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Survivor Interrupts World Leaders at Auschwitz Ceremony

(Jerusalem Post) Greer Fay Cashman - * Of the more than 40 world leaders present for Thursday's ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, it was an Auschwitz survivor who stole the show. * As President Moshe Katsav, the first foreign dignitary to address the gathering, was winding up his speech, a woman sitting in the rows of survivors got up from her seat and walked over to the speakers' podium, where she stood without a coat in the freezing cold, waiting with arms folded until Katsav finished talking. * Auschwitz survivor Miriam Yahav (previously Merka Szevach), who was not listed on the program to speak, then positioned herself in front of the microphone. * "They took away my name and gave me a number," she shouted in Polish, holding up her arm to show her tattoo. "What right did they have to kill my family? What right did they have to kill my people?" * "I stood here, naked in the snow, in the cold, a young girl, 16. They brought my family here and burned them all." (Maariv-Hebrew, 28Jan05) * Then Yahav, who now lives in Israel, added proudly: "I now have a country, an army, and a president." * It was already dark when the ceremony concluded with a dramatic candlelight procession led by heads of delegations. The crowd dispersed and made its way back. But in one of the barracks, a light was burning; some of the former inmates had gathered inside. They were singing Hatikva.
2005-01-28 00:00:00
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