Good evening and welcome, im rita lerner, daughter of Holocaust Survivors and trustee of the museum of jewish heritage, a living memorial to the holocaust read it is my pleasure to introduce a special evening. Before we begin tonight id like to say a few words about the Museum Museum of jewish heritage is a leading New York Institution dedicated to fighting antisemitism and bigotry. For more than 20 years, the museum has challenged visitors intellectually, a rigorous understand the ways in which the humanization of the people can involve deeply destructive and area and engaging with history, people of all ages and backgrounds inherit our mission to never forget you and to combat intolerance that endures to this day. If youre interested in receiving any information of upcoming events, please join our mailing list, a sign in sheet can befound at the admissions desk. I also invite you to become a member of the museums community, we are honored to have you with us tonight to celebrate the holocaust survivor author, maximizing. Ive 15, mister eisen was saved from certain death at auschwitz a polish physician who employed him as a cleaner in his operating room. Mister eisen 2016 memoir, by chance alone chronicles his remarkable persistence, liberation and continue with yelling after miraculously surviving auschwitz. By chance alone received 10 of its top literary awards in 2019. Tonight, we celebrate the launch of the book american edition we had the privilege of hearing mister eisen in conversation with veteran producer of 60 minutes sharon finkelstein. Leslie stahl was held up for theimpeachment coverage. At the conclusion of tonights program, we invite you to join mister eisen for a book signing in the lobby by chance alone. It is a available for purchase in our museum shop. We are honored to be joined tonight by are not seen, acting Council General of the canadianconsulate in new york. Mark gordon, executive Committee Member of the usc Showa Foundation, ellie rubenstein, march of the living in canada, phyllis heideman, president of the march of the living and cancer reiki with guitarist sealand from, we like to thank our partners in presenting tonights program. International march of the living, the counselorgeneral of canada in new york , Hanover Square press and the usc Showa Foundation. Before we begin take a moment to silence your cell phones to avoid any disruptions during the program. Thank you and now please join me in welcoming our first speakertonight , acting canadian Council General hawar naseem. You rita. Recently i was not held up by the impeachment hearings in washington. What an incredible honor it is to be here with all of you tonight to pay tribute to a remarkable man , an extraordinary canadian , mister max eisen. My team at the council it has been seeking an opportunity to bring mister eisen to new york. For a man of his age he has a busy schedule and it was not easy to get him here. Thank you for joining us thank you to hanover press, usc Showa Foundation, international march of the living and jewish heritage for bringing max here to tell his story. As a diplomat, i had many incarnations. I spent time, a lot of time in europe and one of the most memorable opportunities for me as i family was to visit poland and to travel to auschwitz with my family, with my wife and son to see and to share with them the tragedies, the horrors and legacy of auschwitz area i am deeply and profoundly inspired by the courage and strength of Holocaust Survivors who despite the depth of the evil they face and despite the complexity of their emotions understand that the holocaust needs to be real to those who were not there. To reconcile the instant horrors of showa with the enduring faith in humanity. Canada has been profoundly shaped by the approximately 40,000 Holocaust Survivors who resettle in our country after the holocaust. And i must add, canada has acknowledged the devastating results of our own inaction and apathy towards jews in the nazi era. Jewish refugees on board that ms st. Louis were turned away and with our Prime Minister issued a former apology in our Houseof Commons in november 2018. The lessons of the holocaust are clear. They need to be repeated. As Prime Minister trudeau has said, never again is not a phrase, its a promise. A promise to stand up to the dangers of hatredand discrimination and the irreversible consequences of inaction. As a new yorker we know all too well as these recent horrificattacks have made clear, hatred is not yet run its course on this earth. We must be vigilant because what we also know is that the modern tools to promote hate are more sophisticated than goebbels radio, newspaper and still. Speaking with my colleagues and learning, i am inspired by the time a big saying whoever saves a single life saves an entire world. And given the Ripple Effect of maxis unyielding commitment to educate younger generations of the dangers of racism and bigotry, i think we can say that by saving max , this surgeon saved much more than one. The opportunity to hear a firsthand account from a survivor has become increasingly rare. I am honored to gather you here to hear max share his story. I hope we will all leave here tonight with a heightened sense of duty to condemn intoleranceand defend human rights in our everyday lives. Please join me in welcoming aviva rajsky, daughter of a holocaust survivor and a senior cancer at chicagos conjugation. She traveled with mister eisen on the 2015 march of the living where sheconducted the choir of the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony investments. Aviva will be accompanied by a grammywinning guitarist for Holocaust Survivors and who lost many members of his family in the holocaust. You all and i look forward to a wonderful evening. [applause] good evening. It is such an incredible honor for me to be here this evening and to sing at this wonderful event in tribute to max eisen, one of the most remarkable people i have ever met. I had the privilege of traveling with max and the 2015 march of theliving. I was in choir that year so this evening i would like to share with you a few of the songs that the students and i sang on that very moving trip. Id like to invite my colleague and dear friend Eli Rubenstein to introduce and give context to the songs i am about to sing. [applause] good evening. The first song is a song called eddie lee, as you walk along the shores of israel in 1940s. He was born in hungary in 1921 but because of the antisemitism she emigrated to palestine in 1939 to help build the jewish state. She later returned to hungary to fight against the nazis but was caught, tortured and executed by the nazis in 1944. She left us thisremarkable poem whose words remind us of the beauty of nature, the sand and sea, the rush of the waters, the thundering heavens that she was robbed of far too early in her young life. [guitar playing] [singing in yiddish] time we sing this song with the children on themarch of the living , the very place that hitlersought to destroy the jewish people, we know the spirit , the values, the lessons that life represents continues to live on. And that way we are making a statement. Hitler, you did not win. We will return here year after year reciting the words from the very people you tried to annihilate. Our next song is called hottie mommy and it reflects a similar sentiment of hope and defiance written in the 12th century by muslim amenities, the expresses a belief that oneday redemption will come to humanity. Many jews recited these words with their last breath before a parish in the gas