Israeli Reunion

Two survivors of concentration camps meet again in much happier times.

SHELLI DORFMAN

Editorial Assistant

am a survivor. I am an eye-
witness. My eyes have tears
from the smoke coming out
of the crematoriums —
wind-driven towards earth. My
nose smelled the burning of flesh,
and my heart cried silently"
The words are those of Ben
Kawer, survivor of the Shoah, spoken
at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memori-
al in Jerusalem on his first trip to
Israel.
Calling it one of the greatest hon-
ors he ever received, Kawer was invit-
ed to offer his reflections to the
group traveling with him on
Michigan Miracle Mission III in
April.
Later the same week, 56 years after
defying death in an escape from the
Nazis, Kawer knocked on the door of
his past. With his palm outstretched,
he held a 1945 photograph of him-
self, and looking into the eyes of a
long-lost friend who shared his mem-
ories, Kawer asked, "Do you know
this man?"
A warm embrace and tears
answered his question. Joshua
Pozniak of Israel recognized the pho-
tograph, if not the aging face.
The two met as 17-year-old boys
in 1943. After surviving Auschwitz
and Buchenwald, they were moved to
Monowitz, a satellite camp near
Auschwitz.
Kawer remembered, "Needing
laborers, the Germans evacuated the
camp and began marching everyone
to work or to extermination." After
five days of walking in wooden shoes,
without food, Kawer decided he had
to attempt an escape. Taking the
hand of the boy beside him, Kawer

7/ 9

1999

44 Detroit Jewish News

suaded Ben to stay with them.
Lazar Kawer remained in Costa
Rica; he married a woman he met
at one of the camps. Ben Kawer in
Detroit studied English, his seventh
language, and attended Great Lakes
College. Earning a bachelor's degree
in business administration, Kawer
began a general insurance business
in 1950. He owns Kawer Insurance
Agency and Motor City
Ben Kaiver, Underwriters in both St. Clair Shore(
Joshua
1945.
and Royal Oak.
Pozniak,
Kawer started a family in Detroit
1945.
with his marriage to Esther
Horowitz. She died in 1995. Their
children are Lawrence Kawer, 44,
who is in the insurance business;
Dina Kawer, 42, an artist, and Faye
Wolf, 39. Kawer has four grandchil-
dren with another expected at the r /
end of July.
Having thought about his friend
often through the years, Kawer called
Pozniak in Israel while making his
plans to travel on the mission. Pozniak
responded tearfully that he never
thought he would see Kawer again.
But Kawer assured him: "I will not
Joshua Pozniak and Ben Kawer in Israel, April 1999.
leave Israel without seeing you."
Packing his few 50-year-old pic- ,/
machinegun-equipped trucks and
and two others, including his 11-
Kawer made certain he stood 17,-))
tures,
dead solders, the young men reached a
year-older brother Lazar, ran away.
his
promise.
Arriving at Pozniak's
safe area, with fire burning in cities all
Pozniak was the boy whose hand
Rishon Le-Zion home, near Tel Aviv,
around them.
Kawer grabbed. As night came, the
last April, Kawer said they stared into
After the war ended, Kawer knew
four were followed. Running deeper
one another's faces. For 2 '1' hours
he could not stay in Germany: "The
into the fields surrounding the roads,
),
they reminisced about the time they'd
grounds were too bloody.
they were shot at.
spent together and spoke of their lives
He had lost his parents and two sis-
All we could think of was that we
since. They spoke in their common
ters, one with her children.
were hungry — so hungry," Kawer
language of Yiddish.
Kawer remembered leaving
recalled. Their misery was so great,
Describing their relationship, Kawer'
Pozniak,
a
19-year-old,
"with
absolute-
they came to not even care if they
said
they had been "like one person all
ly no one in this world," deciding to
were captured, he said.
the
way
through the camps." Kawer left
make a new home in Israel.
Then, miraculously, the American
with
a
promise
that he would return to
The Kawer brothers set out to join an
planes came. The four watched the
Israel,
saying,
"I
promised my dear, dea
uncle living in Costa Rica. When their
planes get lower and lower, surround-
friend
Joshua
—
God willing, I would
boat landed in New York, Lazar contin-
ing the area from above, with tanks
be
back
—
absolutely"
ued on, while Detroit-area cousins per-
beneath them. Walking among

❑

