Auschwitz crept up, tiptoed along with small steps, moved closer and closer, until the things that happened here began.
Thou shalt not
be indifferent in the face of lies about history.
Thou shalt not
be indifferent when the past is distorted for today’s political needs.
Thou shalt not
be indifferent when any minority faces discrimination.
Thou shalt not
be indifferent when any authority violates the existing social contract.
Be faithful to
this commandment. The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not be indifferent.”
Marian Turski,
Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor
birth name:
Moshe Turbowicz
Esteemed
gathered people, friends, I am one of those still alive and few who were in
this place almost until the last moment before liberation. On January 18, my
so-called evacuation from the Auschwitz camp began, which after six and a half
days turned out to be a Death March for more than half of my fellow prisoners.
We were together in a 600-person column. In all probability, I will not live to
see another anniversary. Such are human rights.
So forgive me if there will be some
emotion in what I will say. This is what I would like to say first of all to my
daughter, my granddaughter, whom I thank for being here in the hall, my
grandson: I am talking about those who are the same age as my daughter, my
grandchildren, and so about the new generation, especially the youngest, the
very youngest, even younger than them.
When the World War broke out, I was a
teenager. My father was a soldier and was badly shot in the lungs. It was a
tragedy for our family. My mother came from the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian
border, where armies rolled through, pillaging, plundering, raping, burning
villages, so as not to leave anything for those who would come after them. So
you could say that I knew first-hand, from my father and mother, what war was.
But despite everything, although it was only 20, 25 years, it seemed as distant
as the Polish uprisings of the 19th century, as the French Revolution.
When I meet young people today, I
realize that after 75 years they seem a little tired of this topic: war, the
Holocaust, the Shoah, and genocide. I understand them. That is why I promise
you, young people, that I will not tell you about my suffering. I will not tell
you about my experiences, my two Death Marches, how I ended the war weighing 32
kilograms, on the verge of exhaustion and life. I will not tell you about what
was the worst, the tragedy of separation from loved ones, when after the
selection you sense what awaits them. No, I will not talk about it. I would
like to talk to my daughter's generation and my grandchildren's generation
about yourselves.
I see that Mr. President of Austria
Alexander Van der Bellen is among us. Do you remember, Mr. President, when you
hosted me and the leadership of the International Auschwitz Committee, when we
talked about those times? At one point you used the following phrase:
"Auschwitz ist nicht vom Himmel gefallen". Auschwitz did not fall
from the sky. We could say, as we say here: obvious obviousness.
Of course it didn't fall from the sky.
This may seem like a trivial statement, but there is a profound and very
important mental shortcut in it. Let's travel for a moment in our thoughts, in
our imagination, to the early 1930s in Berlin. We are almost in the city
center. The district is called Bayerisches Viertel, the Bavarian Quarter. Three
stops from Kudamm, the zoo. Where the metro station is today, there is
Bayerischer Park - Bavarian Park. And then one day in those early 1930s a
sign appears on the benches: "Jews are not allowed to sit on these
benches." You could say: unpleasant, unfair, it's not OK, but after all
there are so many benches around, you can sit somewhere else, there is no misfortune.
It was a district inhabited by German
intelligentsia of Jewish origin, Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner Nelly
Sachs, industrialist, politician, and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau lived
there. Then a sign appeared in the swimming pool: "Jews are not allowed in
this swimming pool." Again, you could say: it's not pleasant, but Berlin
has so many places to swim, so many lakes, canals, almost Venice, so you can go
somewhere else.
At the same time, a sign appears
somewhere: "Jews are not allowed to belong to German singing
associations". So what? They want to sing, make music, let them gather
separately, they will sing. Then a sign and an order appears: "Jewish, non-Aryan
children are not allowed to play with German, Aryan children". They will
play by themselves. And then a sign appears: "We sell bread and food
products to Jews only after 5 p.m.". This is already a complication,
because there is less choice, but after all you can also shop after 5 p.m.