chambers, still believing that a better day we arrived. You are watching the tv. The senate is about the galvin now for what suspected to be a brief pro forma session area we break away from the discussion to honor our commitment to gather together coverage and we will return the book tv when the senate wraps upits session area. [singing in yiddish] thank you. It is now my pleasure to invite to the state mark gordon who is a member of the eight executive committee of the showa board of counselors who will share with us and innovative joint project between usc Showa Foundation and march of the living involving the testimony of max eisen. [applause] on behalf of the usc foundation i am grateful to be here tonight. To honor and celebrate max eisen and the release ofhis memoir here in the us. What i want to back our colleagues at hanover press for publishing and making this work so widely available. I want to thank the museum of jewish heritage, for hosting tonights event. And the Council General of canada for the long support and involvement. And we want to thank the international march of the living for our partnership between the international march of the living and usc Showa Foundation for including us in this auspicious event tonight. The usc foundation began working with max and his family in 2019 through this partnership with the international march of the living and together these organizations have a joint project to gather the testimonies of Holocaust Survivors in a 360 degree video method in the authentic original location area together, we are working to film at least 10 survivors as they take us on a journey from their hometown to the sites of liberation, sharing their unique and personal stories in the places where he experienced them. Eventually these testimonies will be deeply integrated into the programs and experiences created by the march of the living. Max is one of four survivors so far who have participated in and then filmed on location. Our team traveled with max to the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum for a day as he shared his story with us and with his son. Who was on the mark for the first time. We traveled to slovakia and his hometown in slovakia where max recalled his childhood and invited us to share what he told his last goodbye to his hometown, once vibrant community that now exists only through him. His communitywill not be forgotten , thanks to his hundred 60 on location interview and the loving details he so generously included in his memoirs. This is all in addition to the usc Showa Foundation having not one but two life history interviews of max in our visual history archive. Both were reported in the 1990s, once taken by the Showa Foundation and Holocaust Education center. Both are accessible through the visual history archives. That testimony is among the 55,000 survivor testimonies that are now accessible or available through over 160 universities and museums on Six Continents around the world and there others of course is his book which is what we are here to celebrate today area now, as i understand it, max did not always wished to tell his story. In the prologue to the book, he talks about the fact that when he first spoke pleasantly about the holocaust in his experiences, at st. Josephs high school, he was very nervous and said he would not do it again. And i think this was a very common reaction among survivors at that time. If i may tell a personal story, i too have, or habitable max or had an uncle max who survived auschwitz. And emigrated to toronto. We are he built a family and live the life. I visited my uncle max in the summer of 1990 shortly after maybe a month or two after i had been on a trip to Eastern Europe and i had visited auschwitz and over dinner, i told him my travels and he asked me maybe 2 or 3 questions about auschwitz and what i had seen there. After dinner, his son harvey my cousin who is 34 years old at the time said to me know, in my entire life that is the most i have covered my father talk about his experiences and i said why do you think that is . He said well, his attitude is what would be the point . Who would listen and mark it would just be complaining to my children. So i think we are as individuals all here incredibly indebted to organizations like the usc Showa Foundation, like the march of the living, like the museum of jewish vintage and organizations like the hanover press who have created outlets for a forum and structure around hearing and learning the stories of the survivors so that they could be passed down so that we can learn from them and so that hopefully never again. Most importantly of course though we are indebted to survivors like max who decided to speak again and again, at countless colleges, universities, highschools, public events. I think hes led 21 trips to auschwitz where hes educated students and adults and shared his experiences in addition to a course giving his testimony, participating in the 360 degree video with the international march of the living and of course publishing this memoir. Id like now to show you a short video that shows the behind the scenes of our time with max and his son ed and we found a 360 degree video that will be incorporated into the march of the livings program. In it you can see the intensity with which max has committed himself to telling his story. Somebody play the video. There has always been a boy there. A terror that you couldnt access, you couldnt get to that. Favorite to strangers more so in ways and expressing feelings that he has his own family so thats one of my reasons for coming here is to see if there was an opportunity to break through some of that. The challenge right now is to see what tours are stored in and filming what were trying to manage. It will be part of maxis story. You want to describe hell, i can give you an influence area there was no humanity there. This was a completely brutal place. Couldnt have any bad thoughts in your head. We had to only think of survival. This was the whole life. You came back and you laydown on your bed. You try to go on. But you know, [inaudible]. How does one survive . I dont know area im so happy to be here. Not so much screaming but i think its overwhelmed. 75 years ago i never thought i would walk out of herealive. But i had a family and their important in my life. [inaudible] [applause] now id like to invite backup Eli Rubenstein, National Director of the march of the living in canada. [applause] thank you mark. Im honored to be able to introduce the main part of our program, the part you are about to hear from max eisen himself. Ive been traveling with him for well over 20 years now and each time continuing to beinspired by his courage, wisdom and eloquence. I recall the early 2000 being with max at Queens University in ontario. For a weekend conference turning out educators and chaperones traveling with us to poland. As we were milling about the reception area of the conference center, a group of queens students passed by. They noticed one of our staff was carrying a sacred torah scroll of the law, the agent five books of moses written by hand on parchment the jewish people had read from publicly for thousands of years. Observing the curious look on the student spaces max patiently explained what these scrolls represented. He concluded his impromptu speech by informing them during the holocaust the nazis murdered thousands of sacred jewish works like this torah they were looking at now. He reminded the students of the quote from either highend , when they burn books only and in the they also