Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Jan 26 2005
Parliament Speaker Receives Bulgarian Delegation
On Tuesday, Speaker of the Milli Majlis (parliament) Murtuz Alasgarov
received a Bulgarian delegation led by Ramzi Osman, head of the
Bulgaria-Azerbaijan inter-parliamentary friendship group.
During the meeting Alasgarov elaborated on the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict and pointed out occupation of 20% of Azerbaijan’s lands by
Armenia and existence of more than one million refugees and
internally displaced persons in the country.
The parliament speaker also stressed the inefficient activity of the
OSCE Minsk Group to settle the conflict, noting that the group must
strengthen its role in this direction.
Ramzi Osman, in his turn, underlined that Bulgaria has always
supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He also proposed that
the two countries mutually assist in improving the legislative base
in parliament and in other spheres.
The issue on opening of the Baku-Sofia flight was discussed during
the meeting as well.

Turkiye
Jan 26 2005
EU WARNS ARMENIA ABOUT UPPER KARABAGH
The European Council Parliamentary Assembly warned Armenia about its
occupation of the Azerbaijani soil. A report and a bill regarding the
Upper Karabagh issue, prepared by British parliamentarian David
Atkinson, were approved yesterday. The report stated that a member
country’s occupation of another member’s soil was a serious violation
of commitments made to the European Council and called on Armenia to
withdraw from the Upper Karabagh. /Turkiye/

Journal of Turkish Weekly/Zaman – Turkey
Jan 26 2005
Council of Europe: ‘Armenia is an Occupier in Karabagh’
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) has issued
Armenia a warning regarding its occupation of the Azerbaijani
territory of Karabag (Karabakh).
A report on High Karabakh prepared by British parliamentarian David
Atkinson and the related decision draft were approved during PACE’s
General Council meetings yesterday (January 25).
The report stressed that occupation of one member country’s territory
by another member country is viewed as a serious violation of their
agreements with the Council of Europe.
PACE has called upon Azerbaijan and Armenia to follow a path toward
reconciliation. The decision asserts that PACE supports the Minsk
Process for a peaceful solution in Karabakh and the right of return
for those who were forced to leave their homeland. The Council also
recommended that the parties apply to the International Court of
Justice in the event that the Minsk process fails and that an action
plan be established to develop confidence between the two parties.
Armenian forces occupied about 20 percent Azerbaijani territories,
and 1 million Azerbaijani became refugees since than. Apart from the
Karabakh region Armenia refuse to withdraw its forces from
Azerbaijani provinces.

Socialist Worker, UK
Jan 26 2005
Murder by assembly line
Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates the greatest crime of the 20th
century. Henry Maitles has written extensively on the Holocaust,
which claimed the lives of members of his family in Lithuania and
Poland. Here he spells out a warning from history
THE LAST century was the bloodiest in history. The Holocaust, the
Nazis’ attempted annihilation of Jews and other `sub-humans’, claimed
12 million victims and was its most brutal act. It was not the only
genocide. There was the attempt by the fledgling Turkish state to
wipe out the Armenians from within its borders in the second decade
of the 20th century. In the last decade there was the slaughter in
Rwanda.
There were other barbarities too – the use of atomic weapons against
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, imperialist wars such as in Vietnam, and
appalling conflicts such as in Congo.
Yet the Holocaust rightly evokes for most people the ultimate in
inhumanity. Hence the outrage and revulsion when David Irving and
other Holocaust deniers claim that it was `a detail in history’.
However, it was not just the scale and savagery of the slaughter, but
the thoroughly capitalist nature of the Holocaust – both in its
planning and implementation – that makes it unique.
This shone through in the recent BBC2 series on Auschwitz. One Nazi
officer at the death camp even described it as `murder by assembly
line’, as the most advanced industrial methods were turned to
killing.
In essence, we are dealing with an attempt to strip humans of their
humanity, to justify the idea that they are subhuman as a prelude to
their extermination.
As Primo Levi, the Italian Auschwitz survivor put it: `Imagine now a
man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his
house, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be
a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity
and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself.
