. Afterwards, Brigitta, a psychologist, came up to me and said she thought she knew who that juggler was. She said he was quite a renowned street artist and asked me if I’d like for her to find out for sure. I told her I’d be delighted, and then it dropped from my consciousness until Brigitta wrote to me a year later and said she’d found out about the juggler.

His name was Holger “Ernst” Riekers. She learned about him from an old teacher. Ernst had graduated from the German gymnasium in 1980, after which he performed civil-service to fulfill his status as a conscientious objector. He later studied at the University, but dropped out of school to become a well-known street artist. He was married, had two children, but developed stomach cancer and died in 2002, at the age of 41.

When Brigitta told Ernst’s teacher my story, he said it sounded very much like Ernst and that he would have loved being part of such a healing experience. He asked her if it might be possible for me to get in touch with Ernst’s wife and tell her about our encounter. He felt it would close the healing circle and give her a story to share with their two children. Brigitta asked him how I could be sure it was really him, and he said to her that Ernst had a signature closing. When he passed the hat around he always said, “Don’t just throw in coins, because I’m not using the money to make telephone calls, this is how I make a living.” Maybe I’d remember that. When Brigitta wrote this to me, I remembered it immediately, and I remembered that I didn’t laugh, because at that point I was so angry with him. Ernst was the guy.


Ernst’s early death saddened me, but the beauty of the story still touches me. We are all connected; the way it was is not the way it is, and we can heal all wounds. I’m going to meet them when I next go to Germany and tell my story to Ernst’s wife and children.

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Ella is 82 years old, a tiny white-haired woman with a beautiful smile, primly dressed, who still speaks with a slight accent. She invites me to call her by her first name, but I keep my eyes off the number tattooed on her left forearm that’s still distinctly visible, A277331. She sees me staring at it and says, “A is for Auschwitz, the number means I’m the 277,331st prisoner in the extermination camp.”



She told her story with occasional lapses, sometimes losing names, dates and places, sometimes blanking out the horror. Ella was the only survivor of a 55- member family from Krakow, Poland. After her liberation at age 18, she came to New York, worked in a factory, and decided to go back to school. It took her 11 years to get her high school diploma and a college degree. During those years, she married her husband, Harry; they moved to Phoenix where he built a successful furniture manufacturing company, and they raised two children. In Phoenix, Ella went back to the university for a Masters degree in social work and headed the department in a local hospital until her retirement 10 years ago.


We talked about family, fears, and fun. Ella said the greatest joy in her life was in being of service to others. She especially loved speaking to children in public schools where she enthralled them with her stories. She lamented the fact that she was having increasing difficulty in remembering things. Sometimes, in mid-sentence, she would draw a blank and couldn’t continue. Not being able to reach out and touch others had left her feeling life had lost its meaning.

Ella’s work was her spiritual life, and you could feel her soulful connection to people in need. She needed to be involved and to make a difference. Ella had no organized religious life — the Holocaust had left her devoid of belief in an omnipotent God. She was interested in my beliefs, and I do not shy away from such questions in my work. I told her about my upbringing in a fairly traditional Jewish home. My mother kept a kosher home, she loved the Sabbath; when she lit the candles on Friday nights, she covered her eyes with smiling anticipation that tonight was the night the Messiah would come. In my chronic mode of skeptical judgementalism, I would teasingly ask her that if the Messiah hadn’t come the previous week, month or year, that perhaps he might not come in our lifetime. Unperturbed, she’d say that until the Messiah arrived, it was up to us to make his presence known on earth. We were all responsible for helping one another because we were God’s messengers on earth.

I said I thought my mother was right; I don’t see God as a white-bearded patriarch enthroned in the heavens. I think that when we reach out and embrace each other lovingly, we become the language of God. We always feel better when we know that somebody is there for us, listening to us, hugging us, and caring about what happens to us. This is how God becomes manifest on earth. I also told her I thought she was such a Godly person. She touched lots and lots of people with her loving presence. She touched me right now, here in my office. She didn’t have to stand in front of an audience to make a difference. I loved her story, would love to share it with others if she let me, because I thought it would make a difference to them too. She’d still be connected, her work wouldn’t end, just change its form.

