Grapevine, September 6, 2024: The dream and the reality

In 1993, when Shimon Peres as foreign minister released his book The New Middle East in which he shared his vision of a Middle East – where Israel was an integral partner living in peace, harmony, and cooperation with all the Arab states in the region – the dream seemed far-fetched. But with the signing of the Abraham Accords on September 15, 2020, it looked as if the dream was on the path to realization.

However, today’s reality is less of a dream and more of a nightmare. On Wednesday of this week, one of the speakers at the commemoration ceremony marking the eighth anniversary of Peres’s death was former hostage Liat Atzili, who had been kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and released in the hostage exchange agreement last November. She accused the government of a breach of ethical values and appealed to President Isaac Herzog, who was also among the speakers, to put pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an accommodation with Hamas whereby all the remaining hostages – both living and dead – would be immediately returned home to Israel.

Herzog, who never misses an opportunity to speak of the crucial urgency of repatriating the hostages, did so again as he stood by Peres’s grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. It is customary for presidents of the state to attend memorial ceremonies for their predecessors, and for prime ministers to do the same with regard to their predecessors. Peres was twice prime minister prior to his election as president, but Netanyahu was not in attendance on Wednesday. Instead, the government was represented by Interior Minister Moshe Arbel.

■ ANYONE WISHING a Happy Birthday to former president Reuven Rivlin on September 9 will in all probability be told that they are more than two weeks early. Rivlin, who will turn 85, prefers to celebrate on the Hebrew calendar date of his birth, which is the 25th of Elul. Regardless of the date, it’s never too early or too late to wish him well.

■ SOMEONE ELSE with an early September birthday is versatile actor Yuval Segal, who on September 1 marked his 53rd birthday. In his younger years, Segal was a popular male model, and he has not forgotten the art of showing menswear to its best advantage. That’s why Factory 54 chose him as the presenter of its Fall/Winter 24/25 collection of casual and formal creations by some of the world’s leading designers and brand names, including Dolce & Gabbana, Zegna, Ralph Lauren, Givenchy, Burberry, Lacoste, Boss, Casablanca, and other iconic labels.

■ NEXT WEEK will be a very sad time for American Jews, whether living in Israel or elsewhere. Aside from concerns for hostages with American citizenship who are still in Gaza, they are mourning those Americans who either perished in captivity or were murdered by Hamas – in addition to marking the 23rd anniversary of the horrendous terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

Students of history know that there is no month in the calendar that is free of anniversaries of tragic events, but September, which begins with the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, seems to be over-burdened with tragedy. On the same date, in 1983, military forces headed by Muammar Gaddafi overthrew the Libyan government. On September 2, 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed 13,000 houses. It was at the Munich Olympics in September 1972 that 11 members of the Israeli team were murdered by terrorists. Despite the enormous human tragedies bound up in these events, life goes on, new generations are born, and though history is recorded, it is not remembered because most people were not chronologically or geographically present when historic events occurred.

Post-Holocaust generations who may be descended from victims or survivors know of something that happened in their own families, but not much in general terms – yet the Holocaust was the greatest of all calamities in Jewish history and happened not so long ago. Lodz was occupied by the Nazis from September 18, 1939. The Lodz Ghetto, which was one of the first established by the Nazis, was the last to be liquidated. On August 29, 1944, just ahead of September, the last train load of Jews and Romani who had also been confined to the ghetto were deported to Auschwitz and Chelmno. At its peak, the ghetto held in excess of 171,000 people. When the Red Army liberated Lodz in January 1945, there were only 800 Jews left in the city.

To mark the 89th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto, which was the second largest in Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto, the International March of the Living held a joint March of Remembrance and March of the Living, sponsored by International March of the Living, The European Jewish Association TSKZ, the Lodz Archdiocese, and the Jewish Community of Lodz. There were some 500 participants, including Polish officials and ambassadors from 12 countries, to honor the memory of those who suffered and perished during one of the darkest chapters in world history.

