"Why did I survive? I question that myself. I was in second grade before the war and out of 30 classmates, only two of us survived. Why am I so special? I don't know the answer. I believe in God and I'm still here. To all survivors, I say be happy."

"I realized it was a selection [Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp] to kill us. I used to put sand in my shoes to make myself [appear] a little taller. Mengele came to me and asked, 'How old are you?' I said, 'I'm 14'. He said, 'You're a liar', and took his gloves and hit me over the face."

"He told me to drop my pants and my shirt and told me to turn around. He than asked, 'How come you're so dark?' I said, 'I only have one shirt. When it's a hot day the sun is out. I want to preserve that shirt, so I remove it and this is how I got a suntan'."

"I don't know if he liked my suntan, or if he liked my answer. I have no idea. He just passed me by and took the guy next to me to be killed."

91-year-old Holocaust survivor, Dr. Arnold Clevs

“To all survivors, I say, be happy,” says Holocaust survivor Dr. Arnold Clevs, left, with Zikaron BaSalon host Eylon Levy. Photo by Aviva Engel

 

Dr. Clevs was eight years of age when he, his parents and six-year-old sister were forced to relocate to the ghetto in their town in Lithuania. The family employed a live-in housekeeper, a young Lithuanian women who Dr. Clevs described as having grown up with the Clevs children. One day she appeared with a Lithuanian collaborator who came into the house and selected whatever was there that appealed to him. The young woman accommodated her companion. Dr. Clev's mother asked of her 'Could you bring us some bread?'. But they never saw her again.

There are approximately 149,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel. Among them many were children, or babies born during the war. Monday will see the commemorative arrival of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this occasion, a ritual ensued where survivors and others seeking to honour the millions of Jewish children, men and woman who perished as a result of Nazi Germany's institutionalized killing apparatus visit the death camps, a solemn occasion to look back while simultaneously looking forward.

Although 80 years have passed, the memory of those whose lives were extinguished burns bright in the hearts, minds and souls of the survivors. Memorial candles will be lit in millions of Jewish homes, in memory of those who died so prematurely because they were Jews. On October 7 of 2023, some of those Holocaust survivors experienced a scenario reminiscent of what they had lived through generations earlier when the terrorist group Hamas that governs Gaza flooded into Israel to torture, murder and kidnap civilian Israelis.

A group called Zikaron BaSalon meaning Remembrance in the Living Room dedicated to helping Holocaust survivors in their adjustment to normal life, spring into action when incidents occur that overwhelm the survivors with past memories leading to uncertainties and re-emergence of the trauma they suffered. The group knew that in the follow-up to October 7 they would be needed to help heal more recent wounds as Israelis mourned their dead and were tormented about the fate of the hostages, among them their loved ones; children, the elderly, women and men.

"When the war broke out, we realized that we were not dealing with the typical scenarios that the country is used to -- this was something different. The first group that needed our attention were the survivors, whom we knew would not only be fearful, but likely also reliving their childhood traumas. I spoke to a 93-year-old-survivor who said, 'Get me a uniform and a weapon and I'm going in'. But for the most part, Holocaust survivors were really, really traumatized like the rest of us by what they were seeing."

"These Holocaust survivors have endured the absolute worst of humanity, yet they have rebuilt their lives, created families, communities and businesses, and contributed to the establishment of the State of Israel."

Sharon Buenos, global director, Zikaron BaSalon

The immediate action undertaken was to establish an emergency call centre offering emotional support and assistance with food, shelter, medication and transportation to medical appointments for the Israelis who were left homeless after October 7, evacuated from the southern Israel area, from the towns and kibbutzim where their homes were destroyed their belongings looted, their friends murdered. The displaced Israelis were in a state of shock, particularly the children, some of whom had witnessed unbelievable savagery and loss.

