Letter of Appreciation to Elie Wiesel Regarding Eichmann Trial Anniversary Panel

A letter from Michael Zank, Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University, to Elie Wiesel, dated September 18, 2014. Zank expresses regret that Wiesel had to cancel a conversation with Alan Dershowitz but confirms that a reception is still planned in Wiesel's honor and suggests he participate via Skype or a written statement. The letter mentions the official release of a book titled "Take a Teacher, Make a Friend" for Wiesel's 85th birthday, and that Pam and Jonathan Taub are donating a bust of Wiesel by Marc Mellon. Zank also discusses a seven-million dollar fundraising initiative for a distinguished visiting professorship in Jewish Thought and Literature, seeking Wiesel's and Marion's approval and asking for help from friends. He notes that many of Wiesel's former students will attend the reception, and he will speak about Wiesel's nearly forty years as a teacher at BU. Zank expresses a desire for Elie and Marion to attend, offering to send a car, and emphasizes the intention to ensure Boston University and Elie Wiesel remain connected.

Ari Fuhrman was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina, Romania. His father was a tailor. After living briefly in Vienna, the family returned to Czernowitz instead of going to Palestine. He talks about his family’s life, religious observance, his education, Communist and Zionist movements, and the cultural life of Jews in Czernowitz. He was apprenticed as a dental mechanic in 1938. Germany invaded Czernowitz together with the Romanian army after a brief Russian occupation. Massacres of Jews began and a ghetto was established until most Jews had been deported. Ari, and 80 family members were deported to Transnistria in October 1941 by sealed train. He graphically describes the transport, how Romanians brutalized and robbed the deportees. Some Jews, including his family, managed to escape during a stop in Mogilev. Ari and his family could live and work in the Mogilev ghetto because he was classified as a “useful Jew”. He describes cultural activities, religious observance, illness, starvation, and strategies his family used to survive. In 1943 the Jewish Federation of Bucharest tried to rescue Jewish orphans and the American Joint Distribution Committee sent aid. Kapos (Jewish Police) had to provide a certain number of Jews each day for transports. He describes conditions just before and after liberation by the Russians, when partisans briefly controlled the area. He was reunited with his parents in Czernowitz until, as part of an exchange between Russia and Romania, Ari went to Timisoara, Romania, in 1946. He stayed for 11 years, worked as a dentist, and joined Mishmar, a Zionist organization. He registered to go to Palestine but did not receive permission to leave until 1959. He joined the State Theater of Bucharest and later the TeatronHaolim (Theatre of the Newcomers) in Israel. He was reunited with his parents after emigrating to the United States in 1960. Testimony of his wife, Chayale Ash-Fuhrman, a prominent Yiddish actress, is also in the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive collection.

Anatole Gorko was born in Lodz, Poland on June 28, 1907 of well-to-do Zionists. He worked in his father’s spinning factory until 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. He fought in the Polish Army for three weeks. After being in the Reserves, he was taken to a prisoner of war camp for a few weeks. He found himself with his family in the center of the Lodz Ghetto in January 1940 and describes the life there. He worked as head cashier for the ghetto stores until August 1944. He and his family including his wife and child were finally deported to Auschwitz, in cattle cars, where, in the presence of Mengele, only he and his brother-in-law were selected for work and the rest of the family perished. He describes the train ride, arrival, selection, and shaving. He remained there for one month, then pretended to be a mechanic and was selected for a camp in Sudeten where after two weeks of training he worked on V2 rockets. Here he managed to sabotage, and persuade other workers, including German mechanics, to sabotage the work. He worked there from September 1944 until May 1945 when the Russians liberated the area. He made his way back to Lodz where he remarried, became head of the textile production for Communist Poland, but decided to leave. He smuggled himself and his wife to Munich, and waited from 1946 to 1948 to obtain necessary papers to resettle in the United States. He describes in some detail his adjustment to the United States.

Malvina Lebovic, née Kleinberger, was born in 1920 in Kalnik (Kal'nyk), near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. She was the oldest of nine children. Her father was a butcher, the family was very poor and life was difficult. Her father organized a school for Jewish children because of antisemitism in school. In 1934 the family moved to Karlovy (Karlsbad) hoping for a better life. In 1938, after the Anschluss of Austria they moved back to Kalnik but shortly thereafter the area was occupied by Hungary. Mrs. Lebovic describes that Jews started to be persecuted, her father and brother were taken to labor camps, Jews were frequently beaten and food was scarce. When Germany occupied Hungary, all the Jews were deported to Auschwitz in cattle cars. Mrs. Lebovic describes conditions during the journey and arrival at Auschwitz. Her mother and younger brother were immediately taken to the gas chambers, she and two sisters to barracks. Later, in a group of 2,000, they were transferred first to Stutthof and then to Baumgart for hard labor. They lived in tents and slept on straw. Only 200 of the 2,000 survived. All three sisters contracted typhus shortly before liberation by the Russians in March 1945. They returned to Kalnik, married and eventually made their way to Israel. After her daughter contracted polio they came to the United States for medical treatment and remained there. See also testimony of her husband, David Lebovic.

Marion P. Pritchard writes to Elie Wiesel, requesting a brief message from him for the people of Vermont. Pritchard explains that she was introduced to Wiesel at the "Faith in Humankind" Conference and has since dedicated herself to teaching and remembering the Holocaust. She details plans for an upcoming statewide, all-day workshop for teachers in April and an official commemoration ceremony at the State House on April 29th, where the Governor of Vermont will participate, and Pritchard herself is scheduled to speak. She asks Wiesel if he would be willing to provide a one or two-sentence message to be read as an introduction to her talk. Pritchard also mentions that they are not funded and lack an office, requesting that any message be mailed to her residential address.