DR. SAMUEL PISAR A REMINDER AND A WARNING (Editor’s note: On June 18, 1975, former French Presi- dent Valery Giscard d’Estaing visited Auschwitz, accompanied by Dr. Pisar, who delivered a brief but moving address about his sentiments upon returning to the grim concentration camp. The following is the text of Dr. Pisar’s remarks.) To return at your side, Mr. President, to this altar of the Holocaust, where as a boy of 14 I died so many deaths, lived so many tortures and humiliations, where all I ever loved was reduced to cinders, is an experience that staggers the soul. But it is also a journey from tragedy to triumph. By your presence here today, the date on which from London, 35 years ago, Charles de Gaulle’s call to resistance redeemed the honor of France, you add a new dimension to the historic meaning of the 18th of June. From here, Mr. President, you speak to genera- tions, to races, to nations, to ideologies, to liberal and conservative, to rich and poor, to East and West. For on the spot on which you stand is the deepest wound ever inflicted upon human civilization, the inferno where Eichmann’s realism eclipsed Dante’s vision of hell. On this I bear you the personal testimony of a rare survivor, perhaps the youngest survivor of all. Among the unspeakable reminiscences that flood my mind in these once-familiar surroundings, one heartbreaking image stands out, and it is the only one about which I would like to say a word. Near those machine-gun towers, in their striped blue and white rags, sat every day the most remarkable symphony orchestra ever assembled. It was made up of the greatest virtuosos from Warsaw and Paris, from Kiev and Oslo, from Budapest and Rome. The precious violins they brought along on their last journey were signed Stradivarius, Guarneri and Amati. To accompany the daily hangings and shootings — while the gas chambers over there belched fire and smoke — they were ordered to play Mozart, the Mozart you and I adore. Enough of the past! These horrors, which I have never mentioned to you in the years of our friendship devoted to seeking together new avenues of international coexistence, new weapons of peace, must not numb our senses, nor shake our faith in God and man. If they seem relevant today it is because we dare not forget that the past can also be prologue, that amidst the ashes of Auschwitz we behold the true spec- 200 ter of doomsday — a warning of what might still lie ahead. It is to this barbed-wire fence, therefore, that man must come in emulation of your example to bow his head and meditate on justice, on tolerance, on respect for human rights and, most of all, on new moral per- spectives that can reclaim the world’s alienated youth. Mr. President, in this cursed and sacred place you are facing your greatest audience. Here you stand in the presence of four million innocent souls. In their name, and with the authority of the number engraved on my arm, I say to you that if they could answer your noble words they would cry out: “Never again!” Never again between Frenchman and German, between Turk and Greek, between Indian and Pakis- tani. Never again between Arab and Jew. In their name I thank you for זטסץ‎ 0 this shrine of martyrdom and agony. Your gesture inspires universal hope that the statesmen of the world will pay new ‘heed to the clouds of violence that are gathering around us. That they will spare no effort to lead us to a safer and better future. Samuel Pisar (right) at the age of 17, shortly after he arrived in Melbourne, Australia in 1947, to stay with his uncles, Nachman and Lazar Suchowolski. Standing next to him is his childhood friend from Bialystok, Benjamin Kauf- man, who shared the horrors of the concenration camps with him. . After the war, they both emigrated to Australia with the assistance of Nachman and Lazar Suchowolski. The above picture shows them at the time they had just arrived in Melbourne. Mr. Kaufman went on to become a very suc- cessful Australian businessman. Benjamin Kaufman passed away in July, 1976 at the age of 48. Dr. Pisar made a special trip to Melbourne to deliver the eulogy. The Bialystoker Memorial Book