Ella liked the idea and said she’d bring along a story she had written when we met the next time. I’ve included it as an attachment to this week’s byte. She hugged me when we said goodbye. I said she reminded me of my mother’s certainty that we are all sparks of the divine. Ella, who reaches almost to my belly-button, heard it a little differently and said, “If we are all grapes on the vine, let me squeeze you a little harder.” I laughed and thought both are the truth.

Read Ella’s story.

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The events of September 11, 2001 are perhaps a fitting introduction to the subject of the Holocaust which is the topic of my presentation today. In both instances there was mass killings by people who showed no regard for human life. Today I would like to take you back to a time in world war II when there was no TV and the true horror of that time can only be related by a Survivor. I am one of the Survivors. Unfortunately the majority of the world stood by, except for a few righteous individuals, while 11 million people were slaughtered. The toll was 6 million Jews, among them 1 1/2 million children and 5 million Christians.

The Holocaust refers to a specific event in 20th century history; the systematic, bureaucratic annihilation of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators as a central act of state during world war II. In 1933, approximately 9 million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe which would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945, two out of every three European Jews had been killed. Although Jews were the primary victims, up to one half million Gypsies and at least 200.000 mentally or physically disabled persons were also victims of the genocide. As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, from 1933 to 1945, millions of other innocent people were persecuted and murdered. More than 3 million Russian prisoners of war were killed. Poles, as well as other Slavic people were targeted for slave labor and tens of thousands perished. Homosexuals and other deemed "anti social" were also persecuted and often murdered. However, l while not all the victims were Jews, we need o remember that ALL Jews were victims.

The Holocaust was a rupture of philosophy, history and culture; a RENT in the fabric of society and civilization. It shattered our religious faith in God and our secular faith in human goodness and progress. To quote Michael Bierenbaum, a historian, "The central theme of the Holocaust is not rebirth, goodness or resistance, liberation or justice, but death and destruction; dehumanization and devastation, but above all LOSS....behind each loss was a person whose life was ended tragically and prematurely, and for those who survived, there is the burden of memories of worlds shattered and destroyed, of defeat and of life in its aftermath."

My story closely mirrors Berenbaum's. I was a 16 year old girl, the pampered and sheltered daughter of a well to do businessman and a loving mother living in Krakow, Poland. There was a maid in the house to make my bed, hand my clothes and help my mother with house chores. I had a 19 year old sister named Ida who was attending the university. My oldest sister named Lilka was already married and had two small children. I had a large extended family as my mother had 9 siblings and my father had 3. Out of 55 member of my extended family, only 5 survived, among them was my sister Lilka. She survived, but her husband and the two little children were killed.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, all Jews were registered and their property confiscated. We were forced to wear a Star of David armband whenever we were in public. We were forced to walk in the street rather than the sidewalks. In Krakow, were were hurdled into A walled compound called the Ghetto with 3 to 4 families crowded into tiny apartments. A long process of starvation began. Nobody except with a special permit was allowed in our out of the ghetto. We survived on smuggled food. I remember looking out of the window seeing women, men and children lying in the street. They were homeless and died during the night from starvation and espouser. Raids went on constantly. People were dragged away by German soldiers never to be seen again We learned to live with fear. My mother suffered a nervous breakdown but we did not want to put her into the ghetto hospital because it was raided every day and the weak were taken away and killed. My father who still had a little money braved a guard who was able o take her to the city hospital. That worked for a while but one day my mother was identified as being Jewish and taken out of the hospital and shot by the Germans. My beautiful sister Ida who was dating a Christian boy refused to go into the Ghetto and when into hiding. She converted to Christianity in the hope of saving her life, however she was denounced by the parents of her Christian boy friend and taken to prison. A letter and a pair of slippers she made for me was smuggled out of the prison. She asked me to forgive her for anything she might have done in the past to cause me anger or pain. I learned after the war that she was killed but never found out where and how.

