MIRACLE MISSION

Down To Earth

Bob and MaryJo Wolfe wait to show their passports.

PHL JACOBS MANAGING EDITOR

I

At the same time, one of the
Michigan Miracle Mission
participants unconsciously
reached upward, her sleeve
receding to reveal the tattoo
that is living proof of the art

T HE DETRO

JEW IS H NEWS

n the basement of Yad
Vashem, Israel's memori-
al to the Holocaust, the
tour guide talked about the
significance of art, both cruel
and hopeful.

31

Allen Rubin videotapes the action at the airport.

around her.
Margaret Schwartz of Oak
Park was 19 when A-11444
was scratched onto her arm in
Auschwitz. She and her moth-
er were taken there from their
home outside of Budapest,
Hungary. There was no
preparation, no warning.
When the exhilaration of this
week's trip was still making it
hard for some to sleep, bus-
loads of Michigan area Jews
were humbled by the memo-
ries they saw on the walls
around them.
For some, it was a reminder
of an event that actually hap-
pened to them individually.
For others, it made victims of
the ones they loved, and
maybe victims of us all.
Mrs. Schwartz sat on a
bench after the tour guide fin-
ished, and in an impromptu
discussion, told a little bit
about her life. She broke it
down into practical details.
Everyone there surely knew
about the boxcars, the work
camps and the near-certain
death that awaited.
But Mrs. Schwartz talked
about how she had her head
shaved, and how she was in a
room with people she knew,
but did not recognize. "A wom-
an just doesn't look the same
without her hair," she said.
"You don't know what it's
like not to eat for days, while
you watch others eat around
you," she continued. "I re-
member my mother (Amalia

Freed) laying my head in her
lap like a mother does. When
they separated us and told the
younger girls to go one way
and the women another way,
I ran after her and threw my
coat on her, so she wouldn't be
cold.
"I never thought I'd never
see her again. But there were
guards who would say to us
that the smoke coming from
the buildings were our moth-
ers or our cousins or our sis-
ters."
Mrs. Schwartz said she
stayed alive because she had
the support of her friends in
Auschwitz. They stuck to-
gether, despite the beatings
and the hunger.
"For some of us there was a
stubborn feeling that 'I've
made up my mind, and rm go-
ing to get out of here.' "
It was in the Garden of the
Destroyed Cities where Sara
Feuereisen met the reality of
her late husband Joseph's
pain head-on. The Garden is
a collection of names of the
cities and towns where Jews
were exterminated, carved on
barren rock-like wall struc-
tures. One walks through a
maze, transfixed by the re-
mote small-town names and
confused by the larger, more
metropolitan cities on the
walls.
When she turned a corner
and saw the name of her hus-
band's birthplace, Miechow,
Poland, Mrs. Feureisen
stopped in her tracks.

"There was a chill there
that went through me and the
tears started to come and
would not stop," she said. "He
was only in his 20s when they
took him, beginning with
Buchenwald."
That chill was something
that Eleanor Folbe of West
Bloomfield also experienced
among the maze-like walls of
this barren exhibit. Ms. Folbe
found Baronawich, Poland,
her birthplace and the town
from which she and her par-
ents escaped from when she
was an infant. Another
Miracle Mission participant
told her he was a former resi-
dent of Baronawich, and may
have known Ms. Folbe's par-
ents.
"In my life, it's one of the
most amazing events that has
ever happened to me," she
said. "I came to Israel to ex-
perience this, and I'll always
remember it."
Mission members dosed out
the morning with a memorial
service. Several Detroiters
placed roses on Yad Vashem
memorials. Jacob Feldman, a
JARC resident, led the large
group in the Kaddish.
Outside of Yad Vashem, a
siren blared in the hilly dis-
tance. Overhead, the thunder
of four Israeli jets, flying in for-
mation, shook the building.
But inside the Yad Vashem
auditorium, a silent group of
Detroiters clutched their feel-
ings and held them close. 0

Photos at Jewish Center by:
MARSHA SUNDQUIST

Photos at Metro Airport by:
DANIEL LIPPITT

Opposite page: Helen Kasof of California was one of
the first to arrive.

Below: Three generations on the Mission: Hillary and Lindsay Spolan
and Ruth Shafer

