HALINA BIRENBAUM
Halina Birenbaum was born in Warsaw and survived the Warsaw ghetto. Her father was transported to Treblinka and murdered there. She was transported with her mother and her sister-in-law to Majdanek camp in Lublin, where her mother died. Then Halina Birenbaum was sent to Auschwitz and from there on a death march to Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe. She was liberated at Neustadt-Glewe. She is a writer and a poet. After the war she emigrated to Israel. Her best known book is from 1967, "Hope is the Last to Die". She has also written "Return to My Ancestors’ Land", "Scream for Remembrance", "Every Day Survived", "Close and Far Echoes", and books of poetry. Halina Birenbaum meets with young people a lot in Israel, in Poland, in Germany, in Italy and other countries.
"I emigrated from Poland in 1946, illegally to Palestine. I returned to Poland after 40 years. However, from the first moment I told my story everywhere. People did not want to hear the story repeatedly. And since 1964, I have been telling this story to children in schools. It was in June 1986, on the way to Oświęcim, I could not bring myself to utter a word or stand anyone’s conversation. Only the view of the roadside cemeteries brought relief, at their sight I felt most at home...
"I entered the barrack, it was dark, I squeezed my bare hands on the wooden edge of the bunk bed...And suddenly, it was as if I had touched an incomprehensible power! The power of the greatest evil and the even greater power of victory over it. Something lifted me in the barrack over all the vanities of the world. It was as if I had surpassed myself and everything. I asked the Israeli guide to take me to someone from the secretariat. From the threshold, I began to spew out who I am, who I was. I took out my notes from Israel about Auschwitz...the frenzy I roused in them with my tension and haste, I did not even allow them to invite me to the table to sit down.
"Finally, however, they agreed among themselves and the manager quickly offered to bring a tape recorder...I was afraid that my group would leave, and I would not get to tell them everything here. I just did not expect that my sudden sobbing would stifle my voice. Never before have I cried when talking about these experiences. Now everything was different, strong - close. Because it was here, on this piece of land, under this sky."