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Banneling
Geregistreerd: 8 mei 2007
Berichten: 517
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absurd - absurder....
ongelooflijk, de verhalen van "overlevenden" worden alsmaar absurder
deze had ik nog niet gehoord
8jaar 3000mijl tevoet door vijandig gebied en ge-adopteerd door wolven roflol
Citaat:
Horror among humans, sanctuary with wolves
A Holocaust survivor speaks out after 50 years
By Manuela Da Costa-Fernandes, Standard-Times staff writer
DARTMOUTH -- Whenever silver-haired Misha Defonseca, a 64-year-old Holocaust survivor, sees a dead squirrel in the road, she does not avert her gaze and drive on. She stops her car.
Respectfully, she moves the animal's body to the side of the road because animal corpses still remind her of the Holocaust.
They remind her of the children's corpses she saw -- the exposed entrails, the dislocated joints, the exposed skeletons, stomachs and protruding bones.
"It was abominable and indescribable. I will never forget this in me," she said, recalling the living nightmares that she endured.
"I will never be able to part with the bloody memory of what I lived through."
Captivated, a capacity audience listened quietly to Ms. Defonseca recall the horrors of the Holocaust, and, ultimately, her odyssey of survival, at UMass Dartmouth on Monday evening.
Ms. Defonseca was promoting her book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust," which will be published in April. She spoke for an hour and answered questions from the audience. The program was sponsored by the university's Boivin Center for French Culture.
Describing not only an extraordinary journey of miles, Ms. Defonseca also delivered an uplifting eulogy on the Holocaust.
Wearing Benjamin Franklin glasses, a red tunic and a brown corduroy trouser suit, Ms. Defonseca visually dazzled the audience, frequently switching between English and French, and sprinkling the occasional Portuguese and German phrase throughout.
Despite her sophisticated appearance of shining silver rings, pearly white nail polish and necklace of polished stone in an animal shape, she confessed she is not a "fancy lady."
"The real me still sleeps in the woods with my furry friends. I have buried my past life for 50 years," she said, speaking with a strong French accent.
As an 8-year-old child, she said, she walked for four years, across 3,000 miles, from Belgium through eight Nazi-occupied countries in search of her parents, and along the way was befriended by wolves.
In 1941, when Misha was 7, her parents, Belgian Jews, were arrested and she was hidden in a "safe home." But when she overheard her stepmother planning to turn her over to the Germans, she ran away.
Hiding in forests, she said, she survived by stealing from farm kitchens, pilfering crops in fields, and eating wild plants. In the course of her travels, she lived with a pack of wolves, she said.
She told of being captured by partisans, trapped in the infamous Warsaw ghetto, and being forced to knife a Nazi soldier to death in self-defense after she witnessed him rape and shoot a young girl.
Although she never found her parents, she survived the Holocaust because she shunned humans and played mute, and embraced her furry friends.
As she saw humanity crumble around her, she said, she found solace, a superior ability to find food, and a tender, enveloping warmth in the company of wolves. And it was the start of a great love.
Eventually, she said, she was accepted into the wolf community and the "mummy wolf" replaced her lost mother. If she straggled behind the pack, the mummy wolf would cautiously watch her.
"I was human only in appearance. I had become a wolf and a pup. ... With them, I forgot the horrors of the war," she said, her voice softly trailing as she spoke.
Rejected by mainstream society after the war because she '"stank like a dog" and was too wild, she worked in a convent. Eventually, attracted by the wide spaces Africa offered, she left Europe to become a teacher.
However, she was unable to easily escape how she was hardened by the suffering she witnessed during the Holocaust.
She lost her first child in childbirth. Her body had become so accustomed to excruciating pain, she said, that she delivered her child herself, only to lose the baby.
Ms. Defonseca emigrated to the United States in 1988 and lives with her husband of 28 years and a menagerie of animals: 12 cats, three dogs and 17 wolves nearby, in a suburb one hour from Boston.
She said she suppressed her memories for years, until a journalist encouraged her to write a book after she made a video on animals. When the publisher she found, Mt. Ivy Press, said she could dedicate the book to one of her dogs, that clinched her decision to write about her experiences.
Although she says she will never be able to part with the memory of what she lived through, she pins her hopes for humanity on the youth, especially the young people of this "wonderful and prestigious university.
"It's hope that makes you walk and hope that brought me to walk to you today," she said, tilting her head proudly and staring at the audience.
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Photo by Ron Rolo
Misha Defonseca says she was adopted by a pack of wolves when as an 8 year old child she evades the Nazis
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31 juli 2007, 14:15
