A holocaust survivor returns to Auschwitz 70 years later to finally say goodbye to his demons.
Martin Becker survived four terrible years as a child prisoner in Auschwitz- Birkenau. In July 2007, he returned to the death camp for the first time since his imprisonment. He traveled there with his only child, his daughter Gail, her husband John, and their two young sons, Joshua and Eli. Mr. Becker, now 84, was reluctant to return, but did so at the request of his daughter. My father was getting older, and I realized that my son, Joshua, was the same age as his Opa was when he was taken into the concentration camp, Gail said. I wanted Joshua to hear what happened there, directly from his grandfather.
Gail was determined to take this journey so Joshua could understand his grandfathers tragic past and to establish another permanent record to pass along to future generations. As Holocaust survivors grow older, few and fragile, she believed, the footage could serve as an educational tool to convey a personal journey that would keep the memory alive. She also wanted to use the footage to help raise necessary funds to help the Polish government repair the rapid deterioration of the Auschwitz camp. It was never Gails intention to make a short film, but it now serves as a tangible way for her and her family to convey and exemplify what it means to never forget.
The journey to Auschwitz begins with the family walking from the museum and into the courtyard, where the entrance to the camp was adorned with the motto, Arbeit Macht Frei, loosely translated work liberates your soul. Assorted red brick buildings that housed slave labor for the nearby work camps give the false impression of normality, a faux representation of a university campus. At one point, Gail leans over to Joshua and remarks, its one thing to read about it, and another to see it. Joshua tells the story in his voicein his words.
Martin then tells us of his arrival at the camp, watching his parents and grandparents directed to in one direction, as he was taken the other. Later, he learned that his relatives were immediately taken to the gas chambers and recounts the harrowing story of getting off the train to witness a Jewish woman from Bulgaria refusing to hand over her baby girl to the German guards. Within a moment, the guard took the baby out of her hand and shot it, in front of all to see.
Martin tells the story of how hard it was to survive. I stole some from other people, thats why I survived, he says. Somebody had a piece of bread and didnt know what to do with it, they couldnt eat it because their stomach wouldnt take it, so I grabbed it and ate it. He recalls, if you found a potato in your soup, you were lucky.
The group is then led into the structures, totally unprepared for the horrors within. In successive chambers are the remains of those who were harried from their homes and shipped in cattle cars without food or water for days. Visitors stood silent before exhibits of human hair, stacks of eyeglasses, all wire-rimmed, jumbled in another window, adjacent to the collection of leather valises, with names on the side like Epstein, Schwartz, and Cohen for easy identification.
The journey continued as Mr. Becker walked them to the cremation chamber and pointed to the ovens, with rails to facilitate easy movement of the corpses on trolleys. He tells us a chilling memory. I had to pull out the gold teeth from the dead people. I had to be very careful never to miss any fillings. The Germans took my friend Eric, from Belgium, and threw him directly into the ovens because he missed a gold tooth. I did this every day for four years.
To everyone's astonishment, they find Barracks #4, where Mr. Becker lived for his entire internment in Birkenau, a rectangular building of plain brown wood that must have provided the most minimal possible shelter for its inhabitants. He walked slowly to a bunk part way along the left wall, gently felt the middle bunk and fell speechless. After several minutes, he gathered himself and said, Yes. Here is where I slept with four other men. I remember one night the man next to me was very cold. In the morning, he was dead. Joshua gives his Opa a hug, to stop the tears and ease the pain. The final stop was Crematorium #2 and #3, at the back end of the complex. All that remains now is a twisted mass of bricks and metal. They walked a short distance to Crematorium #3, where they put on their yarmulkes to say Kaddish for Mr. Beckers family. Gail shows a photo of her grandparents, so young and proud, as Mr. Becker raises his hands to the sky and weeping, says his prayers, then walks away, telling all of us, I will never come back to this place of evil. I have come to remember my family and now it is finished.
In the end, Gail realized the Journey truly did have a purpose. It allowed her father, after more than 70 years, to say Kaddish for his parents and to finally say goodbye to his demons. For her son, Joshua, it made him aware of society's injustice and gave him an internal will to fight such injustice as he finds his place in the world. And for Gail, who grew up thinking that everyones father had a tattooed number on his arm, she understood how her father's and the murder of millions of others could not be in vain. For all who watch and understand their Journey with Purpose, they are now joined forever in preserving this vital piece of history, so that it should never happen again.
