Interview with Holocaust survivors.
Position | Jack and Ina Polak - Interview |
JACK and INA POLAK, authors of the best-selling book "Steel a Pencil for Me", are Holocaust survivors, whose romance took place at the Westerbork transit camp in Holland, where Jack pursued Ina in earnest through an exchange of love letters that continued until after their liberation in 1945. They are active at the Anne Frank Center and the Westchester Holocaust Educational Center (both in the United States) that Mr. Polak co-founded, through which they lecture at numerous conferences and schools all around the country, recounting their amazing story and the horrors of the Holocaust. The Anne Frank Center promotes the universal message of tolerance by developing and disseminating a variety of educational programmes. The Polaks are celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary in 2006.
Avital Weill spoke with Jack and Ina Polak at UN Headquarters in New York on 27 January, which was designated by the General Assembly as an annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
What do you think is the role of the United Nations in preventing another holocaust?
Mr. Polak: Good question, but almost impossible to answer. What we should do is strive for a better world, as it can be a horrible and cruel place. The Holocaust was unbelievable; one cannot compare it with the situation today. There are places in the world today with so much misery, hate and bloodshed, such as in Africa, Iraq and Iran, where there is a potential for another holocaust. It is sad that after sixty years we still need to worry about this-that is why what the United Nations is doing in this respect is very important.
The Holocaust must be taught as an important lesson in history, since by remembering its horrors it will teach us how to avoid one in the future. And the only way to achieve this is through the United Nations, which was created in order to make a better world. The UN is working towards this goal by designating 27 January as the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust and by organizing ceremonies like today, when we also celebrate the liberation of Auschwitz, by having six Holocaust survivors light candles, each hoping that it is the beginning of a better world.
Before the Second World War, you lived in Amsterdam, the largest city in the Netherlands, where approximately 75,000 Jews resided. Can you describe the Jewish life back then?
Mr. Polak: Jewish orthodoxy was completely different then. Jews did not...
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