Original subtitles

We packed Auschwitz

10,000 of us, 11,000 of us packed Auschwitz

We were there marching out, alive, with survivors.

We were in Auschwitz and in Birkenau.

It really was the death march that they made.

The people in Auschwitz taken to Birkenau to march

to their deaths.

It was very important for me to be able to see what I saw it,

and I heard people that went throught it

I remember many years ago, younger people

never heard of the Holocaust.

It was amazing, that from all corners of the Earth,

children came to see the place that this biggest tragedy

probably the whole human civilization took place.

It is my life duty to educate and to let the kids learn about it

because I know that I am the last of those that

are still alive who can relate what happened.

The essence of the March of the Living is education.

20 years, we are marching.

More than one hundred thousand kids.

The idea was to bring people to Poland visiting Majdanek,

in Auschwitz, in Birkenau, in Treblinka.

Then, from here, going to Israel.

The real birth of the Jewish people.

To come to see a vibrant country,

exactly the opposite of death.

Suddenly, they understand where they come from, who they are.

These are not only sightseers,

these were witnesses to history.

But what will happen in the future?

When all the survivors are gone?

How will the youth handle the challenge?

The Los Angeles delegation of the 2008 March of the Living,

who are marching into history to reverse the death marches.

We are 158 people strong with 8 incredible survivors

We are joining 10,000 Jewish people in Israel and in Poland.

We are the last generation to hear the story first-hand.

The March of the Living and the timing,

you know, end of senior year before you go off to college

it's finding out who you are,

especially my connection to Judaism.

Because I also think my belief in God

really drifted away

when we started learning more about the Holocaust

We're not religious.

We eat Chinese food every Friday

that's our Shabbat.

I've never been to Poland

I've never seen any concentration camp before.

I guess it is hard because you live in a world,

you know, media, the things are always caught on camera,

and, you know, the internet, things like that,

you can see everything and you can find everything, but because

it happened so long ago, it is so disconnected from now.

I can't even imagine what happened to them,

what the survivors saw

The Vespa makes me feel young

I like to drive around this neighborhood

It is pretty calm, I'm not going to the freeway with it,

and on Sundays sometimes I am going to the shopping center and back.

I enjoy the ride on a motorcycle.

I used to ride the big ones, in my younger years.

Blue is my favorite color.

I live in California, it's a light color,

so I think is the right choice.

When you go in the morning to the shower,

and you see the number, you know, this is real

When the children were small and, you know,

we didn't want to involve the kids, nothing with that kind of scenario.

So I told them it was my telephone number

and I shouldn't forget it, so I marked on my hand.

I lost my youth.

I was 13 years old.

We had a very nice life as children in Berlin,

and Hitler came into the picture and changed our lives.

Let's see what we have in the refrigerator.

We have to have lunch pretty soon.

When friends of mine were selected,

they knew where they going.

They said to me: "Sigi, please,

"if you survive...

you tell the story."

Well, I try.

That was: I love coffee, I love tea, I love boys and they love me.

I learned that in Poland, when I was 11.

I always wanted to be a pianist since I was small,

but the world broke out when I was 8 years old.

I remember as it was happening right now.

My sister said: "Now you go to school with Polish children."

And I begged her: "I don't want to go, they still hate us."

And, one boy points to my face: "You scabby Jew!"

I hit him in the nose.

And I hit him again with my left hand, I broke his nose.

Zoe! Down! Sit.

The kids tell me never to say old, to say young

So, I am saying I am 77 years young

and they laugh

because everybody says I don't look like it.

Hold your breath!

You have to say a vegetable! You have to say a color!

Blue pickle.

We're the Balkans. We're from the Balkans.

What are those things down there?

No, there!

It is a whale! Wow!

A whale, like right here.

There is one girl, when I was in the 7th grade,

she was in the 8th, she'd just randomly walk up to people

in the hall and: "Are you Jewish?"

And people'd be like: "Yeah!" And she be like "I hate Jews. They should all die"

And then just walk away.

My mom is full Japanese and my father Caucasian

So, I am half and half, and I am Jewish.

You guys, it is 45 degrees in Poland right now.

What's the time difference in Poland to the Pacific?

It is 10 or 9, something like that.

It doesn't matter, Going from Poland to Israel is not big deal.

I have gone to public school for my whole life.

But, in the middle of the 9th grade, I just decided I couldn't handle it anymore.

I would never say that I was Jewish.

If people ask me, I sometimes even say:

"Well you know, my mom is Christian

I celebrated Christmas growing up."

It's funny, cause I have Jewish friends

that go to Catholic schools,

but I don't know any Catholics or Christians that go to a Jewish school.

I am kind of the token Asian at my school and, then every

now and then, they'll point that I am Jewish.