When the Krakow ghetto was liquidated in 1943(made Judenrein), my father and I were marched to Plazow Concentration Camp some 20 miles away. the nightmare ahead had just began.

The way to survive in such circumstances is to believe that even though others were being slaughtered around you, somehow, by some miracle you would be saved. The time in Plazow was marked by public executions which occurred daily and in rounding out prisoners for Auschwitz which was another 24 5 miles away. Auschwitz was the central destination for large numbers of prisoners who were brought in for extermination in the gas chambers. Those of you who have seen the movie Schindler's List will have a better understanding of what happened. the movie depicts my concentration camp experience in the Krakow ghetto, in Plazow and in Auschwitz quite accurately....Hiddious memories of the the Plazow experience are vividly imprinted in my memory even now 60 years later. I remember standing in a public square where all the reminisce of the children were torn away from their screaming mothers while lullabies were piped through loud speakers....My best friend was hung for a minor infraction and we were forced to watch. We were surrounded by soldiers and anyone who looked away was shoot. The rope broke but she was hung again until she was dead....One day, I was chosen at random by the monstrous commander Amon Goeth to be shot. They stood me against the wall along with several others and pointed machine guns at us. It was a beautiful spring day and I recall wishing I were a bug or a spec of dust,.anything but myself. I thought how upset my father would when he came to my section only to find me gone. I wanted so much to live. I will never feel the same about the sanctity of life when I was about to be killed. At the last moment Goeth decided upon an experiment in pain. I was placed on a table and beaten into unconsciousness by collaborating Ukrainian solders bit I survived.

One of the most gruesome memories of Plazow concentration camp before its liquidation was the time in the summer of 1944 when I, among other prisoners, were forced to open the shallow graves of hundreds of victims who had been killed before and we had to throw torches into the trenches so that the bodies soaked in kerosene would burn to ashes. You see, the Russians were were advancing and the Germans did not want to leave evidence of their atrocities. The stench of the burning bodies permeated the air for weeks.

One evening, when I went to visit my father in his barrack (we were permitted to visit our relatives for 15 minutes in the evening) I found the barrack empty. I was told that the prisoners had been shipped to an unknown destination. I never saw my father again.
After two years in Plazow, I was shipped to Auschwitz in a cattle wagon. At the time of arrival there, I was stripped naked along with other prisoners and sent through a selection process where Doctor Mengele, known as the
"Angle of Death" looked us over and made the decision as to who would live and who would die. Being pointed to the right meant life, but I was pushed to the left where I fell onto the bear floor. I was emaciated, after three years of incarceration and looked like a skeleton. As I fell to the floor, I noticed that next to me there was an open window and I heard a woman prisoner shouting to her daughter who was sitting next to me, to jump out of the window or she would be killed. At that particular moment, Dr. Mengele stepped out of the room. The girl jumped out of the window and I jumped after her. We blended into the crowd of women who were being led away to be transported to a labor camp in Czechoslovakia. I was liberated from that labor camp by the Russians on the last day of the war in May of 8 of 1945. I weighed 55 pounds.

There are painful memories connected to the camp in Czechoslovakia called Freudenthal which means the Valley of Joy in German. What an irony. One of these memories is constant hugger. I will never forget the excruciating pain at my insides day and night. The only thing I thought about was food. Our daily rations consisted of two slices of stale bread,
a watery bowl of soup and a cup of artificial coffee. A good sight to behold, was a dead horse lying in the middle of the camp. This meant that we would have a small piece of meant in the soup. This happened only twice during the 7 months I spent at the labor camp Of course, the horse had to be sick in order to be killed. I even stooped so low as to attempt to steal bread during the night from fellow inmates while they were asleep. It was slim pickings.....I remember standing in line to get my bowl of soup praying that the ladle would be inserted deep to the bottom of the pot where the soup was thicker. To this day, I have respect for food and reverence for bread which I never throw away...Another terrible memory was lying ill in an unheated barrack in the severe winter of 1944, about four months before the liberation, next to a crying infant who was left to die so that his mother could live. A pregnant woman could not survive and the child had to die.

