Martyrdom & resistance, March/April 2020

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM Vol. 46-No. 4 j ISSN 0892-1571 March/April 2020-Adar/Nissan 578(|) TODAY. TOMORROW. TOGETHER. The American Society for Yad Vashem and Yad Vashem were honored to be a part of this year's American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Pol¬ icy Conference in Washington, D.C. The annual conference, which ran from March 1 to March 3, drew 18,000 pro-Israel Americans from all 50 states, including students, activists, and lawmak¬ ers from across the political spectrum. This was the first time that Yad Vashem and the American Society for Yad Vashem had an official role at the AIPAC Conference. On Saturday, before the official start of the Policy Conference, many delegates participated in the AIPAC Shabbaton, which offered unique educational programming and in-depth conversations with diverse speakers. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, led a discussion on the importance of memories and miracles in shaping Jewish identity. Rabbi Lau was also one of the keynote speakers at the opening session of the conference on Sunday morning, March 1 . Ad¬ ditionally, throughout the week¬ end, members of our team greeted conference attendees at our booth in the AIPAC village. Visitors learned about upcoming programs and had the opportunity to research their families using the Yad Vashem database. We greeted hundreds of new faces and were able to share how individuals can be actively involved in Yad Vashem’s mission even while living in the United States. Overall, we thor¬ oughly enjoyed our time at AIPAC and hope everyone was able to learn a bit more about the important work that we do. The highlight of the weekend was certainly the opening plenum on Sunday morning. The opening session began with Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter taking center stage in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. He talked about how his father, US Army Chaplain Rabbi Her- schel Schacter, z”l, saved a little eight-year-old Jewish boy during the liberation of Buchenwald. Describing his father’s experience, Rabbi Schac¬ ter stated that with “the dead and the dying star¬ ing back at him, he saw a child." That child was in fact at AIPAC with all of us today. As the audi¬ ence of 18,000 anxiously waited to see who this was, a man emerged on stage and stated, “I was that child.” There were audible gasps in the room as people realized that the man standing before them was Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, former chief rabbi of Israel and chairman of the Yad Vashem Council. The room was filled with emotion as this legendary figure stood before them and said, “My name is Israel Meir Lau. In Buchenwald I didn’t have a name. I was a number. Just a num¬ ber. My number was 117030. Only later on I dis¬ covered who I am.” n honor of the 75th anniversary of the lib¬ eration of Auschwitz, Rabbi Schacter and Rabbi Lau reflected on the story of their en¬ during connection to each other and joined together on stage to honor Holocaust survivors and liberators and their descendants. Schacter called upon those heroes present that day to stand, if able. The survivors were met with thun¬ derous applause, followed by the liberators in the room, who appeared in full regalia. Rabbi Lau then described that fateful day of April 11, 1945, when General Patton’s army entered the gates of Buchenwald. With a pistol in his hand, one of¬ ficer, Rabbi Herschel Schacter, spotted a child hiding behind a heap of corpses. He understood this was a Jewish child, so he asked him for his name in Yiddish. He then asked the child how old he was. The little Israel Lau, known as “Lulek,” answered, “What difference does it make how old I am? I am older than you.” When the officer asked why he thought he was older, the boy an¬ swered, “because you laugh, you smile, and you cry like a child. Many years I didn’t laugh, and I don’t cry anymore. So, who is older?” The fact that such a young boy could utter such words is a painful reminder of the innocence that was lost and the childhoods that were stolen during the Holocaust. But the young boy’s wisdom also foreshadowed his future role as a learned scholar and leader of Israel. Israel Meir is the 38th generation in an unbroken chain of rabbis. His father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, z”l, was the chief rabbi of the Polish town of Piotrkow before he was murdered in Treblinka. It is quite miracu¬ lous that a child who was orphaned in the war and suffered such horrors went on to become the chief rabbi and a pioneering voice for the modern State of Israel. The entire auditorium remained in awe as Rabbi Lau shared his story and reflected on the importance of friendship in today’s troubled world. The tagline for the 2020 AIPAC confer¬ ence was “Today. Tomorrow. Together.” But Rabbi Lau emphasized that it’s not just today and tomorrow, but also yesterday, that must bring us together. “We have to live together as we knew how to die together. To live together in brotherhood and friendship. We have to do it. It’s in our hands.” Left to right: Shava Ben-Yehuda, managing director, Yad Vashem International Relations Division; Steven Will; Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council; Mark Wilf, board member, ASYV; Daniel Wilf; Stanley Stone, executive director, ASYV.