Address by Ruth Elias on behalf of the survivors

I am a Holocaust survivor – I survived.  My family: my father, mother, sister, uncles and aunts did not return.

I was left totally alone.

Today I am a happy grandmother.  My husband and I have two sons, and six grandchildren, two of whom serve in IDF combat units.  This family forms the basis of the new generation that ensures the renewal and continuity of the family that was utterly annihilated in the Holocaust.

Today, like many other survivors, I tell my story in schools, army bases, and anywhere else people are willing to listen.  In this way, we witnesses are partners in Yad Vashem’s mission of commemoration and education for the generations to come, so that the story of the Holocaust will serve as a warning for the future, particularly in the face of Holocaust denial and the growing wave of antisemitism around the world.

Despite the difficulties involved, we survivors also accompany IDF and youth delegations to the camps, where six million people were murdered by the Nazi killing machine. 

This is our role, as the last generation of Holocaust survivors.  We are the last people who can relate, first-hand, what took place in the camps - the terrible deeds of the SS: the selections, which determined life or death with a wave of the hand; the electrified fences and the many prisoners who used them to end their lives because they couldn’t suffer anymore; the smell of gas in Birkenau; the ripping of children from their parents’ arms, the separation of parents and children, husbands and wives; the future, which seemed so very far away.  Only we can tell you.

The State of Israel was established about three years after the liberation of the camps. Israel is the true homeland of the Jewish people, and it is the duty of every one of us to watch over our homeland, even in these difficult times.

History has taught us that we have no other home, and no other homeland.