`He will be a man whose life and death can be lightly decided with no
sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis
of a pure judgment of utility. It is in this way that one can
understand the double sense of the term `extermination camp’, and it
is now clear what we seek to express by the phrase `to lie on the
bottom’.’
The capitalist nature of the Holocaust ran through from the
conference that planned the slaughter at Wannsee in January 1942
through to the role of industrialists and the civil servants. Jews
were not only exterminated immediately, but could, particularly in
times of labour shortage, be worked to death as slave labour.
Yet unlike previous barbarities, such as the slave trade, there was
no overriding economic logic to the death camps and the mass murder.
It often appeared irrational – industrial managers using slave labour
complained of how wasteful it was to constantly have to train up new
workers as the SS ensured that Jewish slave labour did not live too
long.
On occasion the transport of Jews ran counter to the war effort. On
D-Day itself, in June 1944, the main worry of the German High
Command, faced with the Allied invasion of Europe, was the transport
of a few hundred Greek Jews to Auschwitz.
Yet as the German army was thrown back on the Eastern and Western
Fronts, the Nazis’ commitment to wiping out the Jews of Europe
remained. The one thing holding the Nazi cadre together was the
belief that as they went down they would take millions of Jews and
other `subhumans’ with them. This has encouraged some to argue that
the Holocaust was some inexplicable outburst of `evil’ with no
connection to the capitalist system.
The connection is there. Germany’s leading engineering firms competed
for the contract to build the most efficient crematoria. However, the
link is not primarily through the complicity of firms such as IG
Farben or IBM in the execution of the Holocaust, but in the way the
Nazis came to power and maintained their rule in alliance with big
business.
Historian Ian Kershaw, who was adviser to the BBC series on
Auschwitz, has described how Germany’s elites hoisted the Nazis into
power in January 1933.
Hitler did not win a majority of seats in the German parliament. For
all the Nazis’ rhetoric of standing up for the `little man’ on the
street, Hitler required the support of the representatives of the
capitalist class to seize power.
They saw in him a force that could destroy working class resistance.
His programme of military expansion, particularly into eastern
Europe, chimed with the historic aims of German imperialism.
The Nazis were the barbaric product of the crisis of capitalism in
Germany between the wars and the Holocaust was a product of their
twisted world outlook which had at its heart the notion that the Jews
were a subhuman enemy. The Holocaust became central to the Nazis,
while the Nazis and the successful outcome of the war were central to
the interests of German capital.
The German invasion of the USSR in 1941 unleashed murder on a vast
scale. The Nazis found they now controlled areas with many millions
of Jews – there were less than half a million within the borders of
Germany itself. Forced Jewish emigration from the lands the Nazis
controlled was no longer an issue. The `solution to the Jewish
problem’ was to murder them.
In the first week of the invasion more Jews were killed by the
Einsatzgruppen (the SS killing squads) than in the previous eight
years of Nazi rule in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and half of
Poland.
Indeed, until mid-1941, there were more communists and socialists in
Nazi concentration camps than Jews.
The Einsatzgruppen moved in behind the German army. One historian
summed up what happened in the city of Bialystok, which had some
50,000 Jews, when the Nazis entered on 27 June 1941: `Dante-esque
scenes took place in these streets. Jews were taken out of the
houses, put against the walls and shot… At least 800 Jews had been
locked in the Great Synagogue before it had been set on fire…the
soldiers were throwing hand grenades into the houses.’
The Einsatzgruppen also attempted to involve indigenous populations
in doing their killing. Often they were successful and many of those
accused of war crimes were Latvian, Lithuanian or Ukranian.
In other places, though, the Nazis couldn’t make the locals into
murderers. For example, a report prepared in October 1941 complained
that Einsatzgruppen A operating in Estonia could not `provoke
spontaneous anti-Jewish demonstrations with ensuing pogroms’ because
the population in their area lacked `sufficient enlightenment’ to
murder the Jews.
