May 26, 2017 1 Sivan 5777 Volume 73, Issue 11
S O U T H E R N A R I Z O N A ’ S A WA R D - W I N N I N G J E W I S H N E W S PA P E R
Classifieds ............................. 16 Commentary ..........................6 Community Calendar........... 21 In Focus............................ 18-19 Israel ...............................16, 24 Letter to the Editor ................8 Local .............................3, 5, 10 National ................................24 Obituaries .............................22 Our Town ..............................23 P.S. ....................................... 20 Rabbi’s Corner ...................... 17 Restaurant Resource ...... 14-15 Synagogue Directory.............8
AJP SUMMER SCHEDULE June 9 • June 23 July 7 August 11 • August 25
KAYE PATCHETT Special to the AJP
I
t takes a special kind of courage to revisit your worst memories. When Holocaust survivor Pawel Lichter of Tucson accompanied a group of Jewish teens on the 29th annual March of the Living, April 9-May 13, he stepped back to 1939. In a basement on Warszawska Street, in his home town of Rypin, Poland, he stood where his uncle Israel was tortured and murdered by the Gestapo. “They put cement in their mouths to quiet them,” he says. Then 8 years old, he recalls his uncle being taken away, along with other Polish Jews. The site, now a museum, is known as the “slaughter basement.” Lichter also visited the three-story house where he lived as a child with his parents, Isaac and Helena, and his older sister, Gina. The emotional attachment was gone. “It wasn’t a home anymore,” he says. The March of the Living is a two-week trip for Jewish teenagers to Poland and Israel. The 31-member Western Region delegation included eight teens from Tucson Hebrew High, Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Vice president and Director of the Coalition for Jewish Education Sharon Glassberg; Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Congregation Chaverim; Jack Aaron, M.D.; and Lichter, his wife, Sara,
Photo courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona
Pets ....................... 11-13 Summer Fun ................ 9
Tucson teens, local survivor join defiant ‘March of the Living’
The Tucson March of the Living delegation marches from Auschwitz to Birkenau on April 24.
Photo courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona
INSIDE
azjewishpost.com
Pawel Lichter, a Holocaust survivor from Tucson, left, meets Leszek Szulc, Righteous Among the Nations, at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, April 22.
and daughter, Tricia. On April 24, Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, the group joined more than 10,000 Jewish teens from 40 countries, accompanied by Holocaust survivors, rabbis and other adult leaders on the three-kilometer march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. This was Glassberg’s third MOTL. “It was very powerful,” she says. “It was a privilege to have a Holocaust survivor traveling with us to share his story and answer questions.” Each delegation has its own itinerary, she explains. “We visited POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, and had the honor to hear a talk by Leszek Szulc, Righteous Among the Nations. He and his family hid and rescued 32 Jews. He told the teens, ‘You are all like my grandchildren.’” Afterward, says Glassberg, the students “went up one by one and hugged him.” Jaden Boling, a 10th-grader at Catalina Foothills High School, received partial funding for the trip from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. “I felt a personal obligation, as a young Jew, to go to Poland and see some of the places where terrible crimes against humanity occurred so I could pass on the knowledge,” he says. “Being in Pawel’s town was incredibly emotional. As we were leaving the museum in Rypin, I asked how he
was feeling. He said, ‘I feel terrible.’” The exchange affected Boling deeply. “I felt like I had a piece of his personal feelings inside with my own emotions.” During the March of the Living, Boling says, “I looked out into a sea of people all wearing MOTL blue. Myself and ten thousand others were marching in the same places our ancestors walked as prisoners because of their religion. We marched as free people.” “In our delegation the march was a very solemn experience,” says Catalina Foothills senior Ariel Lamdan. “Nobody talked; we just marched along the road, hand in hand.” At Auschwitz, Lichter planted a small white flag on the railroad track leading to the camp’s iron gates. On it, he wrote the names of family and friends who died in the Holocaust. Among them was Renia Rosenberg — the girl his parents planned he would marry. “We grew up together, until the tender age of 8,” he says. During Lichter’s childhood, about half of Rypin’s approximately 20,000 inhabitants were Jews. His father, a businessman, owned a movie theater, Kino Polonia. Renia and her family, Lichter’s grandparents, uncle and several aunts lived nearby. When German soldiers entered Poland, persecution began. Through German friends, Lichter’s father obtained See March, page 2
CANDLELIGHTING TIMES: May 26 ... 7:04 p.m. • May 30 Shavuot ... 7:07 p.m. • May 31 Shavuot ... 8:07 p.m. • June 2 ... 7:09 p.m. • June 9 ... 7:12 p.m.