March of the Living

From the “March of the Living” ceremony yesterday at Birkenau:

Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau -- a survivor -- recalled that the first time he returned to Birkenau nearly 20 years ago, he was angered by the Yiddish word nekama (revenge) someone scribbled in one of the barracks.

The answer is not revenge in the traditional sense of the word, Lau said.

"The revenge is that we are here. The revenge is that we are home; the revenge is in that we have a homeland; the revenge is in that we have a garden of Israel; the revenge is that we have come here with a blue-and-white flag and a Star of David," he said.

Following the Birkenau ceremony, Sharon drove over to Auschwitz and hammered a mezuza onto the door of the Jewish barracks which houses a Holocaust display.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Comments

[Mike Kaufmann]

Below is the prologue of my exhibition of my trip to Poland.
Please go into the site.
http://www.kaufmann.co.za/mike/myjourney/
Click on the painting to get in,then click on the right on each red line
which are some writing and click on each photo to enlarge.
I hope that you find this interesting and helpful.

Kind regards,
Mike Kaufmann

Prologue
________

I went to Poland in April of 1995 on the March of the Living Tour.

My intention was not to have an exhibition but to have photographs for
my own use. I took along several cameras including black and white film,
being the photographic medium of the time.

There are a number of photographs that are out of focus for which I do
not apologize, as it was difficult to focus through my tears.

There were many pictures that I did not take like the barrack that was
full of shoes that as I walked in I choked on the smell after 55 years,
the barrack that was full of suitcases and the barrack that was full of
children's toothbrushes and personal effects.

These photographs are scanned from contacts. The exhibition photos were
professionally done (some were redone a number of times) to get certain
effects accentuated like darks darker and lights lighter and to try and
create moods.

These effects are not possible to produce on the computer monitor.

The exhibition was held at the Albow Centre Cape Town , South Africa in
April 1996 ,was 13m long and 2,7m high, and the background was painted
black. I tried to create a feeling of the viewer being overwhelmed by
the blackness and size and drawn in to the beauty and by the deception.

The idea is, that each picture is in the order that the person who went
into the camp, walked and saw what I saw. As you look at each picture
try and imagine yourself walking through this camp not knowing what to
expect next and in great conflict. The conflict being that as you
entered the camp, there was a sign that said "Arbeid Macht Frei" (Work
Makes You Free) and these bureaucrats, in and out of uniform, who are
only doing their job and carrying out their orders, (which was to
process your death) who view you as the scum of the earth, demanding
your number(your name is irrelevant) etc. and recording this in a tome.
(How much has changed?)

While on the trip I asked many questions:Why? What is the same now as
was then?What is different now?What makes the situation now that
something like this cannot happen again? I have not yet found the
answers.The level of deception, distortions, myths, the coverups ,the
spin ,deception by omission and outright lies by the government, the
media, corporations, organized religion, the scientific establishment,
and others who want to keep the truth from us,is something that is so
great the public has no clue as to what is really going on at any given
time.

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield
the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of
the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of
its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the
State."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

He Believed, was written in April 2000 to try and get some clue as to
what my Grandfather may have thought at each year and to try and put an
age to ourselves and those people who are dear to us who do things that
we really do not understand why they do what they do and think what they
think, when he only did what he felt to be right, only to be wrong!

"The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break , servitude is at once the
consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." John Philpott
Curran 1750- 1817

I want to thank my family for their continuous support, Grant and
Anthony and Gary who have made this presentation possible.

http://www.kaufmann.co.za/mike/myjourney/
Thank You,
Kind regards,
Mike Kaufmann