The need to kill Jews more efficiently and quickly, and the effects
of face to face slaughter on the German soldiers, persuaded the Nazi
leadership that a more impersonal method of slaughter was preferable.
The Nazis went to great lengths to keep the extermination camps
secret from both the Jews and the German population. The Allies did
get to know about the death camps. But Allied leaders told
delegations asking them to bomb the railway into Auschwitz and the
crematoria blocks that they had no proof of mass murder. Saving the
Jews of Europe was not an Allied war aim.
We should remember all this as we commemorate the Holocaust this
week. Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive will not by itself
stop the rise of fascism in the 21st century. But it does make the
Nazis’ job harder, which is why BNP leader Nick Griffin and the rest
go to such lengths to deny it. The Holocaust also stands as a
terrible warning of the barbaric forces capitalism can unleash when
it goes into a deep crisis and its existence is at stake.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IranMania News, Iran
Jan 26 2005
Mazandaran delegation in Armenia: IRNA

LONDON, Jan 26 (IranMania) – Deputy Governor General of Mazandaran
province Ali Akbar Mirlouhi met in Yerevan with Head of Armenian
Presidential Office Artashes Toumanian to discuss issues of mutual
interest, IRNA reported.
At the meeting, Toumanian, who is also the Armenian head of the
Iran-Armenia Economic Commission, expressed satisfaction over
establishment of ties and cooperation with the northern Iranian
province and underlined the need to expand cooperation in
agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and tourism sectors.
Elaborating on potentials and abilities of Mazandaran province,
Mirlouhi expressed the province readiness to expand cooperation with
Armenia in various fields.
Mirlouhi also met the Head of Merchants and Industrialists Union
Arsen Ghazarian on Monday evening.
The two sides called for promoting and expanding private sectors’
ties for effective cooperation. Mirlouhi is visiting Armenia at the
head of an economic and commercial delegation from Mazandaran.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

New York Times
Jan 26 2005
Today He Would Have His Own Show on Fox
By JOYCE WADLER
Generally speaking, we do not question the site of a theatrical party
to which we have been invited. As has been noted by many a Broadway
press agent, our manners here at Boldface are superb.
Still, we must say that the FireBird restaurant, with its Czarist
Russian theme and opulent red velvet walls, did seem a little
peculiar for the “Fiddler on the Roof” party last Thursday, which
celebrated HARVEY FIERSTEIN and ANDREA MARTIN, the new leads.
Sure, the show is set in Russia, but it wasn’t like there was an
Anatevka/Romanov softball league.
Oops, do excuse us, please; here’s an instant message from CZAR
NICHOLAS [email protected]: How little you know! We played every week
in the warm weather behind the palace in Tsarskoye Selo. We beat them
every time.
Gee, and here’s a message from [email protected]: It was always
fair and square.
Our reply: Well, Rasputin, your word is good enough for us!
MR. SEGUE MAN, get off that roof!
Among the party guests: PHOEBE SNOW; DALLAS ROBERTS, who will be
opening soon in “The Glass Menagerie”; ELI WALLACH and ANNE JACKSON;
JILL EIKENBERRY and MICHAEL TUCKER.
Andrea Martin, who plays GOLDE, to Mr. Fierstein’s TEVYE, looked as
if she had prepared for life in the shtetl with Pilates. She wore a
DKNY pink sweater over a black accordion-pleated skirt and pink suede
shoes with pink rhinestones.
A graduate of Toronto Second City, Ms. Martin said that she had not
been familiar with the show.
“But I am Armenian,” she said, “and I understand what it is to lose a
country and lose a family and have massacres and genocides and
everything against my people.”
Mr. Fierstein arrived close to midnight; his mother, JACKIE
FIERSTEIN, had been at the show and she came to the party, too.
Is it true that ‘Fiddler’ helped inspire his career in the theater?
“Yeah, I mean, it was definitely our identity,” Mr. Fierstein said.
