Wedding Party Without Flowers

BECOME.
"a Polish Jew" in Theatre X IDENTITY
Every Monday in September in the Auditorium BAUEN at 20.30. Callao 360

Spot Shot Tempurpedic

PAGE 12 - Sunday August 22, 2010
THE COUNTRY> THE STORY OF SARA RUS, SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ AND MOTHER OF PLAZA DE MAYO
"I struggle not to forget"

His childhood in the Lodz ghetto. Auschwitz and work in an airplane factory. Their illegal entry into an Argentina that did not receive a letter to Jews and Eva Peron. The disappearance of his son and the search for justice. A woman who received the 2008 award Azucena Villaflor giving the national government and was declared illustrious citizen City of Buenos Aires last month.

By Victoria Ginzberg

She looks up. His eyes are moist, red. "Mostly I do not cry," he says. Dried with a tissue. Stir just served tea on the table in his apartment in Belgrano. "Mostly I do not cry," Sara repeated Rus. Is 83 years old. But speech is a girl of twelve years between the row of dairy Lodz ghetto, where he was with his pitcher to get food for his brother because his mother is sick and can not breastfeed. It's a girl who is dying baby and can not hold back tears. Then it will be the young who saved his mother of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the slave who worked in an aircraft factory and fell in love nonetheless. The woman who came to Argentina after illegally crossing the border with Paraguay, which began again and was happy and lost his oldest son, when a gang of the last dictatorship took him from the National Atomic Energy Commission. Today is the grandmother who touched students in their lectures and going to the gym and dance rikudim. He believes that life is worth it because after all we lived is a table for entertaining and sharing the bread with a family that love around. "I do what I did all my life, I strive not to forget. For the Nazis of Germany and those who were here will never have the strength they had. "Lodz


Schejne Mary (Sara) Laskier of Rus was born in Lodz, Poland in 1927. Was, until 1939, the spoiled only daughter of James and Carol Laskier. His father was a tailor. Tailor-made for the gentlemen and fur coats for the ladies. Sara went to school and studied violin. Then came the Nazis. "I had no notion of what happened. My mother said 'if they win the Germans sell everything and go to Poland. " My father thought it would be like in the First War. But then we had to get off the sidewalks, wear the Star of David to identify. There lot of discrimination that I probably did not understand. Over time I began to realize. An uncle, my mother's brother, emigrated because a group of Polish boys beat him up for being Jewish. We had family in Argentina and came here, "he says.

well remembers the first time he felt firsthand the anti-Semitic violence, though at that time not even touched it, "One day the Germans came home. When they come with this arrogance, they see my violin on the table. One question "Who plays the violin here? '. My mother, who proudly says "my daughter is learning." 'Ah, do you like the violin? "he says, with a force so terrible blows on the table."

soon had to leave the department and installed on a piece of the ghetto. They started the "selections" neighbors who would hop a train with the promise of a better life elsewhere. The work was required. Which did not work, no food. And he worked almost no food. Sara was sent to a hat factory: Women's hats, hats for boys and leather cuffs to protect your hands in winter. Carola was weak and could not comply with the obligations imposed by the Nazis. His daughter, who was fourteen, he carried work home, preparing an extra production and delivered on behalf of his mother to take away the letter not supply.

"My mother in the year '40 had a baby, a boy. She was very sick. Typhus had practically had no milk to feed the baby. There were hospitals, but with very few resources. I still tiny as a little sister, went at dawn to the dairy where a little milk distributed to people who had babies, had to present a paper. I do not see me, put me in line and threw me, I could not get ... The baby lived for three or four months and most terrible, my mother a long time did not realize why my father and I went to hospital. Almost a year was pregnant again, had another boy, who was settled at birth. "Sara is broken. Cries. Although generally not.

The tears are due to impotence, not being able to intervene to ward off death. The same would happen 37 years later. Against the SS, however, their actions, especially the most daring, seem to have saved his life and his mother.

