By Debra Black
Toronto Star - November 22, 2007
Rachel Shtibel, with her husband, Adam, plays the violin that her
family buried near their home in Kolomyja, Poland before they went into hiding.
She and other Holocaust survivors read excerpts of their stories last night
at a launch of their memoirs published by the Azrieli Foundation, a Toronto-based
charitable organization, at the Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto.
Rachel Shtibel, now 72, spent two years of her life living in a bunker –
3 metres by 3 metres – underneath a barn in Poland during part of the
Holocaust. "There were ten of us," she said. "We were lying like sardines.
When one had to turn all of us had to turn." The men went out at night to
get food. By day they all remained as still as possible. Her father had smuggled
her out of the local ghetto in a sack of garden tools, warning her to be
dead silent or they would be shot.
During the time she and her parents and others hid in the bunker, a family
friend – a doctor molested her. Even after the war was over she never
told her parents about the sexual abuse, fearful they wouldn't believe her.
She speaks of it now as if she were another person. "I was mourning this
little child," she said. "I felt so sorry for her – helpless."
Shtibel's story is one of six Canadian memoirs of Holocaust survivors published
by the Azrieli Foundation, a Toronto-based charitable organization. She and
other survivors read excerpts of their stories last night at a launch at
the Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto.
The books are to be distributed free of charge to libraries across Canada
as well as Holocaust memorials around the world. Individuals can go online
and order them free of charge shortly. The Azrieli Foundation has close to
170 such memorials it plans to publish.
Shtibel's message is one of hope – hope that the Holocaust will never
happen again. The horror and the terror of not knowing whether she would
live or die was just one of the burdens she shouldered as her fellow Jews
were slaughtered.
But for Shtibel the shame of being molested wasn't the only secret in the
family. After the Holocaust, Shtibel inherited her uncle's violin –
which had been buried near a walnut tree near their old home in the Jewish
ghetto. With it were old pictures of herself as a baby and of her uncle and
another unknown woman. Her parents encouraged her to learn to play the
instrument.
Fifty years later she found out – after her parents died – that
her biological father was in fact her uncle – the violinist. And the
unknown woman in the picture was in fact her biological mother and the love
of her father's life. Today, she still plays that violin – now more
than 100 years old – and cherishes it for both its music and the secrets
it holds engrained in the wood.
Still the Holocaust hangs heavy over the survivors. "I wanted the world to
know (what happened)," she said. "We are the last generation to witness the
Holocaust."
No comments:
Post a Comment