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grass that now grows in
the expansive fields did
not exist at the death
camps to which he was as-
signed.
"We would eat whatev-
er we could find," he said,
adding that he once
watched a fellow inmate
consume rat poison be-
cause it looked like pieces
of wheat.
On the day of the interna-
tional march, Mr. Calla was
chosen to carry the Israeli flag
for the Detroit contingent. His
grandson and daughter walked
beside him as he entered the
gates of Birkenau, a sub-camp
of Auschwitz.
The visit was particularly
painful for Mr. Calla, who first
arrived there more than 50
years ago with his first wife and
11.-month-old daughter.
There, the family was lined
up for selection, where Nazis de-
cided who would live as a slave
laborer and who would be sent
immediately to the gas cham-
bers.
Upon seeing a photo of the se-
lection process, Mr. Calla point-
ed to a tall Nazi SS soldier.
"That is the man," he said,
pointing to Dr. Josef Mengele.

an apartment resident along
the route dropped eggs onto
the Detroit group, striking
Adina Newman on the head
and splattering a few others.
"I was laughing and cry-
ing," said Adina, "and I

Left: A view of Auschwitz.

"He put his hand on my shoul-
der. He was feeling my mus-
cles."
Mr. Calla was sent to the
work camp. His wife and daugh-
ter were sent to the death. camp.
This week, after an interna-
tional ceremony commemorat-
ing the dead, Mr. Calla went to
the ruins of one of four buildings
that housed both a gas cham-
ber and a crematorium. There
he his daughter and grandson
placed a marker for their fam
ily members who perished at
that site
Later, the Detroit group
toured a gas chamber in the
Auschwitz camp. In a room
whose walls still bore the
scratch marks the dying made
in their last moments, Mr. Calla
led the group in reciting the
mourners Kaddish.

Below: A man lights a memorial
candle at Auschwitz.

didn't know why I was laughing."
Despite the incidents, the
march continued as scheduled.
The participants lined up outside
the gates of Auschwitz on Yom
HaShoah. The sound of the sho-
far and speeches by dignitaries
marked the beginning of the
march.

The hundreds of participants
from around the world made their
way along the paved road to the
Birkenau sub-camp for a ceremo-
ny — in the shadow of two guard
towers — at a memorial dedicat-
ed to those who lost
their lives at the camps.
Noah Stern of
Bloomfield Hills took
part in the ceremony,
escorting a Panaman-
ian survivor to light a
memorial flame.
"I think that is when
it really got me, being
up there talking to the
survivor and looking
out at all of the other
kids near the railroad
tracks," he said.
Ronald Lauder, a
multimillionaire whose
foundation supports the
rebirth of Jewish life in
Poland, addressed the
group.
"You are the future
of telling the world of
what happened here,"

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he said, explaining that he first
visited Auschwitz and Birkenau
with his teen-aged daughters. "In
the coming years there will be
more and more people who will
say that Auschwitz-Birkenau nev-
er existed, but this is living proof
that it did."
Elyse Stettner, a Huntington
Woods resident, noted that rain
fell softly but ended as the cere-
mony concluded.
"It didn't seem like rain," she
said. "It seemed like God was cry-
ing:,
Led by Professor Gitelman and
madrichim Danny Samson and
Kari Grossinger, the group toured
the Auschwitz museums and bar-
racks, laid memorials at the ruins
of a crematorium and recited Kad-
dish over pits filled with human
ash, tossing in handfuls of soil tak-
en from Jerusalem's Mount of
Olives.
"We are not going to be the
same after this trip," said Rabbi
Bitran.
The journey was sponsored by
the Jewish Federation of Metro-
politan Detroit, the Agency for
Jewish Education, The Jewish

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