Forty Years After Warsaw

In Washington, Holocaust survivors gather and remember

Betty Wygodska, 61, stood impatiently in line as she waited her turn at the microphone on the small stage in the middle of the capital's cavernous Convention Center. A babel of Polish, German, Hungarian and heavily accented English surrounded her as hundreds of middle-aged and elderly men and women milled about the hall. Finally, when she got her chance to speak, she simply announced her name and then, to identify herself further, rattled off nervously the names of the three Nazi concentration camps she was sent to after the Gestapo arrested her in 1943 in Warsaw.

Suddenly, as Wygodska stepped away from the microphone, a plump, blond woman began elbowing her way up onto the stage and touched her shoulder. Wygodska turned and the two women shrieked with joy, embracing in recognition as tears streamed down their faces. It was the first time since the day of liberation in May 1945 that Wygodska had seen Zosia Piekorska, 55, one of her closest friends during the two years they spent to gether in concentration camps in Poland. Recalled Piekorska, now from Richmond, Va.: "We suffered together, we were hungry together. We were hoping together." Said Wygodska, now from New York City: "We came out barely alive. And now look at us. They say a cat has nine lives, but a human being has more than one life too."

It was a scene to be enacted again and again last week. Scores of other survivors renewed memories and acquaintances during the three-day American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Washington. An area called "survivors village" was cordoned off in the convention building as a rendezvous center. Notes with names, towns and concentration camps were tacked on bulletin boards. A computer sorted out names and dates to allow survivors to make identifications and connections. And people even wore personalized T shirts and signs like SUSSKIND FROM RZESZOW, POLAND in an effort to make contact with long-lost friends or relatives.

Scheduled 40 years after the Warsaw ghetto uprising--and a follow-up to the first world gathering of some 4,000 survivors and their children in Israel two years ago--the Washington meeting attracted some 12,000 American and Canadian survivors. Last week's meeting also marked the creation of a U.S. Holocaust memorial museum that will be financed by a $75 million fund-raising drive. The Government has donated two buildings near the Mall that will serve as the museum's center.

The aging survivors at the meeting felt an urgent responsibility to keep the memory of their horrors alive by educating the younger generation about the Holocaust. Says Menachem Rosensaft, 34, chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors: "As the children of survivors, we have a special obligation to make sure this doesn't happen again. And one thing is clear: having happened, it can happen again."

In his speech to the survivors, President Reagan spoke directly to that fear: "As President of a people you are now so much a part of, I promise you that the security of your safe havens, here and in Israel, will never be compromised." Some in the audience wept at the President's words, just as they shed tears about the past during the week's formal ceremonies and fervent informal reunions. Said Author Elie Wiesel, chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council: "The survivors wanted to meet to prove they are alive." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.