Oskar Schindler

The second last day at school today. We had lectures about Holocaust Denial and the Righteous Among the Nations. We then met a survivor, Eva Lavi, who was one of Oskar Schindler's Jews. We were given a copy of the list and Eva and her mother were numbers 201 and 202 on the list. Eva was only a small child then so her maiden name was Rats. Her mother's name was Fela.

 

You can't see the next column in the photo but it is a birthdate column. Eva was only 6 at the time so Schindler changed the dates of the young children to an age that would mean they could work and the older people would get a reduced age so they also would appear valuable. This ability to be useful meant that the Nazi's simply wouldn't dispose of them on the spot. We went to Mount Zion in Jerusalem with Eva and visited Oskar Schindler's grave. It is an unassuming grave site in a small cemetery. The cemetery, however, is fortified with barbed wire surrounding its walls and remains behind locked gates that were opened for us by a guard.

The view over Jerusalem from the cemetery.

The next photo is Oskar Schindler's grave. The stones are put on the grave as a mark of respect by visitors. In Jewish custom stones have a sense of permanence, unlike flowers that will eventually wither and die. Stones last for eternity. This is why we see Schindler's Jews laying stones on his grave at the end of Spielberg's movie. We were told that the authorities continue to remove the stones but they are always replaced by visitors to the gravesite. Eva told us that when the Russians liberated them at the end of the war she was 8 years old and she picked a few flowers and gave them to him as he sat on his white horse. He picked her up and sat her on his lap on his horse. She said that her mother was a tiny, fragile and young looking woman but spoke her mind and when Spielberg premiered the movie he had all of Schindler's Jews there to see it screened for the first time. Eva said her mother and father thought he did a very good job but her mother went up to Spielberg afterwards and said "you could have made the movie better if you had included a scene where my daughter gave the Russian on the white horse the flowers."

A photo with Eva. When our host Ephraim asked her to say something about Schindler she started to cry and said "I loved him. He was my angel of mercy".

She told us many stories of how she and her parents came to work in Oskar Schindler's ammunition factory and what her life was like in Auschwitz under Nazi occupation. We have heard so many survivor stories throughout this trip and their continued humanity amidst such horrific experiences amazes me each time.

Eva has been invited to speak at the United Nations next year and tell her story.

Tomorrow is our last day at school. I have checked in to my flight on-line and booked my Sherut to take me to the airport on Thursday. Only two more sleeps until home time.