NZFOI: Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah
My Zayde told us about his childhood in Kazimierz, and about burying half-alive bodies in Buchenwald. What it means to be the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, and to lose them.
He and his father were imprisoned in Plaszow concentration camp, where he said every day brought a new tragedy. He would tell us, in unadorned language, that he saw young boys being hanged for stealing bread, and that’s when he learned you say the Shema prayer before you die. He piled earth over bodies, after they were shot dead, and was haunted by watching the soil shiver – the victims were still alive, and slowly suffocating.
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