Minister Eitan: Mechanism of evil could operate again
At Holocaust memorial service in Poland, Polish official rejects racism; Rabbi Lau denounces situation of Holocaust survivors in Israel
Minister of Pensioner Affairs Rafi Eitan said in his speech: "We are here to warn that the human race, from which this instrument of evil came from, could create such evil again in the form of terrorism and nuclear weapons for mass destruction."
Eitan also told his account of the operation to capture Adolph Eichmann and bring him to Israel. Eitan was the commander of the operation during his service in the Israeli Mossad.
"I was granted the opportunity of meeting one of the agents of this reign of evil face-to-face, to look into his eyes, to sense his heart beat, his body trembling and to smell the scent of an animal hunted down."
A mark of disgrace
Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau related his encounters as a child in the Shoah, and his memories from the day of liberation: "Today, 62 years ago, I was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp. I was alone. The only thing I had left, my brother Naftali, had been separated from me three days earlier on his way to the train that was to take him on his last journey. I didn't know that he was on his bunk, in his block, burning with fever."
Israeli youths at March of the Living (Photo: AP)
Rabbi Lau criticized the sad situation of Holocaust survivors in Israel and said: "The pictures we saw, only a few days ago, are the appalling outcome of dozens of years of neglecting our older brothers and sisters. After surviving the torments of hell, they are bent under the burdens of poverty, sickness and pain. This is a mark of disgrace on each and every one of us."
Jarosław Zieliński, Polish vice-minister of foreign affairs said: "This march represents our desire to create a new, better world. Here, we connect emotionally and ideologically to the memory of the murdered victims."
Zielinski said that the entire area of the concentration camp was a valley of death, a graveyard with no gravestones. "Jews, Poles and others were murdered here. The extent of total destruction cannot be fathomed."
He warned against racism and xenophobia "so that we can build a common future, based on principles of democracy, civil rights and tolerance. None of us hold responsibility for the atrocities, but we are all responsible for the future of the world, our humanity, morality and society, and this is true for every person and every nation."
This was the 19th year that the service in Poland was held. Thousands of youths from Israel and around the world participated in the service and spent the last few days visiting ghettos and concentration camps.
At two o'clock Monday, the 9,000 participants left Auschwitz on the traditional march to Birkenau. Among the marchers were Education Minster Yuli Tamir and Member of Knesset Sara Marom Shalev from the Pensioners Party, who is a Holocaust survivor herself.
This was the first time that the initiator of the March of the Living, Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson was absent.
Coming full circle
"As the one who captured the Nazi, Adolph Eichmann, 47 years ago, I regard my going on this mission to Poland and leading the March of the Living as coming full circle," said Minister Eitan.
"Since I was appointed minister I have done everything in my power to better the lives of the Holocaust survivors who are in the winter of their lives," he asserted before he left Israel.
Thirty high-school students from Sderot participated in the March. "I think that as we come from a different background, we see things differently," said Kama Baloulou, an 11th –grade student. "We deal with horrible situations. Perhaps what is common between us and what happened in Poland, despite the obvious differences, is the fact that people are trying to harm us because we are Jewish, and we live in Sderot."
Kama said that they were in touch with their families all the time to check that nothing has happened in Sderot.