The central ceremony was held at the Radegast train station, where the last transport from Ghetto Lodz departed 80 years ago, on August 29, 1944. This transport marked the final phase of the ghetto’s liquidation, during which thousands of Jews were deported to Auschwitz and Chelmno extermination camps. The event also served as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable atrocities.

 By the time the ghetto was liquidated, more than 200,000 Jews had passed through it, with the vast majority being sent to their deaths. The destruction of Polish Jewry was nearly complete by the end of the war, with more than 90% of Poland’s pre-war Jewish population of 3.3 million perishing in the Holocaust.

Participants in the march walked the historic route that once bore witness to the suffering of the ghetto’s inhabitants. At the Radegast station, wreaths were laid and prayers offered in memory of the victims. The ceremony was followed by a march to the Monument to the Martyrdom of Children, the Monument to Poles Saving Jews in the Survivors’ Park and the Roma Forge, ending at the Monument to the Decalogue in Lodz.

A number of aging Holocaust survivors attended, including 98-year-old Leon Weintraub, who survived Ghetto Lodz and four concentration camps, as well as a death march, and noted Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, also 98, who insisted on joining the ceremony and marching together with those assembled.

The march was part of March of the Living’s regular memorial events throughout Europe on the local and national Holocaust memorial days where Jews lived and perished. The organization’s flagship program is a 7-day educational journey in Poland which culminates in a symbolic march on the Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Day between Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Michel Gourary, director of the European March of the Living, spoke at the Radegast train station and said: “We are here today, 80 years after the last train left this station for Auschwitz on August 29, 1944. We gather to remember those who suffered in the Łodz Ghetto and to share some lesser-known stories of resilience, courage, and strength. Our aim at the March of the Living is to educate the young generation to learn from the tragic past of the Holocaust, in order to build a better future. We must ensure that what happened during the Holocaust is never forgotten.”

■ IN ANOTHER Holocaust-related event, B’nai B’rith International announced the names of recipients of an award honoring Polish citizens who have demonstrated their commitment to preserving Jewish heritage in Poland and cultivating Jewish-Polish relations. The award, in its second consecutive year, is called Wdziecznosc-Gratitude-Hakarat hatov in Polish, English, and Hebrew, and recognizes outstanding contributions of individuals and institutions.

The recipients of the award are: Prof. Łukasz Tomasz Sroka in the individual category and The Brama (Gate) Cukermana Foundation in the institutional category.

The award will be presented on Tuesday, September 24, from 6:00-6:30 p.m. at the Galicia Jewish Museum (Dajwor 18, Krakow) as part of an international conference, “Jews in Krakow: History and Culture,” that will take place on September 23-25 under the auspices of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sroka is a Polish historian, professor of humanities, chairman of the History Discipline Council at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, and a former director (2016–2019) of the Institute of History and Archival Studies of the University of Applied Sciences. He is the author of more than a hundred scientific works devoted to a number of topics, including the history and culture of Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries, Polish-Jewish relations, the history of modern Israel, Polish-Israeli relations, Galician history (particularly Lviv and Krakow), the history of Austria in the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of elites and Freemasonry, social communication and source studies. Sroka is the creator and co-creator of several exhibitions in Poland and abroad that focus on the history of Jews, as well as the histories of Krakow and Lviv.

The Brama Cukermana Foundation

The Brama Cukermana Foundation (The Cukerman’s Gate Foundation) was established by Karolina and Piotr Jakowenko in 2009 in Bedzin. The foundation was established in response to the urgent need to rescue the Jewish House of Prayer located in the Cukerman’s Gate, where historic polychromies have been preserved. The major goals of the foundation’s activity include caring for and protecting Jewish cultural monuments, commemorating the centuries-long presence of Jews in Bedzin and the region, educating the local community to promote mutual tolerance and understanding amongst cultures, and conducting research on the history and life of Jews in Bedzin and the surrounding area.

Since 2013, the foundation has organized and conducted educational classes for middle and secondary school students as part of the “Cheder: The space of social education” project.

greerfc@gmail.com