Attention, attention, we are starting to
get used to the idea that someone can be excluded, that someone can be
stigmatized, that someone can be alienated. And so slowly, gradually, day by day, people are starting
to get used to it – both victims and perpetrators and witnesses, those we call
bystanders , are starting to get used to the idea and thought that this
minority that produced Einstein, Nelly Sachs, Heinrich Heine, the Mendelssohns,
is different, that it can be pushed out of society, that these are alien
people, that these are people who spread germs, epidemics. This is already
terrible, dangerous. This is the beginning of what may happen in a moment.
The government of the time is on the one
hand pursuing a clever policy, because, for example, it is meeting the workers'
demands. May 1st has never been celebrated in Germany – here they are. On a day
off from work, they are introducing Kraft durch Freude ["strength through
joy"]. So an element of workers' holidays. They are able to overcome
unemployment, they are able to play on national dignity: "Germany, rise
from the shame of Versailles. Restore your pride". And at the same time,
this government sees that people are slowly becoming numb, indifferent. They
stop reacting to evil. And then the government can afford to further accelerate
the process of evil.
And then it all comes suddenly, namely:
a ban on hiring Jews for work, a ban on emigration. And then there will be
quick sending to ghettos: to Riga, to Kaunas, to my ghetto, the Łódź ghetto –
Litzmannstadt. From there, most will be sent to Kulmhof, Chełmno nad Nerem,
where they will be murdered with exhaust gases in trucks, and the rest will go
to Auschwitz, where they will be murdered with Zyklon B in modern gas chambers. And here, what the president said is
true: “Auschwitz did not suddenly fall from the sky.” Auschwitz stomped,
toddled with small steps, approached, until what happened here happened.
My daughter, my granddaughter, my
daughter's peers, my granddaughter's peers – you may not know the name Primo
Levi. Primo Levi was one of the most famous prisoners of this camp. Primo Levi
once used the following phrase: "It happened, which means it can happen.
It means it can happen everywhere, all over the world."
I will share with you one personal
memory: in '65 I was on a scholarship in the United States in America and that
was the height of the battle for human rights, for civil rights, for the rights
of the African-American people. I had the honor of marching with Martin Luther
King from Selma to Montgomery. And then people who learned that I had been in
Auschwitz asked me: "Do you think that something like this could only
happen in Germany? Could it happen somewhere else?" And I told them:
"It can happen here. If you violate civil rights, if you don't appreciate
the rights of minorities, if you eliminate them. If you bend the law, as they
did in Selma, then this can happen." What to do? You yourselves, I told
them, if you can defend the constitution, your rights, your democratic order,
by defending the rights of minorities - then you can overcome it.
In Europe, we mostly come from the
Judeo-Christian tradition. Both believers and non-believers accept the Ten
Commandments as their canon of civilization. My friend, the president of the
International Auschwitz Committee, Roman Kent, who spoke here five years ago
during the previous anniversary, could not come here today. He came up with the
11th commandment, which is the experience of the Shoah, the Holocaust, the
terrible era of contempt. It goes like this: do not be indifferent.
And this is what I would like to tell my
daughter, this is what I would like to tell my grandchildren. My daughter's
peers, my grandchildren's peers, wherever they live: in Poland, in Israel, in
America, in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe. This is very important. Do not
be indifferent when you see historical lies. Do not be indifferent when you see
that the past is being stretched to suit current political needs. Do not be
indifferent when any minority is discriminated against. The essence of democracy
is that the majority rules, but democracy is that the rights of minorities must
be protected. Do not be indifferent when any authority violates accepted social
agreements, already existing. Be faithful to the commandment. Eleventh
commandment: do not be indifferent.
Because if you do, you won't even
realize that some Auschwitz will suddenly fall from the sky on you, on your
descendants.
Source is here https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1940080,1,marian-turski-auschwitz-nie-spadlo-z-nieba-nie-badzcie-obojetni.read
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