But before you take her to camp else happened. Bernardo happened. "Because there is also a love story, things like this also spent at least to this girl who is talking," says Sara, and now their eyes light up. Bernardo

Rus came home from the hand of father James, who found one Sunday in the street and invited him to dinner because it was "a very interesting guy and was a pleasure to talk with him." Then the mother would have brought reproach to a man whom the baby looked too much. It was true. It took twelve years but Sarah was an adult: "I looked, he looked ... and began to come more often. We were in love. I had a notebook in which he scored me that if I ever survived, 5 of 5 of '45 we will meet in the building of Buenos Aires Kavanagh. He knew I had family in Argentina, there was talk of that in my house and he read a lot about Argentina. " But before that Sara and her parents had to leave the ghetto. Auschwitz


had survived many "teams." The mother, who was skinny, I stuffed the clothes and painted their faces to have better face. Anyway the day came that surrounded the house and told to take as little as possible. Sara chose a very small bag that she had sewn before life in the ghetto. No panties get noticed. Instead, put some family photos and the notebook in which Bernard noted the date of their reunion: "I thought I could be ... one day, but came a moment that we stop thinking. He began the journey to Auschwitz. "

- How was it?

"We were the three, with some neighbors and others who did not know.

- Already knew what it was?

"Absolutely not know where it will lead. On the trip we were cramped, dirty. They put a bucket to the needs. It was on a train animals. He saw that people were falling from hunger.

- How long?

-never knew. I lost track of time. We arrived at Auschwitz. We were taken to Birkenau, a huge square and began the selection. At men pulled directly. I never saw my father. You could see who was on one side and another who by how they were physically. My mother was misery, but she was very pretty and very young. But I took. They put me on one side and another. In my house when I spoke German and I find myself without my mother ... I dared to approach a SS with a whip that was in the middle of the square. People looked at me. I thought I would be killed. He looks at me and says' how dare you get closer. " I told him in German, 'Why did you get me my mother? ". If what I did today I think ... Look at me and said 'where do you speak German? ". I told him my house was spoken. I asked, 'What is your mother? " and I said, 'Come look. " The first saved. Since then my mother was always with me. He survived the war with me. But we had hard times. The

sent to the baths, cut their hair, gave them clothes that they had and took them to a hut where they piled into the concrete floor. They had to do anything except go out and train for the count. Every day women drew some of the row. Women who did not return. Unlike most prisoners, not marked with a number. "We came in '44, we were destined to go the gas. "But they were not. The selected to work in a factory.
Germany, Austria

After two months in Auschwitz, went back to the trains to travel as animals go to slaughter. The placed in an aircraft factory in Germany. Sara had to rivet the plates of the wings with an air pistol that I could hardly sustain. "We always said, no aircraft is to be built here," he recalls. In a night shift, did not see the rails that were on the floor and fell backwards. Cut almost in half. In nursing, a Russian woman treated her as an enemy of war.

"We had to work every day. But I could not get out of bed. Appeared a German who said, 'how well you did, you thought that you're not going to work, you'll be resting here. " I was a little daring, or I do not care about anything else. I is not interested in me or not. It was quite rebellious, it seems. I said in German: 'What I said, I did this on purpose? Yes, sir, I did it on purpose to stay here, but I figured I would lose so much blood. " My mom started screaming 'do not listen to him is crazy, do not know what he says. " The girls who were in the room remained silent with fear. thought we were to kill all my fault. After a while appears a German, a SS, and I said 'you're lucky, the boss told us to send you something to eat. " I could not believe it, "he says.

"Every time we rebelled did well.

Once, in a talk I gave, a lawyer said I could survive because, for the Germans, while you do not rebel, do not answer them, you're no one, nothing. The impact is someone to encourage them to go against them and face them. Still, my break did not last long.

After the accident was sent to work in the kitchen as a potato peeler. Sometimes I could eat a raw potato and trafficked in tapadito lining of a potato peels and pieces for their partners. "One can not give an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat it can mean a potato or a potato peel. It is the most important food one can imagine, "he says. And he knows.

Allies were close, so we again boarded the train. This time due to the concentration camp of Mauthausen in Austria, where they were finally released: "The day we got the Red Cross took the field. And they stopped killing. The Germans were beginning to organize to retire and still had the nerve to tell us if we wanted to go with them because the Americans came. We were released on 5 of 5 of '45. Today I was released. This date was on my mind but I knew nothing about Bernardo and he knew nothing about me. "

In Mauthausen Sara received a letter. Bernardo was looking for. And she went to see him. Kavanagh was not in, but no matter. They married and looking for work. Sara joined a theater company. Began to recover but a doctor told him that because of the accident he suffered in the factory was not going to have kids. "My husband was totally resigned, I had enough to me that we were able to find again and be together. For me it was a terrible blow. "
Argentina, Paraguay
via
In Buenos Aires, Uncle Sara was ready to receive with her mother and husband. But the government of Juan Domingo Peron opened the doors to Jews. After a bumpy plane ride, which burned down a turbine and some religious people also wanted to light candles because it was Friday, arrived in Paraguay.

