On April 21st, Israelis paused for a two-minute silence to remember the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. It was marked by a series of sirens and according to the BBC, “pedestrians stopped in their tracks, drivers pulled over and got out of their cars and people in offices rose to stand next to their desks.”

On the day I attended a ceremony at Ben-Gurion University, which had invited Beersheba Rotarian Nathan Noach to speak about his own experience in the Holocaust. For those of you who may not remember, I had written about Nathan’s story in my previous post, “The Holocaust Inheritance,” and I consider him and his wife Ruth (and their children and grandchildren) to be my “host family.”

Nathan is  truly an inspiration. He endured so much hardship and pain in his childhood and yet he emerged from that harrowing experience a warm and high-spirited individual, whose generosity and affection knows no bounds.

Although I can never truly repay Nathan for his hospitality and kindness towards me, I can share with you his story. Indeed, it is one that everyone should hear and it serves as a testament to the importance and necessity of the creation of this Jewish state.

Here is a video I took of his speech, with an English translation below.

Nathan Noach Holocaust Speech Part 1:

Nathan Speech Part 2:

My name is Hans Nathan Noach born in Eindhoven, Holland. We were six in the family: my parents, two brothers and a sister whom were older than I. We are from the city where there are the big factories of Philips. They are an important part for my being here. When the Germans entered Holland they started quickly with separating the Jews from the rest of the citizens. They did it by forbidding a lot of things for the Jews. For us it was forbidden to speak with people who were not Jews, even on the street. We the children were forbidden to play and speak with the children of our neighbors. All of our belongings from the house were taken even our bicycles (a principle thing for Dutch people) and it was forbidden for Jews to go or visit parks, cinemas, theaters or to learn at school or at the university. For the Jews it was forbidden to have a high position in any place because in the eyes of the Germans they were inferior. In a lot of places it was written on signs in the street and in public places that the entrance of Jews was forbidden. We had to go with a David Star not only on our coats but also on our shirts.

The Germans wanted to show to all of the citizens of the city that they are the conquerors of the country and for that reason on a day they toke fifteen workers – men and women non Jewish– and let them stand against a wall near the entrance of the factory and executed them. All that without any reason and without a trial or anything like that, but because they wanted the citizens to be afraid to open their mouths or to do anything against the Germans. My father before the war had a high managerial job at the Philips Factory but it was forbidden for Jews to work in such positions. The owner of Philips started a workplace for his Jewish workers to try to protect them from the Nazis.

A lot of the people of Holland tried to earn money by telling the Germans where Jews were hiding and that for small pocket money. They got 7 Dutch florins for each Jewish head.

On one day the Germans entered the workplace where my father was working and took all the Jewish workers including my father to a concentration camp in Holland. My family stood before the decision to go with our father to the camp or to leave him alone and to go in hiding. And without any hesitation we decided to go with him. My mother gave me as a child of eight-years old to make by myself the decision to hide or to go with them. I personally decided to go with my family.

Nobody has the right to say that the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter! A normal human being cannot understand, believe and get on his mind the unfathomable, cruel and barbarian conduct that was used by the Germans and their accomplices by trying to stamp out the Jews. The Satan should have had a blush on his cheek by seeing what the Germans and their collaborators did and when the moral assets were trampled down with a unbelievable cruelty.

In every human being there will be always be a flash of hope and we had that to! Let all of us learn an important lesson and that is that hatred to minorities is the reason for what they did to our people.

In the concentration camp the Philips factory again thought about their workers and built another workplace for them inside of the camp. Our group got a special treatment because the Germans needed the people of Philips for their craftsmanship. On the 2 of June 1944, we were taken by cattle train at night, when the directors of Philips were not in the camp. We were fifty people in every car. I was with the women and in that way we were on the railroad for four days long in closed cattle cars from Holland to Auschwitz-Birkenau. That is1500 kilometers. In the camps the men and women were split up. During the whole travel to Auschwitz only once we were allowed to go out of the train for a sort time. I had the possibility to run to my father and two brothers, and that’s the last time that I spoke to them in my life. When we passed the border of Holland, we sang in the train the Dutch national anthem and the Hatikva Hebrew hymn (now the national anthem of Israel), which were forbidden to sing. With our arrival at Birkenau we had to leave anything that we had with us behind us. Then we started to walk to the entrance of the camp and there we would get the clothes of the prisoners and get the number tattooed on our arms. During the travel in Europe there was connected to our train another one with Hungarian Jews. When we stood on the platforms the Hungarians passed us and they were taken straight to the gas chambers and crematoriums. Everybody who was living in the camp could see the killing system worked – how they entered the gas chambers and then the smoke would appear from the crematoriums.

All of us shall forever have to remember that the system was created especially for the “final solution” by killing all the Jews on earth. The Germans didn’t make any difference between Orthodox or secular Jews.

Just as the trucks spill the sand and concrete here on the campus to build the buildings of the university, just in that way the people were thrown out of the train cars. But together with their sacrifice of their life they were the foundation and the righteous reason for creating and building the state of Israel.

In Birkenau were the gas chambers and crematoriums. Children wouldn’t enter the camp – they would go straight to the gas chambers. Only twins and dwarfs were allowed to enter the camp because the German doctors wanted to use them for medical experiments. And that was done by beasts that were called doctors. We, 17 Dutch children from the Philips group entered the camp because of the importance of our group but we were apart from our mothers and from our families. And we were together with the twins and dwarfs.

Near the barrack where we lived, they assembled every day on a big pile all the people that died during the last day and night .The dead were brought afterward to the crematorium. They were totally naked because people from their barracks had taken everything that was on them.

One of the special experiences I had with my sister is the following story:

A few days before we were freed by the Russian army, a man (a friend of Nathan’s brother) came to us and told us that he had promised to my oldest brother that when it’s possible for him he will take us under his wing. One night he came to us and took us from Birkenau to Auschwitz by foot but during the walk a German army car with soldiers came up to us and they loaded their rifles because they wanted to kill us. Of course I cried because I understood what will going to happen with us. The man who took us spoke to them and they left us and didn’t shoot.

After we came back to Holland I was twice ill with tuberculosis, I had to be in bed for rest a few years. And in 1952 I made aliyah. After two year’s I was recruited to the army and got the highest health grade. I served in the Golani division. The first rifle that I learned to shoot with was a German rifle and on that rifle was engraved the German swastika but this time the rifle was not against me but for my defense, and that is our victory.

My mother Esther died of exhaustion in Birkenau when my sister and I were at her side. My father Abraham also died of exhaustion in a camp in Germany and my two brothers Max and Jules died of exhaustion and froze to death. Let all of them be remembered.

Together with that we have to remember to thank, to respect and to learn from “The righteous under the Nations” that were non Jews who put their lives and their families at risk to try to save Jews from the Nazis. We owe them our appreciation and thanks for their immense heroism.

My sister Rachel is living here in the country but she lost a son in the air force. Two of my granddaughters are now in the army and one of them is an officer and we are very proud of them.

I want to read a poem that is written by my son when he was eight years old, born in Beer-Sheva and after that graduated from Ben-Gurion University:

Six million
Six million thoughts whirl
Six million graves
Six million
just like a balloon
the balloon explodes
Just like a dream
12 million eyes with fear
12 million trembling hands
12 million legs bungling
Hundreds of millions in the world deny,
that our brothers, our grandparents, our parents died brutal deaths
Six million miserable

I would also like to share with you this video of a BGU student singing the Jewish prayer “God Full of Mercy.” It is typically sung at funerals, and I don’t think the university could have found a more perfect voice for this particular memorial service. It moved me to tears.