Survivors of the Nova music festival and children from the regions across the border from Gaza, attacked on October 7, were connected by Zikaron BaSalon with Holocaust survivors for mentoring and a unique type of emotional assurances. A living room was set up at the Dan Acadia Herzliya Hotel for child evacuees of a community on the Gaza border that suffered agonizing casualties. Currently living at the hotel with their families, the children interacted with Holocaust survivor Hannah Gofrit who at the age of four until she was ten suffered under the Nazis.

Dr. Clevs spent two years in 11 different slave labour and concentration camps. After liberation, he was reunited with his mother and sister. He raised a family in Chicago where he practised dentistry, and eventually moved to Israel. A fellow survivor who had been in Auschwitz-Birkenau with Dr. Clevs as a 16-year-old, now living in Sderot, southern Israel, is 97.  Asked how he managed, living in a town with missiles arriving sporadically, he responded: 'It's a hell of a lot better than Birkenau'.

Crowd of thousands gathers in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square to hear testimonies from Holocaust survivors and hostage families on May 5, 2024, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)

"[We have received dozens of calls from people all over the world wanting to adopt baby Aya]."

"I won't allow anyone to adopt her now. Until her distant family return, I'm treating her like one of my own."

Hospital Manager, Khalid Attiah

 

"The rescuers can end up being victims too because of how unstable the building is."

"We just pulled three bodies out of this rubble and we think there is a family in there that is still alive - we will keep on working."

Mohammed al-Kamel, White Helmets rescue group, Jindayris, Syria

Rescuers from the White Helmets organisation, who are all too familiar with pulling people out of the rubble for over a decade during Syria's civil war, have been helping in Jindayris.Getty Images

 

 A newborn child, umbilical cord still attached to her dead mother, was found alive by members of the Syrian rescue group White Helmets and taken to hospital for care. "She arrived on Monday in such a bad state, she had bumps, bruises, she was cold and barely breathing", the paediatrician looking after her, Hani Marouf explained. In other circumstances, baby Aya would have four siblings to play with and grow up with. All four perished along with their mother and father. When the earthquake struck Aya's mother went into labour and gave birth; she may never even have seen her baby daughter before dying.

A lot of publicity surrounded this child; the video of her rescue was posted to social media resulting in a response from people all over the world, offering help, many wanting to adopt the child whose name in Arabic means "a sign from God". One of the nurses at the hospital treating the baby aroused suspicion when he was seen photographing the tiny girl.The hospital manager whose wife was breastfeeding Aya thought the male nurse might be planning to abduct the baby, so he fired the nurse.

Before long the nurse returned along with two thugs with guns who set about beating the hospital director. The gunmen informed local police officers they intended to punish the hospital director for firing their friend, with no interest in kidnapping the baby. False claims of being relatives to the baby have been made by people showing up at the hospital, indicating a need for a police guard. In fact, a close relative, her great-uncle has stated that the baby's paternal aunt plans to raise the baby together with her own she recently gave birth to.

 

Getty Images

 

Ten hours after the February 6 quake struck, rescue workers in Jindera in Syria's north discovered the baby while digging through the rubble of a five-storey apartment building where her parents lived. She has been cared for at the hospital in Afrin ever since. Dozens of housing units in the town of Jinderis were destroyed. Her father, originally from a village in eastern Deir el Zour province, left it when the village was captured by the Islamic State group.

Many of the towns and cities where millions lived were reduced to fragments of concrete and twisted metal following the initial quake, another almost as strong, and a series of tremors striking southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. Over a week following the disaster hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and struggling to find the basics required to sustain life; shelter, warmth, food, water, medical attention. The brutal winter weather itself represents a danger to sustained life for the survivors.

 

Moving aid into the large area impacted by the tremblors in Syria is hampered by the difficulty in access to crossings into the area as a result of the 12-year civil war where millions of Syrian Sunnis fled to escape the assaults by the Syrian regime's military. Aid agencies have found it difficult to deliver life-saving winter clothing, food and potable water. The Turkish military is still bombing Kurds nearby the disaster zone in Syria. There are warring factions nearby, including Islamic State.