burned people. The students were mesmerized during maxis short speech and only reluctantly for themselves a way to return to school activities. At that moment i realized max was a born teacher, a natural educator who had both a desire and ability to share his story and lessons of the holocaust with the most diverse audience and the clearest most accessible manner and in that moment of teaching as you heard was something max has replicated countless times as he has crossed canada, sharing his story of love and loss with thousands upon thousands of people for the last 20 or more years. Only we sail who comes from the same part of europe wanted something along the following lines. To be a jew often the holocaust you have every reason to give up your belief in god. To give up on the jewish people and abandon your trust in humanity, you have every reason to give up your faith in god and to abandon your trust in all humanity but still not to do so. And max like so many other survivors we know perfectly exemplifies his sentiment. Despite having every reason to do so, max did not abandon his faith or give up inhumanity area instead he continues to dedicate literally every day of his life round the clock to teaching the lessons of the showa so it will never happen again. In that effort, max remind us of the hasidic quote who once said if you believe the world can be broken, also believe it can be fixed. If you believe the world can be broken, also believe it can be fixed. So thank you max from the bottom of all our hearts for not getting into despair, not giving up on our world even though you had every reason to do so. Indeed, we are all the better for it. [applause]. I am the substitute. [laughter] i dont do this for a living so the understanding please. Leslie is said to not be here pretty she is a huge fan of max and really wanted to do this and was not able to get on the flight back early enough to be here. Youve got to me. So, max, telus why dont we start by talking about your life and why dont we start by with the beginning of your life before these horrors. Tell us a little bit about your family, where you lived, i know it was czechoslovakia but then it became part of hungary so what was your life like, your home, your family before the w war. Took us about kia was a democratic country and we jews have plenty of golden years and tickles a macchia and presiden president considered him a grandfather and it was made up of about 5000 people and jews were about 10 of the population in approximately 93 and i would say 9 of the families were traditional Orthodox Jews and they were small, three, four farmers and in my town there were two jewish doctors, doctor laszlo and jewish dentist and butcher, baker and made a beautiful Jewish Synagogue and we had a [inaudible] which is a school, Jewish School and [inaudible] it is amazing looking at towns in [inaudible] this is a Beautiful Jewish Community and my uncle and aunt in many jewish people lived and extended Families Together and it was a wonderful way of growing up and so many people were taking care of you or i was going by [inaudible] you are all literally in the same home. In the same dwelling, with a large l shaped house we lived in the front part in the l and so my mothers kitchen with a wood stove and bedrooms and every bedroom had a fireplace called [inaudible] with ceramic tiles and we had a well in the yard, no running water, Beautiful House and an outhouse but i had two younger brothers and in the center of the house lived my grandparents and my aunt bella who was an invalid and my aunt had her own bedroom and kitchen and my grandmother had her own kitchen and bedrooms. Hence the kitchen traces. Yes, anyway think of fiddler on the roof and said how lucky he could be if he could have so many chickens and we had geese and ducks all over the place and a big vegetable garden and fruit trees and i had a bicycle and life was wonderful, the first ten years of my life. In czechoslovakia it was in nazi germany in 1938 during the munich conference my country was petitioned and we were going to hungary and we knew we were in mortal danger when this happened in 1938 but it was too late for jews to leave and finding out much later and it was [inaudible] this was a catastrophe in europe and so when this happened you go from a democratic lifestyle and its a fascist country, hungary was a fascist country, and i remember so vividly in 38 my father had a radio and somehow he managed to find out that hitler was making a very important speech in berlin and i remember all my friends and my father mustve been in his late 30s and they all came to our home and listened to the radio speech and we spoke in my home and i had to learn slovak when i spoke started school because i spoke german and i remember the speech it was pouring out of the radio and hitler said [inaudible] we will eradicate the jews from the world. I was nine years old and knew something in my gut told me something terrible would happen and i had no idea what and i remember seeing the faces of people when you are nine and your father is about 39 you think he is an old man and this was a tragedy in czechoslovakia. These edicts were being posted in my town and we jews were marked and numbered and we were in school and hungarian teachers made us sit in the back of the class and we were segregated and we were less than 10 of the student body and other edicts had been posted. On a daily basis my fathers Jewish Business was confiscated and this was a bds movement and my mother had [inaudible] this was an edict that jewish people cannot employ nonjewish people. My mother had her hands full and she became a single mother because in 1941 all ablebodied men had to report to labor battalions so everyone in my town, jewish families, breadwinners were taken away for many years and then the edict came out the jews cannot employ nonjewish people so she had to leave and she did not want to go and they barred them from coming to our homes and im thinking of the changing scene from my mother how handling this whole family and looking at three kids and eventually in 43 she gave birth to a little girl and that was not a good year for a jewish mother to give birth so i remember our job became so difficult and we all had to pitch in and i was struggling i was thrown out of school and my mother sent me away to the capital city of our province and it was a large city and i became an apprentice and looking back my mother was my Guardian Angel and made sure that we always had good issues from a good winter boots and make sure our ankles would be strong and fed us a balanced diet. All these things i cannot imagine how she did all these things single handed as her husband was gone and my grandfather who was truly a man of the land, all the grandfathers in my town fought in the First World War and the hungarian empire. These were men from the country and they knew the calvary of the hungarian empire in every grandfather [inaudible] my grandfather taught me a lot of Work Experience and life skills and my uncle who was on my maternal side of the family in slovakia fell and they taught me a lot of things which really i think helped me survive the one year i was incarcerated so in 44 and 43 my aunt was an invalid and she died and in hindsight it was a gift from god because i cannot imagine how we would dealt with it a year later. She taught me how to read books and i was able to read and i read all the books by [inaudible] when i was six years old. I was able to read at an early age and i just loved books ever since and she was the only member