HAIFA, Israel (AP) 鈥 Naftali F眉rst will never forget his first view of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, on Nov. 3, 1944. He was 12 years old.
SS soldiers threw open the doors of the cattle car, where he was crammed in with his mother, father, brother, and more than 80 others. He remembers the tall chimneys of the crematoria, flames roaring from the top.
There were dogs and officers yelling in German 鈥済et out, get out!鈥 forcing people to jump onto the infamous ramp where Nazi doctor Josef Mengele separated children from parents.
F眉rst, now 92, is one of a able to share first-person accounts of the horrors they endured, as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis鈥 most notorious death camp. F眉rst is returning to Auschwitz for the occasion, his fourth trip to the camp.
Each time he returns, he thinks of those first moments there.
鈥淲e knew we were going to certain death,鈥 he said from his home in Haifa, northern Israel, earlier this month. 鈥淚n Slovakia, we knew that people who went to Poland didn鈥檛 return.鈥
Strokes of luck
F眉rst and his family arrived at the entrance to Auschwitz on Nov. 3, 1944 -鈥 one day after Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the cessation of the use of the gas chambers ahead of their demolition, as the Soviet troops neared. The order meant that his family wasn鈥檛 immediately killed. It was one of many small bits of luck and coincidences that allowed F眉rst to survive.
鈥淔or 60 years, I didn鈥檛 talk about the Holocaust, for 60 years I didn鈥檛 speak a word of German even though it鈥檚 my mother tongue,鈥 said F眉rst.
In 2005, he was invited to attend the ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald, where he was liberated on April 11, 1945, after being moved there from Auschwitz. He realized there were fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors who could give first-person accounts, and decided to throw himself into memorial work. This will be his fourth trip to a ceremony at Auschwitz, having also met Pope Francis there in 2016.
Some 6 million European Jews were 鈥 the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II. Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 27, 1945, and the day has become known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Just 220,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and more than 20 percent are over 90.
A meeting place after the war
F眉rst, originally from Bratislava, then part of Czechoslovakia, was just 6 when the Nazis first started implementing measures against the country鈥檚 Jews.
He spent ages 9 to 12 in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. His parents had planned to jump off of the cattle car on the way to the camp, but people were packed so tightly they couldn鈥檛 reach the doors.
His father instructed the entire family, no matter what, to meet at 11 艩ulekova Street in Bratislava after the war. F眉rst and his brother were separated from their mother. After numbers were tattooed on their arms, they also were taken from their father. They lived in Block 29, without many other children. As the Soviet army closed in on the area, so close they could hear the booms from the tanks, F眉rst and his brother, Shmuel, were forced to join a dangerous journey toward Buchenwald, marching for three days in the cold and snow. Anyone who lagged behind was shot.
鈥淲e had to prove our desire to live, to do another step and another step and keep going,鈥 he said. Many people gave up, longing to end the hunger and thirst and cold, and just sat down, where they were shot by the guards.
鈥淲e had this command from my father: 鈥榊ou must adapt and survive, and even if you鈥檙e suffering, you must come back,鈥欌 F眉rst recalled.
F眉rst and his brother survived the march, and an open-car train ride in the snow, but they were separated at the next camp. When F眉rst was liberated from Buchenwald, captured in a famous photo that included Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in the bunkbeds, he was sure he was alone in the world.
But within months, just as F眉rst's father had instructed, the four family members reunited at the address they memorized, the home of family friends. The rest of their family 鈥- grandparents, aunts, uncles 鈥 were all killed. His family later moved to Israel, where he married, had a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with another on the way.
鈥榃e couldn鈥檛 imagine this tragedy'
On Oct. 7, 2023, F眉rst awoke to the Hamas attack on southern Israel, and immediately thought of his granddaughter, Mika Peleg, and her husband, and their 2-year-old son, who live in , a kibbutz on the border with Gaza where scores of people were killed or kidnapped.
鈥淚t just kept getting worse all day, we couldn鈥檛 get any information what was happening with them,鈥 said F眉rst. 鈥淲e saw the horrors, that we couldn鈥檛 imagine this type of horror is happening in 2023, 80 years after the Holocaust.鈥
Toward midnight on Oct. 7, Peleg鈥檚 neighbors sent word that the family had survived. They spent almost 20 hours locked inside their safe room with no food or ability to communicate. Her husband鈥檚 parents, who both lived on Kfar Aza, were killed.
Despite his close connection, comparisons between Oct. 7 and the Holocaust make F眉rst uncomfortable.
鈥淚t鈥檚 awful and terrible and a catastrophe, and hard to describe, but it鈥檚 not a Holocaust,鈥 he said. As awful as the Hamas attack was for his granddaughter and others, the Holocaust was a multi-year 鈥渄eath industry鈥 with massive infrastructure and camps that could kill 10,000 people a day for months at a time, he said.
F眉rst, who was previously involved in coexistence work between Jews and Arabs, said his heart also goes out to Palestinians in Gaza, although he believes Israel needed to respond militarily. 鈥淚 feel the pain of everyone who is suffering, everywhere in the world, because I think I know what suffering is,鈥 he said.
F眉rst knows that he is one of very few Holocaust survivors still able to travel to Auschwitz, so it鈥檚 important for him to be present there to mark the 80th anniversary.
These days, he is telling his story as many times as he can, taking part in documentaries and movies, serving as the president of the Buchenwald Prisoner鈥檚 Association and working to create a memorial statue at the Sered' concentration camp in Slovakia.
He feels a responsibility to be the mouthpiece for the millions who were killed, and people can relate to the story of a single person more than the hard numbers of 6 million deaths, he said.
鈥淲henever I finish, I tell the youth, the fact that you were able to see living testimony (from a Holocaust survivor) puts a requirement on you more than someone who did not: you take it on your shoulders the obligation to continue to tell this.鈥
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This version corrects the date of F眉rst鈥檚 arrival at Auschwitz to 1944, not 1943, in the seventh paragraph. It also corrects the date of liberation of Buchenwald to April 11, 1945, not 1944.
