Holocaust survivor speaks at Knoch
JEFFERSON TWP — Shulamit Bastacky is confident in what the power of love from just one person can accomplish.
This is the message the Holocaust survivor gave eighth- and 11th-grade students at Knoch High School on Thursday morning.
Bastacky, who lives in Squirrel Hill, was born on Aug. 25, 1941, almost the height of the Holocaust, in current-day Vilnius, Lithuania. And it was a Polish Roman Catholic nun who saved Bastacky, she said.
“She's the reason why I speak about the emphasis of one person that can make a difference. I was taken to a basement,” she said. “(The nun) had to bring as little food as possible to keep me barely alive.”
At that time, harboring a Jewish person was highly dangerous.
Bastacky stressed that she could not hear or see, and she had no idea what sunlight looked like — for the first four years of her life.
She did not have the same support and nurture that many children have for the first few years of life, she said.
“It was not hearing much of anything, not seeing much of anything,” she said. “Total deprivation, almost isolation. I could not wish on anybody this type of experience.”
One day, the nun bundled Bastacky up and set her on the bank of a river, something she said reminds her of the story of Moses.
Bastacky was picked up by a man who took her to a Lithuanian orphanage, she said. There, she was given another name that she cannot remember.
Bastacky's parents were fortunately not placed in death camps, she said. Her father was an engineer, and both he and Bastacky's mother were taken to labor camps.
After the war, many parents tried to find their children, she said.
“How do you recognize a child you haven't seen for almost four years?” she asked.
Making matters worse, Bastacky was in poor shape, physically, emotionally and psychologically.
She was told that she did not respond to her birth name when her father found her, but her father was able to identify her by her birthmarks.
Only when Bastacky was 12 years old did her parents begin to tell her their experiences in the Holocaust, she said. Of course, there are also many stories they did not tell her as well.
One of the stories Bastacky told the Knoch students was about the Ponary Massacre.
The Ponary Forest was on the outskirts of Vilnius, a town that was made into a ghetto, Bastacky said.
“Close to 70,000 Jews were simply slaughtered — I cannot use any more correct words — execution-style,” she said. “This was nothing else than killing men, women and children.”
Another story of the “endless and endless examples of Nazi Germany brutality” was one she only learned about more recently when visiting family in Israel, she said.“They forced my grandmother and one of her daughters to go to a synagogue, a place of worship,” Bastacky said. “They forced them to go to the building and put the building on fire. I don't need to tell you what happens if you put matches to a building, what happens to the building and to all the human beings in the building. Right there, I lost three generations of my family ... for no other reason than we were marked for death because we were Jews.”While Bastacky does not think anti-Semitism will ever disappear, she can remain hopeful, she said.“The Nazi government issued policy, and it was supported by so many people in Germany,” Bastacky told the students. “I will never be able to comprehend it. The Holocaust was the end result of hate that existed against the Jews for years and centuries and centuries and centuries. This was not a Nazi invention.”To make sure something like the Holocaust never happens again, Bastacky promoted the importance of love and respect for one another to the students.“Ignorance and intolerance, that does not accomplish anything,” she said. “Respect and diversity is absolutely beautiful and wonderful. Prejudice and hate is a waste of your time and a waste of your energy. You can use that energy to care and to love. You don't have to love everybody, but respect everybody. Respect the difference in all of us.”Bastacky also stressed that the acts of the Holocaust were “done to human beings by other human beings,” not by some larger unnamed force.But Bastacky said there is no way to forgive the Holocaust.“You cannot forgive a murder, a total annihilation of a group of people because they were Jews. You cannot forget the 6 million Jews. I'm not here to forgive or not forgive. You cannot forgive. But you cannot hate today. Today is a different time.”Regardless, Bastacky said, “There is basic humanity in all of us. Hate is destructive. It's bringing almost like the Middle Ages to the 21st century.”By promoting love and respect, Bastacky feels that she is able to have her victories against the Nazis and the crimes of the Holocaust, she said.“Hitler and company were not the victorious ones,” she said.