But, they're all Jewish, too, so.

I have to buy more than this for our trip.

I want to go on the march because my family is from Poland.

I'll never be able to ge out of my mind associating Poland with the Holocaust.

So, I am blonde hair, blue and green eyes, they changes colors.

I just don't look Jewish

So, I could have probably survived the Holocaust, looking like this.

I'm almost the perfect Aryan, so ha on Hitler's face, there are jews like me

Every morning, I do calisthenics,

I jog for about 18 minutes

if I don't exercise I don't feel as good as when I do exercise.

Probably the first 55 years I never talked to anybody about it,

including my immediate family.

My sister was taken to Auschwitz, I wasn't.

He was already in hiding when they took us.

My mother, father and four sibblings did not survive.

All of us went, and I am the only one who came back

But, probably the last time that I'll have a chance to go

to Poland to see my family perished.

And I hope I have the chance to say Kaddish in Auschwitz.

I admire him for the being willing to go.

I refused to go.

Come on you, guys!

Come on you, guys!

Thank you.

We arrive right now in Krakow, the reason that the Nazis set up

the concentration camps here in Poland was because this

was where 3 million Jews lived.

Poland. I don't know

I thought it was a beautiful country.

It was just all green, all farms, little cottages on hills,

it was really pretty. It still beautiful, there

you don't want it to be beautiful in Auschwitz

The train tracks, that's where everyone came in from,

everyone was just brought in through a cattle-car, on those train tracks.

My grandmother was on a train to Auschwitz with her family,

and partisans blew up the tracks.

I was 10 when I got there.

I turned 11 in Auschwitz.

Only years after the war. I've always been told,

"What do you know? You were a kid!"

"You are a child, that's it."

I say that silence is not an option.

It is not an option.

It's huge. That is so scary.

WORK SETS YOU FREE.

There is no, not just older now.

It's now the Hilton Hotel.

Everything is beautifully tired.

And it is really upsetting!

I can't make up my mind, what do I want?

Do I want it to be a museum or I want it to be deserted?

I think I want anything that helps people to understand.

WORK SETS YOU FREE.

I think because I was a teenager,

I never gave up hope that I would survive

When the Germans came in, I was 15,

and we were put into the ghettos and we had to wear the yellow star.

I never heard of the place Auschwitz, even though I was an A student.

What's interesting for a 15 year old is the confusion,

when we arrived to Auschwitz we had no idea,

was happening. And that was of course the tricks that the Nazis played.

It's so easy to forget like we forget many other things.

And that there is a real danger about that.

On the fence, there was a ditch, right next to the fence.

That was for that purpose, that when you electrocuted yourself,

you could fall in and once a day they came to pick up the death.

The dead bodies.

My sister, she was taken in and she was here 2 weeks.

And then she was experimented on in the block 19.

17, 18 and 19

Auschwitz, was like: "This is so pretty."

Like this could be a college campus.

That's so wrong.

This is walking through thinking "what would this look like?"

And the sad thing is that in my imagination, it is in black and white.

I can't imagine this being in color.

Like, this actually happened.

They put the number first.

And the name, second.

1,6 million died in Auschwitz.

What did they looked like? What was going on here?

Where do people live? Where was everything?

And I guess it's kind of hard but you definetly

had to use your imagination.

I guess because you're Jewish,

you pay attention to the Jewish side of the Holocaust.

When they show that the prisoner had to wear badges,

you know, a plaque, gay, gipsy, whatever, you know,

you are not Aryan and you could have died.

Oh, my God!

That woman's 33 years old

I think that's the worst thing that could have happened.

You could have blonde hair and blue eyes and say, you know

what if I spoke up? Then I could have been killed, it's not just a Jewish thing.

The Holocaust has always been something I couldn't really comprehend,

it was shocking, people of my age,

they had great futures ahead of them,

they were just murdered brutally,

it's just terrifying to think that people can be so heartless to do that.

The photo was right after the liberation and one of

those kids was actually Paula,

and that was where everything made real to me

That's me, yes.

This is Paula, when she was liberated

I was born in a small town just a few hours away from here.

And it was called Ostroviets

I was one of the six children, the youngest.

They kept us in those wagons for 2 days.

The men had to go to the left and the women to the right.

I don't remember whether I said goodbye to my father.

I never saw him again.

And I remember my mother standing behind me and

saying, don't forget to tell them you are 14.

It seemed to have been the magic number for workers.

My memory, of course, it's faded.

After 62 years, 63 years,

I don't remember seeing the sun,

all I remember is seeing the particles falling from the sky

What I saw, not only because I was a child,

especially because I was a child,

it took many years to be able to talk about it

Going back to a place like that for me it was like,

I didn't dream at up.