“It was our Jewish identity on stage. Everything else was – there are
a lot of Jews in show business, but you know they all change their
names and put up Christmas trees. So to actually see this as a child,
and to see this Jewish identity was very, very strong. You know,
those songs – ‘Sunrise, Sunset,’ ‘Matchmaker,’ ‘If I Were a Rich Man’
– they were at every wedding, every bar mitzvah, every public affair.
My father would sing ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ at our graduations. ”
What’s it like for him to have his mother in the audience?
“I try to ignore that; otherwise I would be crying a lot,” he said.
“Really. My brother’s hard enough. My brother sort of has empty nest
syndrome at the moment; both his sons have gone to college. And so
he’s sort of in that depression that the boys are gone. And so as
each one of my daughters left, if I flashed on my brother at all, I
started crying again. I mean, Tevye’s miserable enough without
bringing other people into it.”
In Other Words, We’re Running Short
With CLINT EASTWOOD up for Academy Awards for best director and best
actor for “Million Dollar Baby,” and the film nominated in five other
categories, you’re no doubt thinking that his wife, DINA RUIZ, is all
atwitter about what to wear to the ceremony.
(No, of course we know you’re not. This is just a convoluted attempt
to render old material fresh by linking it to a news event, a
time-honored newspaper technique. YOUR NAME IN THIS SPACE to the
reader who finds the most examples of this in today’s paper. No, not
our paper. Look in The Los Angeles Times.)
Where were we?
Oh, yes, Ms. Ruiz, and her indifference to fancy togs, which we
picked up on when chatting with her at the National Board of Review
Awards earlier this month.
“I borrowed a dress from GIORGIO ARMANI,” Ms. Ruiz said. “Our
producer’s wife is the head of public relations for Armani.”
She pointed to her choker and pearl earrings. “This is my
great-aunt’s who died. Dime store earrings.”
Doesn’t she deserve a trip to Tiffany’s?
“No, I don’t like all that stuff. I like costume jewelry.”
How about the shoes?
“These? I’ll tell you what. My first ever and last pair of CHANEL
shoes. I got ’em about 90 percent off.”
With Melena Z. Ryzik and Paula Schwartz

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
Jan 26 2005
ANC loses director to clerk race
Ardashes Kassakhian will step down as executive director to focus on
his bid for Glendale city clerk. Other candidates are also cutting
back work schedules.
By Josh Kleinbaum, News-Press and Leader
GLENDALE – Ardashes Kassakhian began a 10-week sabbatical from the
Armenian National Committee this week to focus on his campaign for
city clerk, highlighting the effort that nine candidates are putting
into the first competitive race for city clerk in 75 years.
Kassakhian, who has worked for the committee’s Western Region for
five years and has been its executive director for the last two, will
campaign full-time for the April 5 election, he said. Armen
Carapetian, the region’s government relations director, will serve as
acting executive director.
“I’m going to miss the work that I’ve been able to do here, but
directing a nonprofit and running the city clerk’s office, there’s a
lot of similarities,” Kassakhian said. “I’m grateful for all my
experience here. They afforded me the opportunity to serve the
community of Glendale, to work intimately with city officials and
others.”
Kassakhian is the only candidate for city clerk who is leaving his
day job entirely for the campaign, but several other candidates said
they will reduce their workload during the next 10 weeks. Kathryn Van
Houten, an attorney, said she will tone down her volunteer work.
Stephen L. Ropfogel, an independent business owner, is reducing the
amount of time he’s spending on work, as is Stephanie Landregan, a
landscape artist.
Narineh Barzegar, a graduate student, postponed classes for a quarter
to focus on the election. Gary Sysock, deputy executive officer with
Los Angeles County Clerk of the Board, has vacation time stored up,
and Lorna Vartanian, financial accounting manager for a law firm,
said she would take time off if needed.
“I’m still in the planning stages,” Vartanian said. “I don’t have all
of that quite figured out yet. But I’m going to gauge that as I go
along and certainly work accordingly.”
Two candidates, Paulette Mardikian and George McCullough, could not
be reached for comment.
