MOL 2005 recent articles

As he entered the Auschwitz camp, supported on both sides by his two daughters, Doctor Moshe Yageel, a 78 year-old survivor of the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps, glanced at the words inscribed at the entrance of the camp.

"I remember these words. They were there when we were brought here," he said. The words, written in German, say that "work will set you free".

"I was a fool to believe that," he said adding that the words formed part of a strategy by their Nazi capturers to make them compliant.

As he continued to take me and other members of the 250-strong delegation from South Africa through his memories, many groups, mainly young people, arrived in large numbers.

It was difficult to tell where they were from because most were flying the Israeli flag. It was a sign of pride displayed by Jews from around the world.

Being used to the South African style of marching, I found this particular march "boring". There was no toyi-toyi or vibrant singing.

However, there was something that I had not witnessed before. The solidarity and allegiance of Jews to the State of Israel was beyond my imagination.

Upon descending one of the bridges, a giant establishment loomed ahead, intimidating, as if haunted by spirits of the thousands of people it had consumed. A few hundred metres away, many took a brief break to look and confirm that this, indeed, was the death camp. Some wept openly, while Dr Yageel fixed his eyes on the place he had once been frog-marched into.

The names of the victims were read loudly through the public address system.

I was deeply touched by the sight of young and old Jews laying plates of remembrance and lighting candles in memory of the victims.

Reality was finally dawning on me - people were killed in these camps. Not that I had ever doubted it, but as is the case with mankind, one never quite feel it until you are "there". Tears rolled down their faces as they sorrowfully sat on the rail lines and around the dilapidated buildings.

I asked myself what I would do if my people had experienced such horror. I couldn't answer the question.

In the midst of a sea of Israeli flags and foreign languages, there were lots of questions on my mind. One of them was: what would unite my people in the same manner as the Jews were?

I thought of many things that could get us to commemorate together with such dignity. June 16 came to mind, but then I remembered - there's the Comrades Marathon on that important day of our calendar.

It angered me that the organisers of the Comrades Marathon do not even observe a moment of silence for the people who died on that day, an aspect that came naturally to the multitudes who had gathered at the March of the Living.

To the Comrades organisers, it was just another day of sport. To have a moment to remember our martyrs surely wouldn't hurt, I concluded.

In the Nazi death camps in Poland, I looked around me and saw some of the wealthiest South African businessmen, who had taken two weeks off from their businesses to come and commemorate the deaths of their loved ones and celebrate the liberation of the death camps by the Russian forces.

I wondered how difficult it would be for our business leaders to leave their businesses for the same period of time to commemorate the deaths of Oliver Tambo and Chris Hani or, or to have a Biko Week.

The cold and rainy weather of Poland did not deter these people from waiting for the formal programme to start. Even my newly-found friends took their minds off the lack of technological facilities & the uncomfortable beds to focus on this matter of international importance.

After all, the UN, for the first time in its history, did acknowledge and commemorate the Holocaust - something Dr Yageel says is one reason that encouraged him to participate in the march this year.

"Remember who you are: free Jewish youngsters, members of a nation which is spread throughout all continents, but whose hearts are in one place: a country which is its own - the state of Israel, the Jewish state," said Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon to thunderous applause.

For me, he had summed up the reason why a crowd of almost 20 000 Jews had come together.

"Never again," shouted the jumbo television screens. Coming from a school of thought that says Jews make too much noise about their suffering, I asked myself: "who stops me from making noise about my history".

The answer is, no one.

I then realised that I have met more black children at the Johannesburg Zoo and at the SABC buildings on tour, than at the Hector Peterson Memorial or the Apartheid Museum.

But unlike the Jews who do not have graves to lay wreaths on, we are fortunate enough to know where our leaders are buried.