The gas chamber. You could see the scratch marks on the wall.

You could see where people were scratching for their lives trying to find a way out.

And they walked in to get a shower,

and you know, this was the end of so many people lives,

and I'm standing on the same ground

That people could have been my family members.

I don't wanna walk in the crematorium.

I don't wanna walk through the showers, but you know,

how many people had the opportunity to walk in there,

and walk out alive?

- How old are you? - Sixty.

When the survivors talk,

they talk about their family.

What happened to them, what they saw,

and you hear Paula's story, or Helena's story,

that's just one person's story.

There are 6 million other stories, like this

It makes it so much more real.

You can't drive til you're 18. They can drink when they're 18, and drive when they're 18.

It sucksi

Do you know any Polish pop musicians?

No

And you think that these peoples's grandparents, where were they during the war?

What do they know? Do they know that Auschwitz is 3 miles down the road?

Hold on.

The history of that country is terrifying to me.

What happened there I don't think is their fault,

I don't know whose fault it is,

it is a terifying place as a Jew to go back to

What you have to relive while you're there.

I was here almost 2 years.

Each house had 1000 people.

Nine hundred, two thousand people indoors.

They counted everybody.

They came out and counted, and we spent almost half the night outside.

When I arrived at the camp, they opened the train,

it looked to me like a circus.

All those people with stripes.

When you come from the civilization into something dark.

We were about 1200 people from those trains.

And we were chosen, 13 people. The rest were taken away.

We went in through the barber, through the shower, and then the number.

Of course we were asking "Where are the rest of the people?"

So, to the window, they showed us. "Do you see the fire?"

"Those big chimneys?"

"This is where they are coming out."

It doesn't feel good

It's creepy. It's so creepy.

One day we hear that somebody from somewhere

managed to smuggle apples into the ghetto.

My dad went to get the apple and he never came back.

We were about ten of us across, on this wood with one blanket.

But it was winter time, and we were standing barefoot for hours on ice.

And somebody comes over everyday and says one to the right and one to the left.

Did people talk? Or was everyone separate?

There weren't many subjects we were discussing.

The only thing that was important was to get food in

your stomach and survive through the next day

Holocaust means in Hebrew "Burnt offering".

Because people were actually burned.

And as long as the survivors are here,

and that is not going to be for very long,

there will be nobody to ask questions.

So, it is very important, that this a march to learn a lot about themselves.

I will just tell you the story of this swimming pool,

because we are standing here.

One day, we were taken to a baths, and it was hot,

hot, in the middle of the day.

And I see this swimming pool.

And it was a mirage

I was 16 years old and I didn't think,

I just got out of the line,

dove in, and swam across the pool, came out on the other side.

My mother had a heart attack.

Everybody thought I would be killed on the spot.

And I wasn't

I wasn't killed and my mother, of course,

told me I was foolish, but...

Every time we talk a little bit is lifted up.

So, I wanted to celebrate my birthday with you

May you have many more years.

My favorite band? Kiss and then Pantera, and then we got Opeth.

On the bus ride back from the camp,

the music defintely helped me to relax and think about of what I saw.

- We're going to Treblinka, right? - Yeah.

Any other survivors from there?

No Treblinka was just a death camp.

Oh, wow.

One lady she was an 18 year old Polish Catholic,

who hid 12 Jews in the basement of a Nazi office's house.

For about 2 years.

She was amazing, she wans't Jewish, she was Catholic.

She didn't have, she didn't know any...

Not everybody was forced, you weren't forced to be a Nazi.

Like the current Pope, was a Nazi.

When I've found this out, I flipped.

What was your faith like?

I thought I lost God, but after talking to him,

I realized I really didn't completely.

I was always hoping to find the rest of my family.

That's the only thing that kept me alive

- Any more questions? - I will...

Wow, it's pretty here.

Where, where do you see?

I guess right here.

Oh, it says the 20th July 1942.

- Oh, oh, I see. - So it was right at the beginning.

I was only nine.

I had braids and blue eyes

He looked into my face, he thought I was Polish.

The Nazi saved me.

On the 19 of August, and this is where my parents went

They were burned and the ashes were thrown into the forest.

That's why they grow so beautiful.

Treblinka is where my two sisters were taken.

It's just unreal to bring almost a million people

to a beautiful place like that.

I never went there, and that's where I wanted to go desperately.

It was like finishing something.

I can finally say good bye to my sisters.

- Each stone, has a name. - Ostrviwiec

O - S - T - R

Ostrviwiec.

It starts with an O.

Is that it?

No. It is O, S, T, R, V, I, W, I, E, C.

Ostrviwiec.

I will help you find it.

Okay.

And they were 18 years old, and 16.

The prime of their lives.