During his time at the Armenian National Committee, Kassakhian led
the committee’s push for genocide education, served as its liaison to
state and federal legislators and helped mobilize Glendale’s Armenian
voters. In Glendale elections, the Armenian National Committee’s
endorsement has become among the most sought after.
“If he doesn’t win the election, we’d love him to come back,” said
Steve Dadaian, chairman of the committee’s Western Region board of
directors. “He does the work of three men. He knows a lot about
Armenian American issues regionally, but he also knows what the local
issues are for the Glendale voters and the community.”
Dadaian wasn’t sure if the committee will hire a permanent
replacement for Kassakhian before the April election. For now,
Carapetian will focus on regional activities to commemorate the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, working with federal
legislators and creating a community outreach plan for the
committee’s Western Region.
“We’re not replacing Ardy. You can’t replace Ardy,” Carapetian said.
“He’s built wide community contacts, and not just in the Armenian
community.”

KLAS-TV, NV
Jan 26 2005
Teens Facing Deportation Talk With Eyewitness News

(Jan. 25) — They’ve spent twelve nights away from home in federal
custody fearing they’ll soon be taken out of the country. The Las
Vegas teens face deportation to Armenia.
Tuesday, while sitting in a holding cell in Los Angeles, the girls
placed a phone call to Eyewitness News Reporter Atle Erlingsson. He
spoke to the girls for about ten minutes.
The girls are scared. They don’t know what’s going on, or if they
will ever see their family again. They were raised here in America.
They are not citizens and the government wants them out. But their
dad and other sisters would stay here.
“It’s terrible. I hate it. I want to go home. I just want to go home.
I can’t take this anymore,” said 18-year-old Emma Sarkisian, drawn to
tears as she talks on the phone.
She and her 17-year-old sister, Mariam spend 13 hours a day sitting
in a federal holding cell. At night, Emma says they’re taken to a
hotel where a male guard watches over their every move — even when
they’re sleeping.
Elena Shulikova has known the girls for years. She’s a family friend
working to stop the deportation. “They’re treated like prisoners or
criminals. And they’re not. And I can only imagine what they’re going
through in there,” Shulikova said.
The two girls eat very little. Emma says, “We eat disgusting food —
jelly sandwiches. The food is terrible. You just have to starve
yourself.”
Shulikova says the prisoner lifestyle is difficult for Emma and
Mariam, two girls who have the same likes and dislikes as your
average teen. “Like a little of make-up. Music. Emma wanted to be a
singer. She had this silly dream of becoming a singer/actress. They
listen to Britney Spears. They love movies. They’re just average high
school kids.”
They’re two average girls who are admittedly scared of their future.
“Yes, of course,” says Mariam. “I know nothing about (Armenia). I
wouldn’t even survive there.”
And that, of course, is the concern of those who know the girls.
Wednesday, a federal judge is expected to reconsider whether or not
the girls should be released on bail until their deportation is
decided.
In the meantime, local politicians are starting to stir up the pot.
Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Senator Harry Reid are following
the case. They do have the ability to stop a deportation and keep the
girls here.

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Jan 26 2005
Arguments flare over Lebanese electoral law
Hariri to have 2 lists in Beirut
By Nayla Assaf and Nada Raad
Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s draft electoral law has created furious rows
between the country’s opposition and government loyalists.
As was widely predicted, the new law envisages the division of the
capital into three electoral districts.
Under the proposal the country will be divided into 26 districts.
It also introduces two popular amendments: the lowering of the voting
age to 18 and more controversially, it proposes allocating 30 percent
of seats in Parliament to women.
The Cabinet expected to formally discuss the law later this week, but
Premier Omar Karami refuted criticisms, insisting the law could still
be amended.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh’s remarks earlier this
week in which he warned the Christian opposition against aligning
itself with former premier Rafik Hariri in Beirut continue to cause
controversy.
Speaking on Sunday night, Franjieh threatened revoke the proposal to
partition Beirut into three districts, which is largely deemed
favorable to Christians.