of my family that was buried. The casket was made by my grandfather and she was buried in the cemetery and the rest of the family who were deported we wound up being deported on the first day of passover in 1944. I was going to ask you about that because you had a cedar that evening and as you are obviously saying his memory is unbelievable for detail and when you all read the book if you havent already there is many more but anyway, yes, tell us about seder. Looking back, 1944 imagine jews in hungary about 700,000 jews in hungary and we didnt know what was going on just across the carpathian mountains in occupied poland and this has got to be a message to us forever, not knowing was a terrible thing. Who would have thought my grandfather said our austrian empire, jews were emancipated right after and there was [inaudible] then i kept saying when we know a lot of things happening we do not think about it and its a terrible mistake so we were celebrating passover and we had ample food and 44 and wanted certain things in life went on and my fatherinlaw [inaudible] which was accessed by hungary from yugoslavia and there was a beautiful seder and my little sister was about nine months old and we sat around this beautiful table and we asked questions and we told the story of exodus and it was about 12 00 oclock and renewed the next morning that we would walk to the synagogue and so that night the first night of seder was and so was and it was passover and my father and my grandfather were out in the yard after dinner and we were talking and my grandfather said have you managed to hold down another four or five months and we hungarians [inaudible] truly four months later after we were deported to hungary Early Morning they broke down our gate and kicked in our door and yelling and screaming and they dont ask you to provide a warrant to come but they simply kick your door in and i hear the young guns were a [inaudible] and they had a bayonet fix and they were yelling and screaming if you have money or jewelry handed over because where you are going and we wonder what hes talking about and my mother had a baby in her arms when she told us to put on clothing and my father said put your boots on and we went into the corners of my grandfather to see how they were doing. He was 77 years old and was a big, strong man in my young mother grandmother was 75 when she was a beautiful lady and we were called out from our home and the guard dog was named [inaudible] and it means wolf and he knew that it was a terrible encroachment and they tried to shoot him and a neighbor came running in and she said to my mother where are you taking this baby and why dont you leave the baby with me and i think about it and i can hear it and i never could stop wondering about it as my if my mother had left my little sister which he had survived. We will never know but in history many jews in poland in the ghettos they were being liquidated and gave their children to their families and they survived and their parents didnt. Then your holdout and 500 jews were put into two schoolrooms and you spend the second night of passover instead of having seder you spent the morning and then 500 jews assembled in the schoolyard and they have their exodus leaving town forever and ever to come back. It was set up like a parade by the rabbi [inaudible] he was made to walk in the front and he was leading his flock out fro from and his wife was an invalid and she was carried by two sons in a chair and mothers were not allowed to have a carriage or strollers so you can imagine mothers, like my mother, holding a baby in one arm and things in her other arm and shes on her back. Imagine an exodus of jews leaving town. 500 jews were taken away and 400 did not come back one year later in less than 20 of us survived from my talented there was one mother with two daughters and we want up in a big yard in terrible conditions with 30000 jews in a yard with terrible facilities and [inaudible] there were open toilets for and you could smell it from miles away. Food was scarce. Excuse me, imagine that mothers cannot breastfeed their babies and babies were simply fading away and every day we were given this propaganda and the ss officer arrived in camp and told us the story that they would be resettled in the east, this was nazi propaganda and the deception they used and we would be working on farms. Families would be together. Everything would be fine. So, when the partition of czechoslovakia my maternal family was stuck in tackles of nokia we were stuck in hungary and we could never see numbered they had a big farm and my uncles and grandmother and beautiful cousins. Slovakia was the first country in Central Europe to deport the jewish people. To tell you about the deception the nazis used the family disappeared and my mother was devastated. Come up brother, sisters, nieces, nephews and their mother were simply disappearing from the face of the earth. We did not know and 42 what had happened. Two months later postcards arrived in my town and my mother and many other mothers and fathers who came from [inaudible] there was a stamp on it the sun the general because that part of poland was changed to government and the message was we are all here together and theyre working on farms and we are [inaudible] years later i found out that all these slovakian jews my family were taken to the camp before they were put into the gas chamber and they were forced to write a post card to the families in hungary but here i am listening to this ss officer and i kept thinking i will miss my beautiful cousin [inaudible] unfortunately, we arrived in a camp in the cattle car you see outside here and imagine 100 people and it is a journey that i cannot describe, initially, they put in a pail for the water and a pail for the toilet and the doors were locked and bolted down. Number was it open and the toilet was slopping on the ground and it was a mess and it was a terrible thing. It was about four days and four nights and think of continental europe, the entire landmass, train tracks leading from brussels from the hague, from amsterdam, from rotterdam, from rome and from berlin and budapest and bucharest, all the way to [inaudible] locomotives pulling tens of thousands of cattle cars like that with human cargo to the death camps in occupied poland. Millions of jews were hauled in this way and not a single transport was sabotaged by anyone of those countries even though they werent occupied. Many had underground but not a single train was sabotaged. There is a documentary that just came out yesterday on pbs bombing auschwitz but what about transports . On this transport you have no idea where you are going, correct . Do you continue to think, was the deception continued that you were going to this lovely farm where your whole family would be together . I can tell you by the second day we all knew we were in real big trouble that this would not be a place of work or whatever. It was the worst. The degradation of humanity was so visible. It was a i never saw my mother and it was crying and screaming and in the babies we were, when there crying was done and they cannot breathe anymore and you can write a book about what its like but then we were on the platform and you are totally a zombie. They keep telling you misinformation, deception, dont worry about your bundles you will have it delivered and you will see your families tomorrow and they are being taken for this infection and there is a selection in the men and women are separated and a german guard and ss guard said that i was at his