I consider my survival a miracle. I have no answer as to why I survived. I only know that there were special circumstances that kept me alive. FIRST, during two of the round ups in the Krakow ghetto, I was pulled out from the train destined to Auschwitz. During this period, every transport arriving in Auschwitz was immediately taken to the gas chamber. There was no selection. SECOND, in Plazow, I was chosen to be shot, but instead I was beaten to unconsciousness, but I survived. THIRD, after the selection by Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz, I jumped out of the window to escape the gas chamber and I was sent to a labor camp in Czechoslovakia with a transport of 350 women as a result of Oscar Schindler's intervention. He had bribed the Commander in Auschwitz to get additional women out of the camp to work in small textile factories in Czechoslovakia where there was a labor shortage. Being in such a camp was no paradise, but it was run by older SS men who were less fanatical to kill. FOURTH miracle was my escape from a death march as the German villagers who lived around the camp, fearing reprisals from the advancing Russians, persuaded the guards not to proceed with the death march...These death marches forced the prisoners to walk hundreds of miles in severe winter weather towards Germany, away from the advancing Russians. Most of these prisoners were shot if they were unable to walk.

Other factors contributed to my survival. I was fortunate to have the ability to retreat from the terrible surroundings into my inner self and dream about sitting with my family around the candle lighted Shabbat table. In my memory, I warmed my shivering bones by the warmth of the candles and my starving body with imaginary food.

Equally significant was the ever presence of hope which played such an important part of my survival. I never gave up hope of seeing my Father again so that we could rebuild our lives after the war...While being marched through the village of Freudentahl on the way to work in April of 1945, I noticed candles burning in the windows in the front of pictures of Hitler. Hope entered my empty soul again. I knew then intuitively that the nightmare was coming to an end. Indeed the war ended one month later. So, miracles, the warm memories of my family and above all hope was my salvation.

At the lowest moment of my existence in the camps, I kept dreaming and hoping that one day the nightmare would be over. When the actual moment of liberation arrived, instead of laughter and joy, I was overcome by fear and I could not stop crying. I questioned whether I would find anybody waiting for me. I was in a foreign country and did not know how to return home. The Russian troops treated us well. the broke the doors to the food warehoused to let us eat whatever we wished, but I was sick with a stomach ulcer and that probably saved my life. Many of the prisoners who gorged themselves on food died of dysentery just after the liberation.

We were loaded into trucks by Russian solders and taken to German homes around the camp where we were encouraged to take whatever we wanted. In one house, my eyes focused on an apple. I had not eaten a piece of fruit in four years. I took the apple, a few articles of clothing and a towel. I only wanted to find my Father.

I returned to my home town of Krakow to locate the remnants of my family. I met a survivor who knew my Father in the concentration camp of Gossrosen where he was transferred from Plazow. He told me that the camp had been evacuated by the Germans and the prisoners taken on a death march. He saw my Father being shot because he was too weak to walk...No words can describe the despair I felt at that moment. The hope which kept me alive during the miserable years of incarceration were dashed.


I soon realized that there was no future for me in Poland..Some of my friends who had returned from camp were desperately seeking ways to leave for Palestine (now Israel) South America or the United States. All of Europe was in turmoil. Refugees from all over were running in different directions. We made our way to a refugee camp in Germany set up by the United Nations. In the Spring of 1946 I was fortunate enough to arrive in the United States with the assistance of the Hebrew Immigration Society. I was among the first transport of Displaced Persons approved for special immigration by President Truman.

I arrived in the US alive, but not well. I was alone, with no relatives, all of 21 with no high school education, trying to survive in New York City. I needed to learn how to become a human being again, gain my self respect and courage to go on. I began working in a factory during the day and going to school at night to learn ho learn English. It was a long and painful process.

