OTHER VIEWS

Helping Light The Way

Through One Man's Eyes

Krakow, Poland
pon arriving in Poland on
April 17, the Detroit dele-
gation of the March of the
Living wasted no time in
beginning an
extremely emo-
tional trip.
Among the
participants were
15 Israeli teens,
35 metro Detroit
high school stu-
dents, a wonder-
ful staff and two
YAARA EFRAT Holocaust sur-
RAGOWSKY
vivors, who came
Special
along to share
Commentary
their stories.
The trip began
in Lodz, where, in
a single day, the Detroit delegation got
an intimate look into the life of one
man, Mickey Milberger, before the
war.
The first stop was an ordinary
street, in what used to be a primarily
Jewish neighborhood. Here, the teens
got a firsthand look at an old building
whose second-floor apartment was the
childhood home of Mickey Milberger.
He shared boyhood stories of the
home he had not seen in over 60
years.
"Going back to the apartment
reminded me of growing up, of my
mother and I playing, of my father
and mother working in business
together," said Mickey.
Mickey's wife, who accompanied
us on the trip, said: "It was such a
strange feeling because I heard
Mickey talking about it for over 40
years and, finally, I saw the real
place. I could just picture him as a
little boy again."
While informing us of his child-
hood, Mickey shared the emotional
story of his mother's death two weeks
before the start of the war. Due to the
German takeover, Mickey's mother,
Sara, never got a proper tombstone
placed on her grave. The war also
made it impossible for Mickey to visit
the burial site.
The next stop was Lodz cemetery,
where Sara Milberger was or : of the
180,000 Jews buried. This not only
was an emotional moment for Mick-
ey and his family, but the rest of us.

U

Yaara Efrat Ragowsky, 18, of Farm-

ington Hills is a 12th-grader at North
Farmington High School and affiliated
with the Sara Tugman Bais Chabad
Torah Center.

4/27
2001

28

With the support of his wife, Bar-
bara, his three children and his
granddaughter, Mickey said the
long-overdue Mourners Kaddish in
memory of his mother.
As the group stood together pray-
ing, even we teens could not hold
back the tears.
"It's unfair how much pain the sur-
vivors have to bear, because the mem-
ories are just as bad as the actual expe-
riences, and they last forever," said
Aliza Weisberg, 16, of Yeshivat Akiva
in Southfield.
Rhonda Lefkowitz, 16, of Yeshivat
Akiva, said: "Being that we're all here
as one, I felt that I was actually experi-
encing his pain."
The last stop of the day was a tour
of the Lodz ghetto, one of the places
that Mickey was taken to during the
war. As the group stopped on the
street that had previously housed so
many Jews, it was impossible not to
notice the stares of the surrounding
people. Some even compared this to
the looks that the Jews received so
many years ago from the people who
were once their neighbors, and from
"when I was in the ghetto from its

Krakow, Poland
ow can you think of death
when there is so much life
left to live?" one of my
good non-Jewish friends
asked me before I
left to go soul
searching on this
voyage to Poland
and Israel. I was
unable to answer
that.
My journey
started some
three years ago
JOEY
with my bar
ABRIN
mitzvah and a
Special
dream. I remem-
Commentary
ber my Torah
portion was a
special double part. I never really
know what Zachor meant; however,
whenever I talk about the Shoah,
zachor is what I think about. I'm sure
that I can apply it to this full-circle
experience.
Now I can answer it after yester-
day's march from Auschwitz I to
Auschwitz II (Birkenau). I was at what
I thought to be a complete under-

El

The. March of the Living-Detroit
Teen Unity Poland/Israel Experi-
ence, for teens of all Jewish back-
grounds, runs April 16-30. The
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit and two of its agencies, the
Agency for Jewish Education and
the Michigan/Israel Connection,
sponsored the Detroit delegation of
35 teens and 16 staff members.
These dispatches were written April
19, after the group visited
Auschwitz I and II, both death
camps during the German occupa-
tion of Poland.

beginning to its very end," said Mick-
ey.
"Part of Mickey's motivation was
knowing that there were going to be
all the young people on the trip," said
his wife, Barbara.
Like other survivors, Mickey has a
very difficult time discussing his tragic
experience. All survivors know, howev-
er, that informing others is the only
way to keep the important stories
alive.
Mickey Milberger definitely helped
all the participants understand the
Holocaust on another level — and for
that we are all thankful.

❑

tainers and the pulley carts that they
took the corpses on were displayed.
There was a note that said something
like: "These are the bones of people
who died at this camp."

There is light inside
of all of us. The
greatest light of the
survivors is being
happy as Jews. We
are not going to let
darkness defeat us.

When we walked out of the build-
ing, there were huge mass gravesites,
which were so hard to imagine
because they were windblown with
grass all over them.
After leaving the camp today, I've
found my reasoning. Death is only the

Auschwitz: at left is the
kitchen of the prisoner
reception building.

standing. Today at Madjanek, I went
into a gas chamber. It was different
from the pervious experience. Sure, it
had scratches and holes in the wall,
but it also had a table — one where
dead Jewish bodies were searched
from head to toe for valuables. It also
had a bath in the chamber for the
commander of the camp.
In a remote room, Zylon 13 con-

Joey Abrin, 16, of Oak Park is a

10th-grader at Berkley High School
and affiliated with Adat Shalom Syna-
gogue.

beginning of life. After leaving a camp
that could be up and running, and
exterminating Jews again by the thou-
sands, within any given 48 hours, I've
never felt anything like that before.
There is so much darkness in life, but
you can't imagine how, and when you
go to the camps, the darkness shifts and
becomes something tangible. Directly
beyond the darkness is light.
There is light inside of all of us.
The greatest light of the survivors is
being happy as Jews. We are not going
to let darkness defeat us. Our light is
stronger than their darkness. Zachor,
remember! ❑