Have everything to live for.

I was not supposed to survive.

They were strong and young.

And here I am.

They denied me my family.

And they denied them, their life.

What do you wish for that?

For the Nazis, for those who did this to your sisters

I don't know

I wish they could feel the feeling, right now

It's so cruel.

I was walking and I was like, my feet hurt, but I am wearing shoes.

I'm lucky, I can't complain if my feet hurt.

I remember saying like: "I'm starving."

You know, I am just kinda hungry, I could deal with this, I'm not starving.

It puts it all into perspection.

Perspective!

In Majdanek, my uncle, his wife and 3 children,

they were all shot to death.

The feeling was awful just seeing the monuments,

it was like going to cemetery without markers.

But, you do know that your family perish there.

And all I can identify are the ashes.

It looks like a little kitchen.

It's just a room, a hundred feet down, full of shoes, from the floor to the ceiling.

It's the most little mundane thing, when youthink: "Oh yeah, people wear shoes".

But when you see, shoes of thousand of people that died.

It's one of those things, that you can't ignore it.

- Whoa, there's a deer, - Oh, my God.

There's a deer that just ran through

He wrote us a letter that they were having here a soccer club playing,

orchestras playing, and the work isn't as hard as they thought it would be.

All phony.

They made him write it.

And I just found out now when he perish

because I see the date there.

It's unbeliveble that innocent people just driven in to their deaths.

The eternal question is always will to be: "why?"

I don't think anybody has an answer.

Let us now unite our house and joins our hands here.

With sound of the Shofar We will begin our March.

Our Torah teacher says: not to hate, but to remember.

Because there too many that say it never happened.

And I tell them, that faith and hope and strength

are the three major things that made me survive.

This was called the March of the Living in contrast with the Death March.

And that we need to celebrate our lives,

and that doesn't take away from our sorrow and our loss.

As long as we are able to experience both.

The march in Jerusalem was completely different.

It was all celebration, as opposed to memorializing things.

This is us after the Holocaust.

We are surviving, now we're in Israel surrounded by

millions of Jewish people celebrating lsrael's birthday.

So, it really was a great contrast to the trip

Look what these people created, look how they rose

out of the ashes, this is what happened.

They built Israel, they created a country.

You know, I'd seen the result of some of the worst anger and hatred

in the history of the world.

Some of my friends in school ask me why

I would put myself in a situation where

I would have to face those things.

But I think once you face it, that's when you become

someone who is a little more able to live in the world.

And had a greater understanding of life.

Previoulsy, I wanted to hide my past,

not only for other people, but for myself.

After going to Auschwitz, all the stories came back,

and I think about it probably everyday now.

Where I did not think about it before. Didn't talk about it before

And now, wherever I go and anybody talks to me about it, I open up.

You know, people ask how the trip was,

nothing puts it into words.

The things like being there.

And walking in the concentration camps, being in Israel, being with the survivors,

Like my kids aren't gonna get to go there listen to the survivors talk.

The young people from today should appreciate what they have,

the home, food on the table, school.

I can only say: our hope is not yet lost.

It's their job now to carry it on.

and I often feel like maybe I should stop talking

about the Holocaust and pay more attention

to Darfur, or some other attrocities that are happening now.

But I think our story will help people to understand what can happen.

I think that with this generation,

there is more hope which make them become aware of

the suffering of other people.

I voiced my opinion when it comes to Darfur, any injustice

that I hear about or know about for a fact, I voice it

I'll send email to the White House.

And sure, they don't read all of it,

but the more numbers they get, that means people care.

How's Israel?

- I now know more people than you. - Probably.

I think I need to go back to Israel.

I think it's a good place for me to go, right now, and

so, I'm going to be a student at Herbrew University.

When people mention something that's false or just really ignorant,

I have the confidence to actually say

I went to a concentration camp and I stood in the gas chamber like

don't tell me whatever you are telling me,

because I know it is not true, because I was there.

My family, I wrote a letter to them, as if they were alive.

How I imagine they suffered, the last breath they took

in the gas chamber of Auschwitz.

I wrote them the letter that I'm very sorry that I could not save them.

And I left it there.

And I hope they answer.

So many times, I wonder why am I alive?

And so many times, my parents, even though they are dead,

67 and a half years, in my mind they are still alive and in my heart,

my whole family.

And I see them in my dreams, very often.

So they are really alive for me.

This is Dorothy Greenstein.

It was kind of a little quick mention one day;

the survivors never got a graduate.

They should graduate with us.

For the most part most of them, didn't graduate from high school

because, they were 11-12 when it happened.

Hopefully, there won't be anymore Holocaust.

Even though it's happening right now in other parts of the world.

Hope.

I am hoping for the new generations to change that.