trial in 2015 we had to do these things and very fast in an orderly fashion and hungarian jews were being brought in less than three months in 44450 hungarian jews were aghast at auschwitz. These trains were arriving around the clock. Aroundtheclock. You arrived at night. I arrived in the middle of the night and we were all on this platform and it was floodlights all over we cannot see anything behind the floodlights but we could see hundreds of little boxes and they were coming up from behind me inflames and several chimneys and i could see the flames and the terrible stench in the air and i thought was a Big Industrial factory. So, i got out and we were selected for labor and my mother with my two Little Brothers and baby sister and my grandparents and my aunt were sent to the left and i knew by the next thing they were marched into the gas chamber of crematory to wear 2000 people at the time were aghast. You got separated and you go with your father and uncle so how did you find out what happened . You are 15 years old and you thank you are in an Industrial Facility and how did it become clear what actually was going on there . We were selected to an ss unit and they shaved our heads and shaved our body hair, women that were selected for slave labor were treated the same way in the women scampered they took away our clothing in the shower and we were only allowed to keep our boots and put into the [inaudible] and i was able to lie down for a few hours after standing for three days and three nights. The next morning we were hauled out from the back and it was a beautiful sunny morning and i could see hundreds of and i said what is this place and all i could think i could see for chimneys, fire and smoke, and ashes coming down. We were naked and two men in the [inaudible] outfit and [inaudible] my father asked them will we see our families today and that is what they told us. They were laughing and said where did you come from . They said we came from hungary in the middle of the night and i could hear this so basically they said in 1944 you dont know what this places all about. Your families have [inaudible] the only way you will get out of here is you will be beaten to death or starve to death but you will go to the chimney for sure. We did not talk about it anymore and i think probably my father and uncle got it and i didnt until may be the next day i knew there was no talking about it because the only question was survival and we were put into a work unit and given a boss who was a psychopath from germany and they put all these psychopaths into the camps and they were [inaudible] your food was 300 calories a day and it was i was elected. I had good boots. Boots became the good thing because you had to march to work everyday and back, ten, 15 kilometers. Your body had to all kinds of things were happening to your body. My father and uncle not being with me i dont think i would if it survived two though not having anybody there who would be sort of helping you and remember the first that they brought us for lunch soup was called [inaudible] and it was a vegetarian soup and i said i will not eat this and i forced it down my throat and a few days later the suitcase the soup was pretty good and i told him there was not enough of it and it was a terrible life at auschwitz and youre standing out on the field and you work a 12 hour backbreaking day of hard work and they line up 100 people for your soup and there is one of the couples ladling or stirring up the slop in this [inaudible] 100 people lined up and you try to figure out which is the best spot to be an up on top is mostly liquid in the bottom is thick and we were caught by the couple and when it was all finished there were some left and so they called it [inaudible] and i cannot believe it and i had three, four people ran to these canisters and try to crawl in with their heads. I was in total shock. I said never in my life [inaudible] every second there were no Second Chances here. They were absolutely brutal and ive seen the best my father and uncle were together for two months and selected out in july and i was walking to find the document and someone found a document in Auschwitz Museum on their selection in their name on it and it was selected for experiments and pharmaceutical companies and it says on the document and in july 1944 and selection was in july we knew what selection was and was usually in the middle of the night and the loudspeakers were turned on and you heard very loud [inaudible] and it said attention, attention, run naked through the barracks for selection and we knew selection was certain death. The next morning iran to my father and i had to go to my work and had to be counted every morning and [inaudible] on a good day when the count [inaudible] you would stand there and a military fashion, three, four hours and people collapsed and died on the spot. It was so difficult. I managed to stay the night in the quarantine area and my father gave me a blessing through the wires and he told me if i managed to survive i needed to tell the world what happened here. I never saw him again. I was going to ask you i know leslie would ask you that you have such equanimity in talking about these, you know, the most tragic, horrible memories. I know you talk about it frequently so how do you cope with describing these things again and again . And i assume you see them when you talk about them. I managed to cope with it because i think it is important and i have been speaking now ready to years in my first speech was in 1991 and i have a thank you card from the high school and when i started 32 years ago things happening in toronto and things about jews whenever i have imagined so there is no way i can sit by and not talk about it. I think that the book gave me a tool to be heard and be invited to speak in many different places and it is important for people to understand and does not end with the jews. To see this kind of thing Second Time Around is very difficult. It gives me a lot of terrible feelings, and possible. So, i just want to say after my father and uncle were gone and i had a on my head by a guard and i lost a lot of blood and they threw me into the ditch and i knew my life was over and i kept thinking how do i get myself out of this and you see the only way you have to be tough as nails and you have to be very resilient and you have to be able to put 1 foot in front of the other. You go one seconds from the next. You had to be thinking all the time. Yet, the adrenaline had to flow out of you from second to second. A bad movement could send people into a rage and we had if you had too many beatings you could not survive the danger was there every second. I was dragged back to camp and i was dropped off in the Surgery Department in auschwitz and i was operated on and i was put in the ward upstairs and found out that the two doctors, the two surgeons, that operated on me [inaudible] and upstairs in the ward were two jewish doctors. Doctor steinberg from paris and a doctor and if they had an operation you are allowed to stay in the ward for two days. After two days you were taken to the gas chamber. If you are not better in todays thats it. Thats it. If you cannot walk away you were gone. I seen a lot of people and they came because they knew nobody wanted to go to the left or to the operating and they knew if you go there that is the end. They were in such terrible shape they were at the end of their life and they had two, three days in if i am lucky so i was on a stretcher and the doctor pulled me off and got me into the surgery and