Bear witness to the past

Twenty-five years ago, I stood at Auschwitz, experiencing the power of 6 million lives gone because of fear. Fear of outsiders, fear of those who were different. I was 15—the same age that my grandmother, Maria, was when she was forced to work in a Nazi labor camp—but I was free, participating in an event called the March of the Living (MOL). As MOL participants, we had studied Holocaust history twice a week for an entire school year before embarking on a historical, cultural, spiritual journey through Poland’s concentration camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Majdanek) to witness for ourselves the horrific moment of history for our people.

We walked the cobblestone pathways of Jewish Kraków; the now-renovated Jewish temple in Warsaw, which was used as a stable by the Nazis; and the site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where teenage Jews played a huge role in the revolt, knowing they wouldn’t survive, but wanting to die on their own terms. We hiked through the forest and stood beneath a canopy of trees sheltering one of many sites where Jews had been marched and ordered to dig their own graves, then shot and buried en mass with not even a marker to signal the presence of countless lives lost.

We marched again, to Auschwitz, where we stood in gas chambers made to look like showers to increase compliance … the same ones into which Jews had been corralled like cattle, branded with numbers and skinned of their humanity. But unlike our predecessors, we walked out of there alive. We walked through the barracks that now house countless personal effects: glasses, shoes, clothes, so many artifacts of Jewish lives. The buildings reeked of death and suffering. How could this have happened? It is unfathomable.

Finally, we marched again, as they had before us, from Auschwitz to Birkenau: a sea of blue March of the Living participants, transforming a death march to a March of the Living. For we did what they could not—we lived, we survived, and we went on to Israel, where they would never go. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of Israel with 10,000 participants in a huge amphitheater, from all over the globe, singing the songs in Hebrew that we were all raised singing, and waving the flag that meant we would always have a homeland.

Forever changed and moved by the experience, I returned to the U.S., where I poured the ancestral trauma I had always felt in my bones into drawings and paintings. My art conveyed suffering and loss, but also community and solidarity. However, at a certain point, I had immersed myself too fully in the suffering and (perhaps I should be ashamed to say this given the plight of our predecessors) but it became too much for me to endure. What I had seen with my own eyes was unbelievable. And that was only a glimpse of the atrocities—just the artifacts.

It was all too incredible, too catastrophic, too horrific. And so I stowed my feelings and the paintings away. I took time away from Holocaust books, movies, and history. I kept meaning to return to these memories—this history, but each time I felt the urge, fear prompted me to stash away this history: I was scared of feeling too deeply. I never denied it, but I kept it at arm’s length. Little did I know that only by embracing fear would I be free of it.

It’s been 25 years since the March of the Living, and my Mom recently uncovered my artwork behind some old coats and blankets. These are not masterpieces by any means, but they are powerful to me. They elicit the collective suffering, intergenerational trauma, and will to survive that every Jew has felt in their core at some point in their lives. This legacy of suffering has led generation after generation to live in perpetual fear.

Fear causes so much suffering—even more than the suffering itself. Fear is the source of prejudice and discrimination, assault and genocide. In an attempt to understand and make peace with fear, I have spent the last 20 years studying psychology. Now, more than ever, I feel called to stop living in fear and end the collective suffering of humanity—for Jews, for those with disabilities, for people of color, for LBGTQ and other marginalized groups (Palestinians included).

Drawing upon the March of the Living, now, as a school psychologist, I empower students, staff, and parents to face their fears and to include all humans in meaningful interaction, activities, and education. I train general education teachers to include, accommodate, and engage students with disabilities in their classes. I guide parents to accept their children (and themselves) just as they are. I cultivate a culture of dignity and mutual respect among students and staff of color, differing abilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, political leaning, religious philosophy.

Only by uncovering and calling it out as “fear” can humans make peace with it before it leads to exclusionary, discriminatory, and (at their extreme) genocidal actions. Fear resulted in genocide for my people, in learning and suffering for me, and in subsequent avoidance. But uncovering my artwork and the associated memories on the eve of Israel’s 75th anniversary this year is no accident. It is a reminder of what Israel represents to me: the promise of a land where we all belong, where we uphold the dignity of each human, the rights and inclusion of all groups, where we can support and be supported, and where collective fear is transformed into collective compassion, love, and acceptance. This is the Israel I imagine and for which I pray comes for all.

It is important to remember that the Holocaust did not happen overnight. It was the result of years of propaganda and discrimination, as well as a failure of international diplomacy and action.

I am reminded of the importance of bearing witness to the past and learning from it. We must honor the memory of those who lost their lives and ensure that their stories are never forgotten. By doing so, we can work toward a better future for all people, one in which we value diversity, empathy, and respect. Δ

Miriam Burlakovsky Correia was moved by John Asbaugh’s April 20 piece for Rhetoric & Reason, “I am a relentless warrior against fascism, bigotry, and ‘able-ism.‘” Respond with a letter for publication by emailing it to letters@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Apr 27 – May 7, 2023.