It took me a total of 11 years to complete me education. During those years, I married and raised two fine children. Part of the credit for my career goes to my husband who not only helped me with my children but also typed most of my papers. He told me once: " Ella, I would like to give you something that nobody can take away from you , namely your education"....We came to Phoenix in 1963 and I continued my education here. I graduated from ASU with a Master Degree in 1974 and shortly thereafter I became the Social Service Director at Mesa Lutheran Hospital, a position I held for some 11 years. I continued on a part time basis at John c. Lincoln Hospital till I retired in 1999.

Why did I choose to become a Social Worker? As I studied social problems in college, I realized that I did not have a corner on suffering. When I considered the misery in the world, starvation, disease, the exploitation and the indifference of great wealth next to poverty, I felt the need to help others less fortunate then myself...The years in concentration camps made me identify with the oppressed. Living under the most degrading conditions taught me compassion. Perhaps the concentration camps taught me just as much, and maybe more than the university....The gratitude that I felt for surviving, both physically and mentally, was instrumental in making my decision...I felt that I had the responsibility to try to make the world a little better. There is a Hebrew saying "Tikun Olam" which means to repair the world. We all have that responsibility.

While working at Mesa Lutheran Hospital, I initiated a support group for cancer patients called "Make Today Count" which is still functioning today. A reporter from the Mesa Tribune interviewed me in connection with this group. While we were talking, he learned about my Holocaust experience and how I was using my survival ordeal to help our patients. As a result of this article, I received many calls to speak to students, and since that time, I have not stopped speaking.... When I address students, I make them aware that the Holocaust took place in the 20th century, in a country which turned democracy into tyranny. I want them to know that they are the last generation to see and hear Survivors speak since in the next 5 years they will have either passed on or may not be able to speak. The average age of a Holocaust Survivor is approximately 82 years old.... When the students see my tattoo on my arm and listen to my story, they believe that the Holocaust did take place. Hopefully, when they are confronted with revisionists, those who refuse to believe that the Holocaust happened, the students will stand for the truth. In my presentations, I encourage the students to consider what they have in common rather than what divides them and that we have the freedom to chose right from wrong. My message is one of tolerance for one another. The most important lesson I have learned is that hatred and violence are the result of indifference and the silence of the majority.

60 years have passed since the Holocaust and world war II. It is but a moment in history. As we teach our young people about the past, we must also teach them to be responsible for the future. They will become the custodians for democracy in their time. It is a difficult task in this age of cynicism and violence. They will be severely tested and I am hoping that my presentation will give them some tools for the difficult task ahead.

Richard Rubinstein, a famous scholar whose pioneering work "After Auschwitz" set the agenda for Holocaust thought. He believes that the ultimate question left is how nations will treat those people who are superfluous, who have no rightful economic place in society, the mass murder of superfluous people is the perennial temptation of the modern state. In the United States, we have such people. The old, who no longer work; the young who do not work; the unemployed who cannot find work; the despairing poor, many of them minorities who live from generation to generation without work...We have however established a covenant of social justice in this country where the working population educate the young, give social security to the elderly, and provide minimum services for the needy. Will the present political climate, the strain of economic dislocation and the present downsizing break this covenant ?

To live authentically after the Holocaust, and after the tragedy of of September 11, one must be aware of the reality of RADICAL EVIL and its startling triumph and fight against it. Eli Wiesel, a Survivor and Nobel prize winner perhaps said it best: "So uniquely Jewish, the Holocaust has universal implications. What was done to one people affected mankind's destiny. Once unleashed, evil will recognize no boundaries. Auschwitz may belong to the past, but I am part of a generation traumatized by mass murder, considered at that time a normal event. Whoever has seen a death camp will tell you that the impossible does become possible, the unthinkable does come to pass. IT IS too late for the dead. IS IT too late for the living as well ?...IT MAY BE IF WE FORGET !!!

Let me conclude with a quote from Deuteronomy (in the Bible). The words are carved in the stone on a wall in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC::

"For the dead and the living, we must bear witness, only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully lest you forget the things your eyes saw and lest these things depart from your heart all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children"

Thank you very much.

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