 

People desperate for aid in Syria in difficult-to-reach areas still have received nothing. In Turkey survivors have been put up temporarily in rail cars. In northwest Syria, 190 families sleep on the floor of a basketball court in Afrin, lying on mats used for training. Children are wrapped in blankets and sleep on the court floor, some of them becoming ill from conditions of privation. Local officials are awaiting the delivery of tents.

 

The United Nations reached an agreement with Damascus to deliver aid through two more border crossings from Turkey to rebel-held areas of northwest Syria. A $397 million appeal for "desperately needed, life-saving relief for nearly 5 million Syrians" for three months has been launched by the United Nations. 

People walk past collapsed buildings on Thursday in the town of Jinderis, in Syria's Aleppo province, days after a massive earthquake devastated the region. Ghaith Alsayed/AP

 

 

The Sheer Scale and Scope Of It

We're going away, but we have no idea what will happen when we get there."

"We have no goal. Even if there was a plan what good will it be after this hour?"

"I no longer have my father or my uncle. What do I have left?"

Musa Bozkurt, 25, Adiyaman, Turkey

"Those who have the means are leaving, but we're poor."

"The government says, go and live there a month or two."

"How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how do I leave it behind?"

Fuat Ekinei, 55, farmer, Adiyaman, Turkey

"Everyone's saying they're not in charge. We can't find who's in charge."

"I've been begging and begging for just one crane to lift the concrete ..."

"Time's running out. A crane, for God's sake."

Keyser, Antakya, Turkey

People search for survivors beneath the rubble in Diyarbakir, Turkey. February 6 2023. EPA-EFE/Refik Tekin

 

The woman who gives her name as Keyser in Antakya is desperate, but there is no one to help. Through "the stench of dead bodies waft[ing] through the cold, dusty air", her two sons, trapped below the rubble of their collapsed apartment building could be heard crying for rescue. She tried for two days to approach anyone with a vestige of authority to help rescue her children. In the end she failed. There was no one available, no emergency response leader she could make contact with, to order her sons' rescue.

A day later, neighbours reported that there were no more survivors pulled from the building's wreckage. "The general problem here is of organization, especially in the field of health", observed Onur Naci Karahanci, a doctor working out of Turkey's southeastern city of Adiyaman. There were not even enough body bags for the dead, an acute shortage in the first two days following the two earthquakes.

 

Collapsed buildings in Armanāz, Syria. EPA-EFE/Yahya Nemah

 

The trembling of the earth collapsed thousands of buildings in countless towns and cities, leaving rubble under which were thousands of people, a scant handful of whom were rescued. Antakya in particular, known historically as Antioch, the capital of Hatay province. The damage realized in Turkey was estimated by the Turksh Enterprise and Business Confederation at $84.1 billion. Human life was destroyed to a total of 30,000 in Turkey alone.

Rescue teams flew in from various countries, both near Turkey and Syria, and from parts distant. Astonishing stories of survival and rescue have surprised and encouraged rescue teams, but the total, still growing, and standing at 36,000 dead is a grim reminder of the force and extent of the catastrophic natural disaster. On one occasion, a father with a child in his arms was rescued, in another a baby with its mother's hair clutched in its fist; a newborn; a 13-year-old boy saved a week after being buried alive

 

Over 150,000 survivors have been moved to shelters outside the affected provinces, according to Turkish authorities. Turkey is now a country that has been markedly changed, where the massive earthquakes cut a slash through the landscape shifting roads, bending and breaking rail lines, smashing buildings to the ground. There are now new canyons across the East Anatolian Fault running through southern Turkey and northern Syria.

 

The window for finding survivors is fading. Rescue work moving vast tonnages of steel and concrete to find anyone still alive is now turning to the need to complete the work of destroying unsafe buildings partially destroyed. The work of the moving tectonic plates; where the fault line that slipped to cause the quakes -- the East Anatolian between Turkeys Anatolian Plate and the Arabian Plate -- moving northward created a double disaster.