give me a lab coat and this was in the middle of july of 44 and i was working for him through january 12, 1945. He saved her life. He saved my life. Definitely. Had he not done this i would not have survived because i wouldve been taken to the gas and wouldve had to work outside in the cold or the farm and do you have any idea what he saw new or if it was were you there when you when he needed someone . I said in my book there was a polish medical student was working there and was sentenced to go to auschwitz for one year and he was there for one week and maybe there was some discussion with the doctor and so maybe that was that they needed someone young and maybe that was i will never know. You were 15 years old and in charge of. I was in charge of an operating room and getting people prepared for operations and cleaning and getting instruments was cleaned and i learned fast to polish and sweep and clean and take care of the bloodied sheets for laundering and you know how that operating room has to be rum ron, its a lot of work. They had to be sterilized and it had to be folded and sterilized and the washing instruments for hours or all afternoon of operations and everything had to be sparkled and clean and ive seen a lot the thing was the polish Political Prisoners were not jews but allowed to see one parts [inaudible] this was a difference and i found out after many years after the doctor made that he survived and went back to auschwitz and made a deposition and there was an underground in auschwitz and the doctor was a very big part of this underground. I had no idea what was going on there. I was going to ask you, skipping way ahead, you had no contact with the media immediately after the war but later on you established connections and wanted to ask you about that. Is, yes, he said lets find out your story and i do not want to open that book and early years after i survived i was building a family and the life and i said okay so i remember we found [inaudible] i told her the name of the doctor and that was easy and [inaudible] the following year she came on the bus and came to me with the document and envelope and said do you know this man and Political Prisoners were photographed front, side but not jews they were not photographed. I said maybe you can check on the family and they found the family. One day i had a phone call and he said my name is and i said why are you looking for us and i said well, im just wondering whether you know or are you familiar with the doctor and i said yes, thats my grandfather. We met the family and so when i go there i see them almost every time i am in poland and his granddaughter is a six yearold who is little boy is named max and it is my little boy. [laughter] he says to me max, did you have money to go to canada on votes and they know the story. It is interesting. I know the doctor was in auschwitz because his wife was a dentist and they had a stable [inaudible] these are the things that are happening. People have different point of views and i wanted to ask you, you saw, you know, the best and worst of people and i was going to ask you about this, you talk about how all these trains were crisscrossing europe full of people being taken to their deaths and nobody sabotage them but there was another story that you tell in the book also you are being transported and this is after the war and youve been liberated and there was a remarkable acts of kindness that meant a lot to you. I was hoping you would tell about that. [inaudible] both throwing on the fed bread. That was on the death march. Seventyfive years ago i arrived in auschwitz the 22nd or on the 25th of january and we went to the occupied check of slovakia and we arrived there in the afternoon and i did not know where we were and imagine how many open slot cars were carrying and we were driven by ss units that were patrolling all around and there was no movement we were picked up by american fighter planes and the trains were at the station and everything was blacked out and in the morning it was a wet morning and snow was coming down and there was a commotion behind me and there was an overhead bridge and i look back and see people with people with baskets during bread into the open cars and vss says dont, these are juice. I said my gosh, people still care for us and it gave me some months to go on. These people just kept throwing bread. They didnt stop. They kept going [inaudible] that was really something. Then we arrived in and the train comes to a stop and there was a bridge over a river, big river, it was slow going down the river and i said this is it and this is the end and i cannot figure out why the train did not go across the bridge. The bridge was [inaudible] there were many Railroad Ties missing and people were thong falling through the cracks. They were martin up the hill and it said and we were black from filth and we come to this beautiful town of and there were two, threestory houses and what hit me right away sparkling windows with beautiful drapes. I was just beyond belief and cannot understand and said these people are still living like nothing is wrong. It came from hell and im looking at sparkling windows and i kept thinking if i could get into one of these homes and have a bath i would die happy but then i kept going and three beautifully dressed women [inaudible] the head scarves and rosy cheeks and they were looking and they were monsters walking in the middle of the road. The three young women were pulling their sleds and were not looking the other way, they did not want to see who is walking in the road and there was total rejection. I picked that up right away. This was the height and this was the very low and we keep on going and i see inmates, prisoners, hanging from a cliff hacking away at granite and i said this would be the end. That was a wonderfully with people did. I went to [inaudible] we worked in underground shafts and their i almost bought it and headed terrible case of dysentery and i was so sick that you cant keep any food down and how can you keep on walking and there was a blacksmith and he said eat this coal and thats what i ate for three days and it did the job. I wound up every time we moved from one camp to the other [inaudible] i knew and am not sure how i knew but i wanted to make [inaudible] so, i made it but every time we moved it was a terrible ordeal and i kept thinking how good i had it in schmitz because i had my own bunk and those few months i worked in the hospital so they made this documentary and we finished it [inaudible] we were back there last year and people are living there and it has a Beautiful Hotel and [inaudible] we were there in may and there were snow on the alps and it was American Tank units with the black panther that came to town and most of these were from new jersey and i tell you that was a moment i will never forget. Will you tell us i could listen to talk on nights i will not be a very good timekeeper here but i think we are close t we have another 40 minutes or so . A few hours. [laughter] tell us about that moment. The last everything fell apart three weeks before the liberation day. They locked the camp and threw away the keys and gate did not give us new rations but they shut the water off and we were infested with lice and i was in the lower bunk with a high fever and somebody came in and we were ghosts. We were walking ghosts. Skin and bone. We couldnt lift the feet off the cement floor and they keep mumbling away that the guards were no longer in the tower and i knew that if i dont get out of this bunk i will never