He said: “If the state feels that its stake in the electoral battle
is under threat, it will seek its own interests and redistribute the
cards in Beirut.”
He also said that he finally decided, in his proposal, to split Sidon
and the Zahrani into two separate districts, following the demand of
Speaker Nabih Berri.
Franjieh said: “His demand was very logical. He is demanding that the
1960 law be applied as is concerning the Sidon-Zahrani area.”
In an unusual nod to Jumblatt, Franjieh had also said that his law
proposal did not restrict Jumblatt’s power.
Franjieh’s comments were sharply criticised by Karami, who said: “I
do not agree with [Franjieh’s] comments, because we say that we have
constitutional institutions, which judge such issues.”
Jbeil MP Fares Soueid, a prominent member of the Christian
opposition, lashed out at Franjieh and demanded the Cabinet’s
resignation.
“The words of Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh yesterday were
extremely dangerous and confirm the authorities’ plans to sabotage
opposition lists,” he said.
Speaking to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International,
Soueid said: “How alliances are forged is not the business of the
interior minister. His task should be limited to producing an
electoral law and guaranteeing the impartiality of the state.”

Speaking after a meeting of the Democratic Gathering, Chouf MP Walid
Jumblatt’s parliamentary coalition, Baabda MP Bassem Sabaa said
Franjieh “is trying to announce the [election] results in advance.
The opposition will remain unified and that victory will be on its
side despite the falsification attempts and the attempts to pressure
public opinion.”
He added the draft electoral law was “an attempt to bribe Lebanese
public opinion through the introduction of a quota for women and the
lowering of the voting age to 18”.
He said: “Our position concerning the lowering of the voting age is
well known even if the authorities introduced it in order to get more
votes.”
Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party has been requesting that the
voting age be lowered for several years.
Sabaa also confirmed earlier claims by Jumblatt that the opposition
will ask the United Nations to intervene in case of violations in the
electoral process.
Meanwhile, contrary to government expectations, former Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri announced he will run in Beirut’s third electoral
district, and not in the first district, which includes a majority of
Sunni voters.
Sources close to Hariri said he will have two complete lists in
Beirut.
The first one in the third district, which has nine seats, is mostly
Shiite and Armenian, and the second is in the six-seat mostly Sunni
first district.
But Hariri will not present a list for Achrafieh, which he will leave
to his allies in the Christian opposition.
lso, amid the rising tensions, President Emile Lahoud defended the
authorities’ performance, reiterating that the new electoral law will
be fair and just and treating all regions equally.
Lahoud also vowed the government will provide a suitable climate to
allow elections to be held freely and in the most honest and
transparent manner.
He said that discussions of the draft electoral law should not resort
to terms that spark sectarian rife and encourage domestic divisions.
Information Minister Elie Ferzli said Tuesday that the Syrian
authorities have chosen not to interfere in the coming parliamentary
elections.

Houston Chronicle, TX
Jan 26 2005
Auschwitz survivor: Do we still have ears to listen?
Take the moment to renew the vow ‘never forget’
By SAMUEL PISAR
Sixty years ago, the Russians liberated Auschwitz, as the Americans
approached Dachau. The Allied advance revealed to a stunned world the
horrors of the greatest catastrophe ever to befall our civilization.
To a survivor of both death factories, where Hitler’s gruesome
reality eclipsed Dante’s imaginary inferno, being alive and well so
many years later feels unreal.
ADVERTISEMENT

We the survivors are now disappearing one by one. Soon history will
speak of Auschwitz at best with the impersonal voice of researchers
and novelists, at worst with the malevolence of demagogues and
falsifiers. This week the last of us, with a multitude of heads of
state and other dignitaries, are gathering at that cursed site to
remind the world that past can be prologue, that the mountains of
human ashes dispersed there are a warning to humanity of what may
still lie ahead.
The genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda and the
recent massacres of innocents in the United States, Spain, Israel,
Indonesia and so many other countries have demonstrated our inability
to learn from the blood-soaked past. Auschwitz, the symbol of
absolute evil, is not only about that past, it is about the present
and the future of our newly enflamed world, where a coupling of
murderous ideologues and means of mass destruction can trigger new
catastrophes.
