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When the Gates of Hell
Open to a Silent Wilderness -
The Anger and Bewilderment of Holocaust Survivors
By Linda Canada, For The Paper Store, Inc., May, 1999
Seven-year old Yaffa Eliach walked out
of
hell alongside his
mother, his father, and his
brother. As they
entered the hometown they had
been forced to
abandon during the bloody regime
of Adolph Hitler,
they knew not what to expect
from their former
neighbors. Taught by the
Holocaust to trust
only in themselves, they
expected no welcome
banners, no smiles of
greeting. What they
did expect was a certain
degree of hostility
and a tangible sense of
disdain as they made
their way from the
darkness of war to the light
of liberation. As
they entered their former
hometown, what they
did not expect was the
twenty four bullets that
came out to greet them. Nine
of the bullets cut
down Yaffa's mother while
fifteen ended the life
of his father. For
young Yaffa and countless
others like him, the gates
of Hell had opened
only to spill the ravaged
survivors of the
Holocaust into a hostile and
silent wilderness
(Chamberlin & Feldman 168).
During
the spring of 1945, celebrations were
held worldwide
marking the liberation of the
Jewish people from
the harsh and brutal
treatment of a
maniacal leader who had managed
in the time of his
reign to "exterminate" a
full one-third of the
Jewish race (Chamberlin &
Feldman 168-69).
These celebrations were held
everywhere, that is,
but the one place where
liberation had the
most impact - within the
ranks of the
survivors of what has come to be
known as the
Holocaust. Underfed, underweight,
and in weak overall
physical condition, the
survivors of the
most horrid treatment of man
against man stumbled
from the concentration
camps and various
dark hiding places into a
world in which they
had no place to go.
In the 1980s, a
conference of survivors and
liberators was held in the United
States.
During this conference, emotional
reunions took
place between liberators and survivors,
and the
victims of this terrible time in
the history of
the world related reactions that
were
experienced at the time of
liberation.
Gratitude to the liberators was
acknowledged,
but also aired at the conference were
lingering
emotions that attested to the fact that
for
most survivors, the Holocaust was not
over upon
liberation, nor is it currently
over for most
of its victims. Myriads of emotions
were
expressed during this conference, emotions
that
touched on faith, endurance, bravery, and
strength of soul. The most predominant emotion,
however, was anger (Chamberlin & Feldman 173).
The time of
liberation was a time of
bewilderment and confusion for
most of the
survivors of the Holocaust. It
was also a time
of great sadness as they
reflected upon their
losses and mourned relatives and
friends who
did not survive the brutalities of
Hitler's
reign. During the conference between
liberators
and survivors, many of these painful
memories
were recalled (Chamberlin &
Feldman 174).
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