make it out and i crawled out over the cadavers and was outside and i am looking and i see guards were empty and i could hear heavy equipment and suddenly they came flying in and it was an American Tank. And. You could tell it was american . I knew it was right away. Herman tanks had the cross, black and white. I remember those soldiers that were in total shock and they were liberated and they liberated but they did not know and this unit went through the army and came through the battle of the bulge and they saw there was an encampment in the mountains and they said [inaudible] [inaudible] they came up and went to the gate and all they saw was bodies and mountains and i could not get up on my feet and these ghosts were coming through the tank and trying to take the shoes of the soldiers and the soldiers tried to get themselves higher but you can only go so far and they did not know these monsters and it was they had to keep going because they had liberated [inaudible] and it was difficult and i know many people were given food after they had a part of stew or something and ate the stew and simply dropped dead, their stomachs were upset because we couldnt keep food and we did not know we were dying from hunger but they gave us food and we had issues with that food. I know on my way back home it took me a month and they made stops in every town and give us a piece of bread and salami and we had to eat it because we figured tomorrow whenever we ate it we were in real trouble. We had to be fed with an eyedropper and so it was a real mess and so we were liberated but you are really not free. The announcement came out and anybody that wanted to go to tickles avaya was leaving and so i was at the gate and i kept thinking where am i going and i knew i had to go because the camp was closing so i arrived home and i was in terrible shape and retaining a lots of water and did not know what was wrong with me but it was not good and the americans found a huge storehouse of corduroy breaches and boots and i had to cut down because my legs were like bats and full of water. The boots i had to cut them to make slippers out of it because i cannot put my feet in. That is the way i arrived home and someone gave me a lift and [inaudible] it was at that place in the year before it was a busy place with three families and i knew when i was a half kilometer away that [inaudible] there was nothing we were sitting in my mothers kitchen and i wanted a glass of water and iran to see and ask her mother why not why would she not she did for me when my mother would have done for me when i came back for my terrible journey. She took me to a hospital and [inaudible] the water line was a peer. It took a while. One neighbor took her house and is in your kitchen and the other neighbor treated you with kindness and she also did a number of other wonderful thing for you. Yes, yes, with this documentary i am back in my town standing right in front of my house and its a scrapyard now and it was a sunday morning and the crew was there with about eight people and a guy comes in a wheelchair down a few houses down the road and he is yelling my name and thats my nickname and everybody said this is most wonderful that someone remembers you and i wasnt very happy to meet anybody, believe me. Anyway, everybody was amazed that he remembered me and my two brothers and my two brothers were called [inaudible] and he remembered the names so we invited him for lunch and i said to him and i said what happened here when we were locked up in the school and we see what happened in my town every jewisn the synagogue they come and they were torched and cut into ribbons and worse. I said what happened then and while we were locked up in the school and that was a terrible time. I said but what happened and he said i remember one lady who was interviewing me on tv and said you ask a question if you dont get an answer you ask once more and then you drop it but i cannot drop it and i said tell me what happened to and what happened to my furniture and those were terrible times. This is now 75 years later and theres not a single jew living in my town. Terrible times. I was going for the answer about the woman saving the photos and i was trying to end on a happy note. She gave me for pictures because my home was ransacked and she saved for pictures and those are truly a treasure and i have for pictures when i came to canada and when i got off the vote in quebec city so i have for pictures and that was a story. I just want to thank you so much. I wish that we had endless time because you obviously i want to ask you so much about your life since the war but now everyone can get the book and read more. I tell you, harpercollins never published published a holocaust story and it took me years to put this book together but i tried everything and in the last three years i had to write because i couldnt type on a computer so i wrote it with a pencil and paper and then i had to declare to my wife and granddaughter and my son and it took over three years and i had a professor from the university who did everything and it took me two years to do this and it was finally done in 2015 in early april and i phoned an editor at harpercollins whom i met years before who came on a mission with me to poland and i said you know, i have my memoirs so can i send them to you and i simply want to know is worth anything and he said i will be back in two weeks and we can find out so what do i know about anything and publishing a book. I pushed a button and it was done and i said and i forgot about it and was getting ready to leave sunday and this was tuesday and two days later i got another email that they wanted to publish my memoirs. I think i almost fell out of the chair. My book was a finalist for an award and this year in canada i think its a very important book in my lifetime and and i get letters from the atlantic to the pacific and i think it was the right book for the right time and we need to be aware of what is happening and you know, we cannot repeat the same mistakes. Students ask me what can we do and i say you need to stand up and say we will not allow you to do this, not in my school, not in our cities, not in our towns, not in our country but this is not a jewish problem, you know. Climax. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] it was once said when you listen to a witness you become a witness. When you listen to a witness you become a witness. Faxed complex of others, we are privileged to hear your stories. All of us here now are your witnesses. We pledge to never forget your story and promised to pass on your story to future generations. We all look forward to your segment on 60 minutes. Our final song the saving is called laid down your arms. In a few days the world will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitzbirkenau which took place on gender 27, 1945. If your skin holocaust survivor or world war ii veteran with the most fervent wish is, the answer is one word, peace. This last song is among the favorite pieces of music students like to sing on the march of the living, a peace song, made in arms. It was written by an israeli soldier in memory of his fallen comrades. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. I say as words written over c2500 for words has spoken to peace levers in every generation. Some of the words read every hand that holds the sword paul abbate. Every heart can learn to love. Lay down your arms and love will someday set as free. Lay down your arms. Dear god, please hear us. Listen to our prayer and help us do thy will upon this earth let the children suffer no more and let a Peaceful World be given birth. Every hand that holds the sword can hold the baby. Every heart can learn to love. Lay down your arms, begin the journey home, and join the human family somewhere deep inside the soldier there is a dreamer, dreaming of a world of peace lay down your arms, met time hell every wound, and love will someday set us free love well someday set us free love will someday set as free love will someday set as free [applause] thank you, aviva rajsky pressuring with the short profoundly human music this evening. To close at this extraordinary evening i would like to invite are exceptionally dedicated president Phyllis Greenberg heideman, president of international march of the living. [applause] good evening to each of you. As he has done to beautifully this evening, in his own words max has shared with countless participants in the march of the living not only his personal story of survival but his belief and understanding of how very vital our commitment to the messages of memory are to the meaning of our lives. For over 20 years march of the living students has had the opportunity to benefit from his gentle demeanor, his intuitive wisdom, and his belief, and our personal responsibility to protect the early chapters in our book of life, even as we strive to preserve a Better Future in the foregoing chapter. Since its inception in 1988, the international march of the living has been devoted to an unwavering mission to educate the next generation on the historical truths of our Jewish Communal past. We see memory as the means to improvement. We seek truth of fundamental to our existence. We feel morally compelled remember the 6 million of our ancestors who so brutally met their death during the holocaus holocaust, and we feel passionately driven to honor and pay tribute to those fortunate enough to survive the atrocities that they face during this most bleak and dark time in jewish and world history. As we approach our 32nd 32nd mh from auschwitz to birkenau, this april, we will be joined once again by 10,000 participants, students, adults, survivors, clergy, law enforcement, professors, educators and World Leaders from 150 communities around this globe. We will stand together against the evils of antisemitism, of hatred, bigotry and prejudice and all their ugly forms and natures. We believe that together we are making a difference that we will remember and we will never forget. In this year of 2020, the year of vision, it is our fervent hope that humanity will strive to see the truth of reality more clearly we are grateful for the vision of our founders who long ago sought to understand our moral obligation to remember the past as we prepare to grasp the future, and pass it onto the next generation. And we are very grateful for the physical fortitude the interstate and the will of max eisen. It is through your words, max, and countless others like you who brace yourself to face unbearable memories, open your hearts and share with us descriptive stories of daily life during your youth, explanation and indepth analyses of the events which shape the lives of so many, and the introspective impact of the lessons of the show law and all the peoples of the world. I am very pleased tonight a map of the board of directors of the international march of the living to publicly thank you, max, for showing us that the will to live can and must remain alive within each of us against all odds and against all evils. You serve as a true role model for our young people, the leaders of tomorrow, the witnesses, for the witnesses. Your resilience is remarkable. Your commitment to memory is inspiring, and your ability to motivate is very enviable. We are fortunate to have you as a torchbearer of memory and truth, and their meaning and their importance, the relevance they have to our own lives. We read and prepare the ethics of the father in chapter two, article, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it. My friend, max, you and the very way he applied your life exemplify that most prophetic ethic. We have the march of living join you in steadfast commitment to memory and education. I pray, i pray deeply our educational journey together will continue for many, many more years to, as together we marched in the common goal of learning from the past, to preserve a Better Future. I would like to take a moment to thank all our distinguished guests for joining us this evening, for our partners in the transmission of memory and each one of you who have seen fit to join us the cd for this very special moment in time. I wish you a rest a pleasant rest of the ev, safe travels home, and i will remind you that our dear max will be signing books in the book Museum Gift Shop at the conclusion of the program. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors of the weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. Heres a look at books being published this week. Look for these titles and bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. Recently i weekly author into program afterwards the American Enterprise institute interviewed former speaker of the house of representatives Newt Gingrich on the threats the u. S. Faces from china. Given your own experience in congress and in american politics, what you think are some of the changes we need to make domestically to make sure that we do have the resources to compete with china . Thats part of what i wrote that chapter that it isnt chinas fault because a lot of what has to be done is not china. When you have six schools in baltimore in which last year not a single student in six schools, not a single student could pass the state math and writing exam, you have a crisis that would be there whether the chinese existed or not. And so we need very dramatic deep reforms in her own system. We need to reform the pentagon. This is a tired bureaucratic structure. I tried remind people, it was rudely built in 1943 so that 23,000 people using carbon paper and manual typewriters could manage a worldwide war. Now we have ipads, smart phones, et cetera. We still 23,000 people. Its maniacal and, of course, it slows and everything down and s everything too expensive. You have huge zones of reform that we need. The chinese currently are mopping up all sorts of International Organizations i basically bribing countries, and they will end up at either being the leader or having picked the leader for an amazing range of International Organizations. We are not even prepared to thinking about a campaign of scale and complexity that were going to need in places like the food and Agricultural Organization or the world health organization. Just go down the list and its astonishing how methodically successfully have been. So i think we are going to have come if we are serious and we are determined to overmatch the chinese, we are going to have to really get our act together. We are going to have to go through some very painful and very profound reforms. Part of the reason i wrote trump versus china was to set the stage for people to have this conversation and to recognize that everything the president is doing which i think its of right general direction, is about 10 of what we need to do it were ultimate going to be capable of competing with china. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website, booktv. Org and search for Newt Gingrich or the title of his book using the box at the top of the page. [inaudible conversations] please welcome Tara Westover in conversation with doctor khoi le. [applause]