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A short while ago we visited Auschwitz, as it was the 60th celebration of the liberation. The visitors were coming from all over the world, but this particular year something new happened. The European ministries of education funded many non-Jewish schools, so that the children would have an opportunity to participate in the manifestation of memory.
There were about 30,000 people present, and as I was walking, I heard a group talking in French amongst themselves. I asked them where they were coming from and they told me Lyon, France, and when I asked them if they were Jews they said, no, that they were Catholics.
Here, the Ministry of Education gave 50.000 Euros and only 15 people were interested in coming! The rest of the money was given to schools, students etc. of our community. This is how the ones who wanted to could go. It was a gigantic manifestation, the ‘March of the Living.’ We walked three kilometers to go there and another three to return. I personally didn’t think I would be able to make it, as I have a problem with my legs. I still cannot quite believe how I managed to complete the march.
As we were going around the camps on foot I was crying and crying because it is a different thing to read about it – at home I have two shelves full of books on the Holocaust – than to see it in reality. To put yourself in their place at that moment that they would put in line one after the other in order to see how many a single bullet could kill, penetrating from one to the other etc. Well, this is a different thing all together.
You should see the ‘pieces of cotton,’ or what I thought were pieces of cotton. I asked myself, ‘why do they show these pieces of cotton? Did they take them out of a mattress? But weren’t mattresses here filled with straw?’ So I asked our group leader what those discolored pieces of cotton were all about and she told me, ‘What discolored pieces of cotton, Mrs. Capuano? Can’t you see that it is peoples’ hair?’
They found five tons of it there that were not sent to Germany. They also told me this hair is the raw material for manufacturing a very strong and light cloth that is used to make parachutes. If you do not see and live it you have seen nothing.
Many speeches were given and there came Sharon and we could see him on the big screens that had been installed. It was all very moving and the music they would play would also shake us. Before we started to walk – it was where the rail tracks were, on the spot where the trains were passing – they were giving us little cardboard badges and written on those was, ‘In the memory of my family, my parents, my uncle.’
They would pin those cardboard badges on us. And when we arrived there was a sort of esplanade because the manifestation took place in Birkenau [34], the march started in Auschwitz and ended in Birkenau. Of course, only Auschwitz exists now because in Birkenau there is nothing left since the Germans had the whole camp blown up before they left.
At this esplanade, we were looking at a giant screen and there spoke the prime minister of Poland, a representative of the organization of the Rights of Women and many others. However, the highlight was Sharon who said, ‘I will not speak to you about the Holocaust as what I see is enough. You must talk about it among yourselves, with your children, with your children’s children, as it must never be forgotten.’
Then came Elie Wiesel [35] and said, ‘I was a young child, fourteen years old.’ And I was wondering how he survived as at that young age they were not taking them in the camp, he must have looked much older. He continued, ‘I was holding hands with my father, my mother, my little brother and suddenly, I had no time, they all disappeared. My mother had no time to give me a kiss, neither my father to give me his blessing. I lost them. Why all that?’
Then came the former chief rabbi of Israel whose name is Lau and said, ‘Why did they choose us? We all see the same flowers, we all smell the same flowers. Why did they choose us?’
I went to the gas chambers and prayed my respects and is seems that he people taken in there they were suffocating and dying, but before dying they were hitting the door with their hands, and they were digging the walls with their nails and on one wall it was written ‘n-k-m’ and the rabbi said, ‘I understand it as the Hebrew word “nekama” which means “revenge.”
Certainly revenge but not with violence. Revenge is what I see today. Revenge is 30,000 people present in this manifestation today. Revenge is that they didn’t manage to achieve what they were after. Revenge is every child that is born.’
Only by visiting that place you can really understand it, live it partly, since only the people who suffered there really lived it.
Recently, in 2005, I honored Mr. Fix. I had everything prepared already some fifteen or twenty years ago, but Mrs. Fix didn’t want me to, as she told me, ‘Mr. Fix is dead. Mr. Fix hid you, I had no involvement in it, whatever we did we did it for the best and I don’t want any thank you. For whatever we did let G-d thank us.’
However, I had my dossier ready and last year was the celebration of the Holocaust in Greece for the first time and little Charles Fix, the son, calls me. ‘Ioanna,’ he says – I was called Ioanna Marinopoulou when I lived with them – and asked me, ‘Why did you forget us?’ I told him that I hadn’t forgotten them and that I would expect him at my place the next day. So he saw that I had everything prepared and I told him, ‘Your mother didn’t want it.’ But he said, ‘I do want it.’
It took me only eight months to arrange for it. I telephoned here, I telephoned there, got in contact with Yad Vashem and with Mr. Saltiel, if I recall correctly, and this year we celebrated the sixty year anniversary.
We went to Thessaloniki, because the celebration was held in Thessaloniki. The son, Charles Fix, came as well as my son and Mr. Prokopiou, the only cousin of Charles Fix. He came especially for this occasion and left again the next day in the morning.
I had also prepared a little speech to give but I didn’t in the end, as I was very moved and was crying. And when it was over I turned my head towards Charles, he turned towards me, and we looked at each other and fell into each other’s arms. I can still hear the applause we received.
Imagine, 2.500 people clapping. And when I saw Aliki Mordohai, I told her, ‘Aliki, my child, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to say a few words.’ And her response was that I did very well not to talk as, ‘the embrace and the kiss said it all and it was more than enough.
