For years, no one knew I was a Holocaust survivor, until 25 years ago I traveled to Poland with high school students and told my story. It was a miracle I survived. When I asked myself why I survived and why I was alive, I realized that I must tell my story. The entire world needs to remember all the time, at every moment, that children and human beings must not be harmed. We have a role: to remember and to pass the baton on to future generations. Not only on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel and on International Holocaust Remembrance Day but all year round.
I was born in a little town in Poland called Biała Rawska to Hershel and Zisel Hershkowitz. I was an only child. My mother was a seamstress who worked for the upper classes. I knew I could be whatever I wanted, but someone had other plans. For years, we ran and hid, using false identities.
I can't describe the hours I spent hiding in a ditch in the forest or underneath a pile of potatoes or in a closet in the home of a Christian family who was protecting my mother and me. My father, who was forced to leave us, joined the partisans. He promised me we would meet after the war, but he was killed in the Holocaust and never returned. Out of my entire town, where about 4,000 Jews had lived, only 35 adults and 2 children – myself and one other – survived.
I was 13 when I made aliyah from the DP camps in Germany and arrived at a camp for immigrants. For me, making aliyah on a ship named "Atzmaut" (Independence) had divine significance. We need to remember and make sure that what we, the Holocaust survivors, went through will never happen again because we have our own land, state and army.
I carry my own story and the story of the Holocaust in Israel and all over the world. The Holocaust and the survivors must be remembered all year long, not only for a week. Anti-Semitism must be constantly condemned, and not only after specific incidents. It is important to work all year round, everywhere in the world, to prevent anti-Semitic incidents.
The book that tells my life story, "I Wanted to Fly Like a Butterfly," has been made part of the Education Ministry's curriculum and translated into six foreign languages and distributed all over the world.
I receive many letters from Germany, and when I answer, I write that I neither forget nor forgive. Focus on the Holocaust must not be limited to specific dates. The Holocaust and Holocaust survivors deserve our attention throughout the year. The Holocaust is part of my life and part of many other people's. It is an inherent part of our life, and it doesn't matter what month it is.
