Judith Kassouf Cummings

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Elie Weisel

 In sixth grade, I was given the assignment to interview an elderly person. Wondering whom to ask, I turned to Mom, who suggested that I interview her friend Dorothy's husband. My mother knew he had a story to tell.

Mom was Lebanese; Dorothy was Jewish. Yet a firmer friendship couldn't be found, one born of differences and mutual respect. Nervously, I crafted questions while Mom spoke with her friend.

From the moment we arrived, the family treated us graciously. As I took out my questions, Mr. Blumenthal rolled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a sequence of numbers tattooed on his arm.

“Do you know what these represent? ” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “You have been in the camps.”

“You know...” he stated, “but now, I will tell you what you do not know.”

Mr. Blumenthal began matter-of-factly to recount his time in a German concentration camp, Buchenwald. He told me of his arrival by train and how he was forced to strip naked, then clubbed repeatedly by a gauntlet of soldiers as he ran between them to enter the iron gates.

“Many died before arriving,” he said.  “All this was done to demoralize us. Once inside, we read the inscription: ‘Jedem das Sein,’ or To Each His Own.

He described living conditions. “We received little to eat, some soup and dry bread. It was really more like lukewarm water - few vegetables and barely any meat. If we came across a sliver of meat, we'd share it with those who were starving.”

He went on to say that because water was so scarce, his most precious possession was a spoon. “Whenever it rained, we'd take turns holding the spoon, catching droplets to drink.”

He paused, then continued, “In the camp we worked from morning until night, dropping from exhaustion, malnutrition, or illness.” He said that the smell of death was everywhere.

More than 56,000 people perished at Buchenwald.  Attempts to rebel or escape resulted in a ticket to death. Yet, on April 11, 1945, anticipating their liberation, the prisoners stormed the watchtowers, taking control. Later that day, the 6th Armored Division helped free more than 21,000 people.

After my visit, I felt a sense of the sacred.

Whereas today some try to hide the world's injustices from children, the “Greatest' Generation” understood that doing so would rob young minds of a balanced perspective, rendering them historically illiterate and ill-prepared for adulthood.

As I turned to leave, Dorothy handed me a small medal saying, “Remember.”

The medal replicates an angel with outstretched wings that sits atop St. Paul's Cathedral in London. While having been pummeled during WW2, St. Paul's escaped major damage. The bells still ring out. They chimed at the liberation of Paris in 1944 and sounded again in 1945 to mark the end of war in Europe.

Just as Mr. Blumenthal escaped death, St. Paul's escaped devastation. And this little medal reminds me of our great duty to protect humanity by bearing witness, fighting injustice, and proclaiming truth.