Turkey's geologic crust was altered in a few seconds when the plates slipped side to side leaving rail lines bent into S-curves, roads laterally split. Where an olive grove in Altinozu split in two leaving a 200-metre-wide rocky chasm between trees growing in neat rows, once side-by-side.

Arabia is bumping into Eurasia and pushing Anatolia westwards … or to non-earth scientists, Syria is bumping into Europe and squeezing out Turkey. Mikenorton/Nasa/wiki, CC BY-SA

"I couldn't shake the feeling that I had potentially walked past a photo of a family member without even knowing it."

"I'm the grandson of Holocaust survivors, all from Poland."

Danial Patt, Google employee, creator of website N2N (From Numbers to Names)

An engineer has created software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify anonymous Holocaust victims in World War II photos.  Photo EPA

"She believed [Geddy Lee's grandmother] that if they [her family] were all going to perish, they would perish together, and if they were all going to survive, they would survive together."

Geddy Lee, Rush rocker

Privacy rights activists, academics specializing in ethics concerns and human rights and specialists involved in the technology industry have all expressed concerns over artificial intelligence and face recognition technology and with good reason. Beijing for example, gives ample reason for unease over its broad, universal use of face recognition to keep tabs on its citizens and to gain information on their political orientation and activities deemed to be injurious to state interests. 

But like any technological breakthroughs and scientific discoveries there are positive applications and there is the potential for negative use of new knowledge. And while Beijing uses face recognition to keep its population in line with its state-ideological oversight, a new application for facial recognition has been pioneered by a Google software engineer, Danial Patt, who was inspired to create the website From Numbers to Names. Here, the facial recognition facility is powered by AI analyzing photographs of Holocaust survivors to match them with headshots provided by website users.

"We reached out to Geddy Lee, from Rush, with a photo we thought was of his mother. He was able to confirm this was indeed a photo of her at the displaced persons camp at Bergen-Belsen."

"Geddy was then able to subsequently discover photos of his grandmother, uncles, an aunt and other extended family by browsing the Yad Vashem [Israel] collection where the initial photo came from."

Daniel Patt, creator of N2N

Geddy Lee's mother, Mary Weinrib, survived Auschwitz, as a Holocaust survivor, and arrived as a refugee with her husband Morris Weinrib to Canada in 1946. She spoke of her Auschwitz experiences with her children, according to Lee. When a photo was discovered showing Mary Weinrib at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in northwestern Germany Danial Patt contacted Lee. 

 

Born in Warsaw in 1925, Manya (Malka) Rubinstein who later became Mary Weinrib at marriage, was sent with her family to a labour camp in Starachowice, then later relocated to Auschwitz, and finally Bergen-Belsen, somehow surviving her ordeal. On a visit to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Patt was inspired to work on a project in his spare time with his personal resources, that would eventually become the Numbers to Names website.

 

There is now a team of engineers and researchers working on the project with Patt who aspires to partner with museums, schools, research institutions and other groups to raise awareness of the Holocaust. The website can be freely accessed and has analyzed over 500,000 photographs with roughly two million faces. The hope is that eventually 700,000 additional photos dating before and during the Holocaust will be accessed.

 

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) uses the technology now. Its immense collection of a database exceeding 270,000 registered survivors with over 85,000 historical photographs represents an asset allowing the museum to access another one million photographs. The one constraining issue to completely identifying the vast number of people who passed through the gates of Hell in the Final Solution, is ebbing time. 

Currently there is no single list identifying the victims and survivors of the Holocaust (Picture: EPA/www.auschwitz.org)

"[There is so much interest in the N2N website] there is a backlog of potential identifications we're manually going through now."

"We have been developing the project over the course of evenings and weekends over many months. There's an urgency to this effort as the last remaining survivors pass, and there are many connections that could still be made."

“We simply show results, with similarity scores, and let individuals decide whether the results contain a positive identification,”

"We hope that N2N can help build those connections while the survivors are still with us."

Danial Patt, creator of N2N

Patt says that his team makes no software-based assertions about the accuracy of the identification, leaving that judgment to the people using the site.  Peta Pixel