Auschwitz is associated with unimaginable suffering, death and inhuman cruelty, but the two women say the infamous death camp brought them something unexpected.
[BorninaclinicinaPolishcamponApril301945severalmonthsafterAlliedforcesliberatedit][1945年4月30日にポーランドキャンプの診療所で生まれた、連合軍がそれを解放してから数ヶ月後、Elenora Sbornik She did, even though Red Cross doctors gave her little chance of survival and she was still a weak, sickly baby.
Even more unlikely, she sister, Eva Umlaufwas moved to Auschwitz as an infant and lived there.
“It's a miracle that we both survived,” said Umlauf, 82, who was born in December 1942 in Nowaki, a Slovakian labor camp, less than two years before he was taken to Auschwitz.
The two spoke to the Post ahead of Monday's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps on January 27, 1945.
“I hope that the world will always remember what happened and that it will serve as a warning to all those who think differently about it or downplay the Holocaust,” said the 79-year-old. said.
Umlauf was transported to Aushwitz on November 3, 1944. This is a few days after the destroyed cremation of the Nazis, when the Allies were descending, trying to hide the evil from the world.
“We turned off the gas just a few days ago because the train was too slow,” Umlauf said. “We know it was gasified.”
Neither sister will remember her time at Auschwitz, but the older sister's wrist tattoo – A-26959 makes it impossible to forget.
“It's firmly fixed in my body and soul,” said Umlauf, who now lives in Germany. “Tattoos belong to me like scars on my skin.”
The girls were eventually reunited with their 21-year-old mother, Agnes, and moved into the family's home in Trencin, Slovakia.
“We were the ‘Miracle of Auschwitz,’” Umlauf recalls.
An estimated 1.1 million Jews – including most 700 Babies born there – killed at Auschwitz.
The Claims Conference, an organization that supports Holocaust survivors, recorded the sisters' testimonies as part of digital media campaign In this milestone year, there are 80 Auschwitz survivors called #RememberThis.
The two “miracle babies” are now accomplished women. Sbornik is an internal medicine specialist, and Umlauf is a pediatrician and psychotherapist, both of whom will speak and give lectures on the dangers of anti-Semitism.
Her message to a world on the alarming rise of anti-Semitism is clear. “I hope that the world will always remember what happened and that it will serve as a warning to all those who think differently about it or downplay the Holocaust,” Germany said. said the person's mother, who is about 85 miles away from her sister.
“I am confident that it will never happen again, that the catastrophe will never be repeated. The world will always be informed about what happened.”
Umlauf speaks to the group about the dangers of anti-Semitism.
“I speak because even one person remembers, and there will always be someone who remembers it.
“I speak because even one person remembers. We all have to do something to fight hatred – to answer in the same language as the people we hate – to kill – with the people Instead of talking and trying to do everything against hate, try to live in peace,” she said.
Umlauf cannot say whether the world has learned the lessons of the Holocaust.
“That's a difficult question. There are a lot of people who learned nothing.”
