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Auschwitz, where, during the infamous selection, his
mother, 24, was sent into forced hard labor and his
grandmother, 55, was sent to the gas chamber.
“My mother’s stories parallel that of other survi-
vors,” Silow said. “My mother often discussed there
was a great deal of anti-Semitism in Poland before
the war. She said most Jews kept to themselves as
much as possible. Many survivors talk about being
bullied and beaten up in school and later during
the war, betrayed to the Nazis by their neighbors
for as little as a kilo of sugar. Many Poles took over
their Jewish neighbors’ houses when they were
deported to the camps, and many were sorry to see
that some of them had survived after the war to

Fred Strasberger
believes this
photo of his father,
Morey, a Holocaust
survivor, was
taken after WWII
somewhere in
Bavaria.

“As with the many Polish
survivors I’ve been lucky
to know, my father wanted
to have no connection
with the country where
he was born.”

— FRED STRASBERGER

return for their homes and belongings.”
Before Poland’s Law and Justice party won the
2015 election, Silow said there was a growing feeling
of reconciliation between Poland and world Jewry.
This was evident in warming relations between
Poland and Israel, a small but growing Jewish popu-
lation of 10,000 Jews in the country’s major cities,
and a flourish of Jewish culture, such as the opening
of kosher restaurants and schools, Klezmer festivals
and the 2013 opening of Warsaw’s POLIN Museum
of Polish Jewish History. It is important to note there
was much acknowledgement of the thousands of
Righteous Gentiles in Poland who risked their lives
to protect their Jewish neighbors.
But, the last few years, with the rise of national-
ism, has seen a desire to shift attention away from

12

February 22 • 2018

jn

Holocaust victims and put the spotlight on the Poles
who also suffered under Nazi rule, Silow said.
“They seem, however, to be minimizing the role of
those Poles who collaborated with the Nazis. During
the Holocaust, about 3 million Polish Jews were
murdered, 90 percent of Poland’s Jewish popula-
tion. Poland has passed a law that forbids the open
discussion of how Poles collaborated with the Nazis.
This seems to have a chilling effect on discussion and
education about what happened in the Holocaust. It
seems to also encourage hidden anti-Semitism to be
further expressed.”
In response to the ruling, the organization
Generations of the Shoah International, which
includes CHAIM, released this statement:
“Without doubt, the deliberate plan and imple-
mentation of the Final Solution was perpetrated
under the aegis of Nazi Germany. It would be naive,
however, to believe that only the Nazis participated
in those heinous efforts. Too many citizens of each
of the countries the Nazis occupied in Europe —
including Poland — assisted the occupiers and
contributed to the mass murder and genocide that
we now define as the Holocaust … We oppose crimi-
nalizing public expression and support education
around the complex role of the Polish people during
the Nazi era.
“We know all too well that the threat of genocidal
speech includes escalating the dangers that geno-
cidal atrocities will be repeated.
“We urge Poland’s leaders to abandon this danger-
ous revisionist effort, withdraw that legislation, focus
instead on education, not criminalization, about
inaccurate and harmful speech, and — perhaps most
importantly — carry out an honest examination of
Poland’s wartime attitude and conduct toward the
Jews.”
As time goes on and the number of living
Holocaust survivors dwindles, their children, referred
to as Second Generation survivors, see it as their
obligation to carry on their loved ones’ legacies and
continue to bear witness to the atrocities. They feel
that only by retelling their stories and listening to or
reading their testimonies carefully recorded by insti-
tutions such as the Holocaust Memorial Center will
the truth will be preserved about the atrocities of the
Holocaust for coming generations.
Second Generation survivor Fred Strasberger of
Farmington Hills said the ruling is “ridiculous, short-
sighted and an attempt to whitewash major Polish
involvement in the Holocaust.”
Strasberger’s father, Morey, who died in 2000, told
accounts of how he survived the war in a Siberian
gulag but was met with “guns, hatred and rage
[ from] his Polish neighbors” when he tried to return
to his home in Lublin, which was repossessed by his
Polish neighbors.
“As with the many Polish survivors I’ve been
lucky to know, my father wanted to have no con-
nection with the country where he was born,”
Strasberger said. “The survivors’ hatred of Poland
and its people were consistent, unmistakable and
even more pronounced then their disdain of the
Germans. The righteous few are to be commend-
ed, but the horrors that happened on Polish soil,
aided and abetted by the Polish people, can never
be forgotten or forgiven.” •

Arthur Tenenbaum: born in Dzialoszyce,
1918, unknown date of death
“The Poles told the Germans where any Jews
were hiding … In the marketplace, no one
could have food; it was hot and the babies,
including my son, were crying. The selection
didn’t begin until nightfall. Fifteen hundred
of the old and people with disabilities were
taken by the Poles and thrown barbarically
into trucks and then into pre-dug graves. The
remainder were driven to Miechow, another
city, and told to sit on the wet ground. My
mother found them and sat with them all
night in the meadow. My father stayed behind,
hidden in the home underground bunker.
Date of testimony: Jan. 29, 1986.

Manya Feldman:
born in Dubrovitsa, 1924.
“The Nazis were hunting all
Jewish escapees with the
help of some Poles, who
were then rewarded by the
Germans as they handed

over the Jews.”
Date of testimony: Nov. 17, 1982.

Nathan Garfinkel:
born in Chmielnick, 1920;
died 2006.
In October 1942, my sisters
and I were taken on the first
transport to the Skarzysko-
Kamienna labor camp. While
waiting in Kielce for the train, we were all
crowded into one structure. When we had to
relieve ourselves, we were forced to do so in a
field of a grass that caused severe itching. The
Germans called the Poles to watch and they
laughed and called the Jews animals.
Date of testimony: April 13, 1983

Ruth Kent: born in Lodz, 1930.
“The Poles would taunt the members of the
ghetto with food.”
Date of testimony recorded: May 4, 1982.

Henry Starkman:
born in Lodz, 1921; died 2015.
“The Poles could spot a Jew and would report
to the Germans, who would beat them.”
Date of testimony: May 2, 1991.