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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Video: Surviving the Holocaust: Mordechai Eldar's story

Wednesday night and Thursday are Holocaust Remembrance Day here in Israel. The biggest problem we face regarding the Holocaust today is Holocaust denial. With the survivors dying out year by year, more and more Holocaust deniers are being confronted with less and less human evidence. One of the things that has been done to combat Holocaust denial is the creation of videotaped testimony by survivors, which will outlive them. During the course of Wednesday and Thursday, I am going to embed some of that testimony on this blog so that you can all get an idea of what it looks like and so that you can all learn something. The testimony is accompanied by original pictures and films from the Holocaust period. The first such testimony I am posting is that of Mordechai Eldar.

Mordechai Eldar was born in 1929 in Campulung la Tissa, Transylvania. In April 1944 his family's possessions were confiscated and they were deported to the Saltina ghetto. Deported in May from the ghetto to Auschwitz, Mordechai survived Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Gunskirchen. After the war he tried to immigrate to Palestine with his surviving sisters aboard the Exodus ship but the vessel was immediately forced by the British authorities to return to Hamburg upon arrival in Haifa. Emerging from the Holocaust a Zionist, Mordechai decided to devote his life to ensuring the national security of the State of Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces for 30 years, achieving the rank of lieutenant general.

Let's go to the videotape.

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