"Officially, we could not go to Argentina," she says, we had to go illegally to a boat, put together a little money to give to a person who comes across the border. We were ten. Nobody spoke a word of Castilian. They took us to Clorinda. And the guy was ordered to move. We were left alone at night, with rain. Until police came a horse with a rifle. My mother sat on a horse and I took the rifle. We took him home at ten, with his wife and do not know how many kids and fed us. But the next day we were taken in buses to Formosa and put us in jail. But it was a prison ... do you want to tell you, boys, the guards we were so sorry. There were over a hundred people. Some were taken later to private homes and us to the temple. But how is to go to Buenos Aires? We were told that we would be sent back to Paraguay. My husband was a very intelligent man. We knew that there was Eva Peron, she did a lot for the people. He dared to send a letter Polish to Eva Peron. We had our history. We see that you arrived, had it translated and sent word that we will not be scared and we were going to send passes to go to Buenos Aires. Indeed after a while they sent passes to all who were there. And we came to Buenos Aires. "

had to start from scratch. Bernardo began in the trade of textile Knotter, said his wife, became the best of Villa Lynch. Sara did not give the idea of \u200b\u200bnot having children and went to see a doctor to his surprise he said he had nothing but a body that had suffered a lot and need a replacement. Daniel was born on July 24, 1950. And five years later came Natalia: "The Daniel was a complicated pregnancy because it was a hard body. But I resisted. It was a beautiful boy from tiny was brilliant in everything at school, he received what he wanted, was a nuclear physicist .... Until '76 I had it. "

Sara Daniel said he did not belong, but that certainly was a Peronist. She did not know anything because his only concern was redone. "Recently we began to live," he says.

On 15 July 1977 at two thirty in the afternoon, Daniel Rus was abducted in front of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), where he worked. Twenty other employees physical of that body were illegally detained during the dictatorship. Daniel put him in a van. That was the last time anyone saw him. There is no evidence that locate in a clandestine detention center, although his mother was suspected in the School of Naval Mechanics, located on the sidewalk in front of the CNEA.

When Daniel did not come home, Sara and Bernard thought he had had an accident. Toured police stations and hospitals, who were at the CNEA and learned he was gone. "There I began to fight - says Sara, as if his previous life to be reduced by the loss of his son. I went to the Ministry of Interior, presented habeas corpus, my husband wrote letters to everyone, including the Pope, and joined the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and began to walk around the plaza. Before he entered a group of war survivors. The saddest thing was that when Daniel disappeared these people, to their survivors, began to move away from us by the fear that was in the country. A girl who was also kidnapped sister of a close friend of Daniel who has been missing, he told us that in the torture chamber had swastikas. It was clear that here had learned a lesson from the Nazis ... I thought it was impossible to lose this child. One day I went to the roof of my house and screamed so loud, calling him, thinking he could be somewhere listening. He always said 'Mom you're so strong. " And I could not do anything for him. "Sara cries. It is again the impotence.

"I looked, called on the authorities, Justice, joined the Mothers ...

"True, but I guess that's what he thought. I do not know how he was killed, how they did suffer. My mother lived to be ninety years with me, but when I took my son stopped talking about. Not more interested in life. He died with his pain and could not yet see great-granddaughters, what I'm looking forward.

- What happened to your husband?

-In '77 said he was awaiting the coming of democracy, which at some point we will have to happen to these murderers. And in '83 said: 'If my son does not return in six months, I now I have nothing to do. " Wine democracy, spent six months my husband was diagnosed with a tumor and died on May 2, 1984.

"You know what they ask me" come on Sara, whence I draw my strength? I struggle not to forget. I fight for memory. To Nazi Germany ever and those who were here have the strength they had. Memory is the most important because if you do not have memory of things happen again. The strength comes from that thank God I have a family, a daughter, a son, two granddaughters, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the friends I made and I want ... My mother told me when we were in Germany, 'you will see that we still have bread on the table' and I replied 'what table? ". I say that life is beautiful because if you spent all that and I have a table and I can have visitors, I can serve and be surrounded by love ... what else can claim. Life is beautiful, if you do not want to live is easy to die. "And he notes:" I have my memories deep inside. If you still I can think of, I can tell, and while I can tell, I will continue doing. "

Image: Leandro Teysseire