There were about 30,000 people present, and as I was walking, I heard a group talking in French amongst themselves. I asked them where they were coming from and they told me Lyon, France, and when I asked them if they were Jews they said, no, that they were Catholics.
Here, the Ministry of Education gave 50.000 Euros and only 15 people were interested in coming! The rest of the money was given to schools, students etc. of our community. This is how the ones who wanted to could go. It was a gigantic manifestation, the ‘March of the Living.’ We walked three kilometers to go there and another three to return. I personally didn’t think I would be able to make it, as I have a problem with my legs. I still cannot quite believe how I managed to complete the march.
As we were going around the camps on foot I was crying and crying because it is a different thing to read about it – at home I have two shelves full of books on the Holocaust – than to see it in reality. To put yourself in their place at that moment that they would put in line one after the other in order to see how many a single bullet could kill, penetrating from one to the other etc. Well, this is a different thing all together.
You should see the ‘pieces of cotton,’ or what I thought were pieces of cotton. I asked myself, ‘why do they show these pieces of cotton? Did they take them out of a mattress? But weren’t mattresses here filled with straw?’ So I asked our group leader what those discolored pieces of cotton were all about and she told me, ‘What discolored pieces of cotton, Mrs. Capuano? Can’t you see that it is peoples’ hair?’
They found five tons of it there that were not sent to Germany. They also told me this hair is the raw material for manufacturing a very strong and light cloth that is used to make parachutes. If you do not see and live it you have seen nothing.
Many speeches were given and there came Sharon and we could see him on the big screens that had been installed. It was all very moving and the music they would play would also shake us. Before we started to walk – it was where the rail tracks were, on the spot where the trains were passing – they were giving us little cardboard badges and written on those was, ‘In the memory of my family, my parents, my uncle.’
They would pin those cardboard badges on us. And when we arrived there was a sort of esplanade because the manifestation took place in Birkenau [34], the march started in Auschwitz and ended in Birkenau. Of course, only Auschwitz exists now because in Birkenau there is nothing left since the Germans had the whole camp blown up before they left.
At this esplanade, we were looking at a giant screen and there spoke the prime minister of Poland, a representative of the organization of the Rights of Women and many others. However, the highlight was Sharon who said, ‘I will not speak to you about the Holocaust as what I see is enough. You must talk about it among yourselves, with your children, with your children’s children, as it must never be forgotten.’
Then came Elie Wiesel [35] and said, ‘I was a young child, fourteen years old.’ And I was wondering how he survived as at that young age they were not taking them in the camp, he must have looked much older. He continued, ‘I was holding hands with my father, my mother, my little brother and suddenly, I had no time, they all disappeared. My mother had no time to give me a kiss, neither my father to give me his blessing. I lost them. Why all that?’
Then came the former chief rabbi of Israel whose name is Lau and said, ‘Why did they choose us? We all see the same flowers, we all smell the same flowers. Why did they choose us?’
I went to the gas chambers and prayed my respects and is seems that he people taken in there they were suffocating and dying, but before dying they were hitting the door with their hands, and they were digging the walls with their nails and on one wall it was written ‘n-k-m’ and the rabbi said, ‘I understand it as the Hebrew word “nekama” which means “revenge.”
Certainly revenge but not with violence. Revenge is what I see today. Revenge is 30,000 people present in this manifestation today. Revenge is that they didn’t manage to achieve what they were after. Revenge is every child that is born.’
Only by visiting that place you can really understand it, live it partly, since only the people who suffered there really lived it.
Recently, in 2005, I honored Mr. Fix. I had everything prepared already some fifteen or twenty years ago, but Mrs. Fix didn’t want me to, as she told me, ‘Mr. Fix is dead. Mr. Fix hid you, I had no involvement in it, whatever we did we did it for the best and I don’t want any thank you. For whatever we did let G-d thank us.’
However, I had my dossier ready and last year was the celebration of the Holocaust in Greece for the first time and little Charles Fix, the son, calls me. ‘Ioanna,’ he says – I was called Ioanna Marinopoulou when I lived with them – and asked me, ‘Why did you forget us?’ I told him that I hadn’t forgotten them and that I would expect him at my place the next day. So he saw that I had everything prepared and I told him, ‘Your mother didn’t want it.’ But he said, ‘I do want it.’
It took me only eight months to arrange for it. I telephoned here, I telephoned there, got in contact with Yad Vashem and with Mr. Saltiel, if I recall correctly, and this year we celebrated the sixty year anniversary.
We went to Thessaloniki, because the celebration was held in Thessaloniki. The son, Charles Fix, came as well as my son and Mr. Prokopiou, the only cousin of Charles Fix. He came especially for this occasion and left again the next day in the morning.
I had also prepared a little speech to give but I didn’t in the end, as I was very moved and was crying. And when it was over I turned my head towards Charles, he turned towards me, and we looked at each other and fell into each other’s arms. I can still hear the applause we received.
Imagine, 2.500 people clapping. And when I saw Aliki Mordohai, I told her, ‘Aliki, my child, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to say a few words.’ And her response was that I did very well not to talk as, ‘the embrace and the kiss said it all and it was more than enough.
Period
Interview
Yvonne Capuano-Molho