When the ghetto liquidation in Bialystok, Poland, began, only three
members of our family were still alive: my mother, my little sister
and I, age 13. Father had already been executed by the Gestapo.
Mother told me to put on long pants, hoping I would look more like a
man, capable of slave labor. “And you and Frieda?” I asked. She
didn’t answer. She knew that their fate was sealed. As they were
chased, with the other women, the children, the old and the sick,
toward the waiting cattle cars, I could not take my eyes off them.
Little Frieda held my mother with one hand, and with the other, her
favorite doll. They looked at me too, before disappearing from my
life forever.
Their train went directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau, mine to the
extermination camp of Majdanek. Months later, I also landed in
Auschwitz, still hoping naively to find their trace. When the SS
guards, with their dogs and whips, unsealed my cattle car, many of my
comrades were already dead from hunger, thirst and lack of air. At
the central ramp, surrounded by electrically charged barbed wire, we
were ordered to strip naked and file past the infamous Dr. Josef
Mengele. The “angel of death” performed on us his ritual “selection”
– those who were to die immediately, to the right, those destined to
live a little longer and undergo other atrocious medical experiments,
to the left.
In the background there was music. At the main gate, with its
sinister slogan “Work Brings Freedom,” sat, dressed in striped prison
rags like mine, one of the most remarkable orchestras ever assembled.
It was made up of virtuosos from Warsaw and Paris, Kiev and
Amsterdam, Rome and Budapest. To accompany the selections, hangings
and shootings while the gas chambers and crematoria belched smoke and
fire, these gentle musicians were forced to play Bach, Schubert and
Mozart, interspersed with marches to the glory of the Fuhrer.
In the summer of 1944, the Third Reich was on the verge of collapse,
yet Berlin’s most urgent priority was to accelerate the “final
solution.” The death toll in the gas chambers on D-Day, as on any
other day, far surpassed the enormous Allied losses suffered on the
beaches of Normandy.
My labor commando was assigned to remove garbage from a ramp near the
crematoria. From there I observed the peak of human extermination and
heard the blood-curdling cries of innocents as they were herded into
the gas chambers. Once the doors were locked, they had only three
minutes to live, yet they found enough strength to dig their
fingernails into the walls and scratch in the words “Never Forget.”
Have we already forgotten?
I also witnessed an extraordinary act of heroism. The Sonderkommando
– inmates coerced to dispose of bodies – attacked their SS guards,
threw them into the furnaces, set fire to buildings and escaped. They
were rapidly captured and executed, but their courage boosted our
morale.
As the Russians advanced, those of us still able to work were
evacuated deep into Germany. My misery continued at Dachau. During a
final death march, while our column was being strafed by Allied
planes that mistook us for Wehrmacht troops, I escaped with a few
others. An armored battalion of GIs brought me life and freedom. I
had just turned 16 – a skeletal “subhuman” with shaved head and
sunken eyes who had been trying so long to hold on to a flicker of
hope. “God bless America,” I shouted uncontrollably .
In the autumn of their lives, the survivors of Auschwitz feel a
visceral need to transmit what we have endured, to warn younger
generations that today’s intolerance, fanaticism and hatred can
destroy their world as they once destroyed ours, that powerful alert
systems must be built not only against the fury of nature – a tsunami
or storm or eruption – but above all against the folly of man.
Because we know from bitter experience that the human animal is
capable of the worst, as well as the best – of madness as of genius –
and that the unthinkable remainspossible.
In the wake of so many recent tragedies, a wave of compassion and
solidarity for the victims, a fragile yearning for peace, democracy
and liberty, seem to be spreading around the planet. It is far too
early to evaluate their potential. Mankind, divided and confused,
still hesitates and vacillates. But the irrevocable has not yet
happened; our chances are still intact. Pray that we learn how to
seize them.
Pisar is an international lawyer and the author of “Of Blood and
Hope.”