Holocaust survivors, family members mark solemn day by remembering not to forget

Rob Berkowits carries a black and white photo in his wallet — of his father, Alex, and fellow prisoners in a Nazi Germany concentration camp — as a constant reminder the challenges in his life are small.

The haunting picture shows his dad, then 14, and other emaciated boys or men crammed into bunks in April 1945, days after the Buchenwald camp was liberated by U.S. soldiers during the Second World War.

“It’s tough to look at. I’m looking at it right now again, and what strikes me is they all look like old men,” Berkowits told the Free Press Tuesday amid Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemorations. “They’re far from old men.”

The scene became one of the most famous and enduring images of Nazi camps that were used in the genocide of about six million Jews in Europe. The photo eventually came to prominence because it included a teenage Elie Wiesel, the author and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Berkowits’ father, who settled in Winnipeg after the war, and Wiesel were family friends and neighbours in Sighet, now part of Romania.

“It’s tough to look at.”

Berkowits, 55, didn’t know his dad was in the photo until the latter showed him a Free Press article about Wiesel that included the photo in August 1990.

“He said, ‘That’s me right there,’ and he pointed to it. Of course, I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t even know what to say, Dad,” said Berkowits, who was in his early 20s at the time.

The elder Berkowits told his son the Red Cross gathered survivors who were the “healthier-looking ones” for the photo.

Berkowits, the executive director of the Rady Jewish Community Centre, has carried a copy in his wallet since about the time his father died at the age of 82 in 2013.

“It’s just a reminder to me that nothing that I’m dealing with is a big deal,” he said.

Alex Berkowits spent a year in Nazi camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, before he was freed. He was weak, emaciated and had typhoid, and he recovered while being treated by nuns. He arrived in Canada when he was 17.

A few years ago, Rob Berkowits developed a presentation about his father’s survival. He shares the story with students who are often the same age or close to the age his father was when the photo was taken in 1945.

“That hits home when you watch their faces and you tell them how old he was in that picture,” he said.

On Tuesday, Berkowits read aloud the names of some of the Holocaust victims during a commemoration at the Manitoba Legislative Building, which has a Holocaust memorial on its grounds.

“It’s just a reminder to me that nothing that I’m dealing with is a big deal.”

“Holocaust remembrance should not merely be a passive annual ritual. It should be a meaningful activity and a daily resistance against the growth of antisemitism and allowing this to happen again,” he said.

“Holocaust education is what we need. We all have a collective responsibility to preserve the stories of those that were murdered and to tell future generations, and to ensure their testimonials echo through time.”

At a separate event, Holocaust survivor and Winnipeg resident Edith Kimelman, 92, lit one of six candles while honouring those who died, including several of her family members.

Born in Rowno, Poland, Kimelman was almost seven years old when when Nazi German forces invaded and occupied the region where her family lived in 1941.

Her father, Henoch, was murdered by the Nazis a few weeks later. Her mother, Leah, later died after being beaten by German soldiers.

“When I stand in front of the candles, I stand in memory of my parents, who were not there when I wanted them, when I needed them,” Kimelman said. “I love them so very much.”

She spent years in hiding and in displaced persons camps until she arrived in Canada aged 15 in 1949. She didn’t speak English, and had no money or formal education.

Kimelman worked in a sweater factory during the day and went to school at night. She later became a teacher and principal.

“Holocaust remembrance should not merely be a passive annual ritual. It should be a meaningful activity and a daily resistance.”

The mother and grandmother dedicates time to speak to Manitobans about her experiences and educate them about the Holocaust.

“I don’t want to traumatize anyone, but I do want them to understand the deep feeling that survivors have, and the trauma that they carry, in most instances, for the rest of their lives,” she said.

Before the candles were lit, speakers encouraged Holocaust education, and urged all Canadians to take a stand against antisemitism, which they said has increased amid the Gaza war, which began when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023.

“Today, there are fewer and fewer survivors, and soon there will be no one left to provide first-hand accounts and testimony of the atrocities that took place during the Holocaust,” Jewish Federation of Winnipeg president and CEO Jeff Lieberman, the son of a Holocaust survivor, told the audience.

“The onus falls on us. Not just Jews, but society as a whole, to remember what happened and to ensure that it never happens again.”

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca