Thursday, August 17,1989 — THE BULLETIN — 7
means
J^F^ staff
Twelve L'Chaim Day Care Centre members were handed wooden sticks during a Wednesday gathering of Beth Israel, not to be used for walking— but to assist with physical exercises.
Movement to music {Hava Nagila) was accomplished from the comfort of their chairs. They appeared to look forward to the exercises led by physical education specialist Fred Cohen almost as much as outings arranged by Diane Mercy, L'Chaim staffer.
Participants "are all disabled in some way — physically or emotionally," explained L'Chaim executive director Bunny Rubens. "They are the fragile elderly."
Once a month they go on a day's outing in a bus provided by the City as part of "Operation Step Out" for the elderly. Recently they visited Danzig 1939 at the Vancouver Museum, then next time they
were off to Hillel House, travelling on afterwards to Pacific Spirit Park (UBC Endowment Lands) and the Museum of Anthropology.
L'Chaim adult day care is held at B.I. twice weekly (Mondays and Wednesdays), with some people attending both sessions. Monday members don't miss out on outings, for they have their own schedule of places to go.
"If the bus seats more than the number coming on an outing, it's first come first served. So I allow some from the other group to go, too," Rubens told The Bulletin. "We also have use of the Louis Brier minibus."
She pointed out that L'Chaim members visit other day care centres as well, "and they'll provide a bus, or bring their people to visit ours."
The oldest participant is 92 years old, with the average age 79. Rubens emphasized that the Government arranges adult day care.
fragile elderly
"It is nothing to do with us," she pointed out. "It's up to long term day care to assess the individual."
Numerous times Rubens has had to explain to callers who want relatives or friends to attend that she cannot help them. "Once the Government is involved they call the shots," she said.
In her view she felt it was far more democratic that way, although she has often wanted to bring a needy person in, yet the official assessment did not warrant it..
Around 20 volunteers assist at different times throughout the year, under guidance of Ethel Hogg, volunteer coordinator. Currently a new intern is Vonda Borean, UBC psychology major who is considering gerentology for her career. It is easy for seven or eight Russian immigrants attending L'Chaim to pronounce Vonda's name, but with Rubens it is different. "Instead of Bunny they call
me Buonya!" she said.
Soviet immigrants who do not speak English prefer to speak Russian or Yiddish. But they are not forgotten. They can choose to watch Russian movies on video, for example.
To Rubens, whether the immigrants speak Russian, Yiddish or English is not a problem. "As long as you hug and kiss and really like them," she said.
In her spare time Rubens bakes for special monthly birthday celebrations. "And if nobody's birthday is that month we still have a party, blow the candles out on the cake, and call it an unbirth-day," she explained.
A kosher meal, provided by Louis Brier, is available for participants both days. National Council of Jewish Women helps to defray the cost of food and transportation.
And the Jewish Federation "has placed L'Chaim on its L'CHAIM - Page 9
G. Libbish
L'CHAIM CENTRE staffer Diane Mercy (left) talks with two participants.
G. Libbish
STRETCH UP! L'Chaim Centre members exercise to music.
AUSCHWITZ '89: POLES BEAT PEACEFUL JEWISH PROTESTERS
From Page 5
Faced with the real possibility of more attacks and no police protection — and the need for the foreign press to return to Warsaw — we withdrew to Cracow for the Sabbath. Even though there are only two phone lines from the city to America, we miraculously placed an emergency call to friends to report details of the attack and to request official American diplomatic protest. Despite the Sabbath peace, our rest was tense.
The once-vibrant corpus of Cracow Jewry has now been reduced to a ghost of 300 largely elderly souls, centred around the sole remaining, tiny synagogue (the Ramah) — named after the famed 16th century biblical commentator who is buried in the adjacent cemetery after a brilliant but short life of 40 years.
That Sabbath, Ramah synagogue was filled with unaccustomed energy in the persons of a visiting delegation of teachers and students sponsored by Israel's Ministry of Education.
endiif the Services, thrlsraelis sang-and danced ^r^und^^l?'* raised bimah with its painted and sculpted panels. Joy lit tlie faces of the old Polish Jews. One elderly man motioned to his heart, indicating he could not dance with us. Rabbi Weiss and a young Ethiopian-Israeli danced with the old man in his place.
Tears ran down his face. "We have no friends here, just enemies," he said in Hebrew.
Afterwards, in the synagogue courtyard, Rabbi Weiss addressed the Israelis in Hebrew, urging them to join us in our return to the convent the next day. Jacob, Elie and Jose separately addressed a British student subsection of the group. "We're not asking you to go over the fence with us, just to stand outside in solidarity with us," they asked. To our disappointment, none of them materialized. When the Israelis left the synagogue, several were subjected to anti-Semitic taunts by Polish passersby.
As the sun set over the dramatic castle which dominates the heights of Cracow, a young reporter for Solidarity's newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, knocked on our hotel room door. Anna was toughminded, clad in jeans and workshirt-clad. PAP, the appropriately named official Polish news agency, had launched a diatribe against us, charging that the "so-called Rabbi Weiss" and his team had physically attacked the nuns and defaced the convent. Just give me the facts, Anna demanded, smoke curling from her cigarette. As the evening wore on, it became clear where the true story lay, and Anna softened.
Shortly before we were ready to roll out the next morning (Sunday), an NBC tv crew called from downstairs. "Are you going? Polish radio just announced that you-cancelled your demonstrations." Apparently, the authorities who learned of our plans to return to the convent by bugging our phone conversations with foreign journalists were trying to head off another violent confrontation with local Poles. "We're not going to let anyone intimidate us," we replied.
We began our action with a short vigil at Cracow's main church, St. Mary's, in the city's ancient central square. Led by our large Israeli and American flags, we marched through the cobblestoned streets to the residence of Cardinal Franciszek Maharski, one of the signers of the 1987 agreement to remove the convent. Oswiecim is in his direct jurisdiction. The cardinal was conveniently, not home. We taped a list of our demands on his door — including his resignation if he failed to move the convent. Trailed by a gaggle of reporters, we cornered his assistant Bronislaw Fidelus who, with reluctance, finally accepted a handwritten note to the cardinal.
Again, we entered Auschwitz, encountering Rabbi Morde-chai Zeitz of Montreal's Beth Tikvah synagogue and 56 of his congregants. With nary a moment's hesitation, the good rabbi urged his flock to follow us to the convent gate. As the line snaked down the road, local townsfolk realized what was to occur again. Sensing that we might be blocked, we half-sprinted the final ICQ yards.
. Again, no one answered the bell at the gate, and we jumped over the fence, quickly donning symbolic concentration camp uniforms with large Stars of David. Jose and Elie stood outside the fence as lookouts.
We stayed at the convent door for another six hours. After 1V2 hours, we asked the Montreal group, still concerned for our safety, to resume its Auschwitz tour. Waves of Oswiecim residents arrived, curious and largely hostile. A young woman led the verbal attack, shouting, "You kill nuns in Israel." Uniformed and plainclothes police came and went. Nuns again peered from convent windows. We arrayed ourselves around the inside the fence, explaining and debating our demands that the convent be removed, that its presence and that of the 24-foot cross desecrated the memory of the Jewish martyrs of Auschwitz.
A wire service reporter who subjected us to a particularly sharp line of questioning finally admitted to us that her mother had become a nun five years ago. An elderly lady shoved at us through the fence her own hastily-scrawled sign in Polish, "Keep the Convent." Tough Anna of Solidarity, hearing her fill of her countrymen's anti-Semitism, leaned against the fence and cried. We had_made our point'if*t»was t|!||^oq^xen.9^ot;j)^^^
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ruthless dedication to one goal: mass murder. Of those who arrived 70 percent were gassed and incinerated the same day. I walked down the railroad tracks, the final kilometre of a journey of death for so many European Jews. We stood at the selection point: a flick of a gloved hand, left or right, determined immediate or slow death.
This was Jewish ground. We'd paid for it, millions of times over.
Back in Warsaw next morning, at the U.S. Embassy, we detailed the attack at Auschwitz, and asked for a formal American protest and pressure that the agreement to move the convent be honored. Ambassador John Davis, puffing on his pipe, revealed he had immediately issued a protest about the beatings. The State Department also later released a statement confirin-ing that the convent fell within bounds of the 1972 U.N. treaty and the grounds should have remained inviolate.
^ ^ qffice^four^nemesis — PAP^h^
RABBi WEISS
and go at will until the convent's occupants are removed. Together, we recited the afternoon mincha prayer service, mocked by some of the Polish spectators, then climbed out over the fence to the cheers of the crowd. Speaking now with less vehemence, the young woman who had accused us of nun-killing said she and her friends hoped Poles and Jews could ultimately live in peace. We warned that 100 European Jewish students would be coming in a week to continue the demonstrations. We sang Hatikvah. the Jewish national anthem, then marched down the road, into Auschwitz camp, stopping under the notorious Arbeit Macht FreiTV^ork Liberates") iron gate.
Finally there was time to examine Auschwitz's remaining grisly, heart-slopping evidence. The souvenir shop in the parking lot sells, incongruously, bottles of nail polish.
Birkinau lies just beyond, little remaining of its vastness, its
ning. Bearing signs in Polish and English, "Tell the Triith About the Conyent!", we swept into their building, directly across from Communist party headquarters, trailed by an ABC camera crew. Guards shoved the cameramen and tried to block their lenses. Ultimately, we were invited to meet with PAP's director-general Janusz Solecki that evening.
The heat of this eyeball-to-eyeball transformed into the natural warmth of an immediate fellowship with Jacak Kuran, one of Solidarity's top and beloved leaders, imprisoned for years under the Polish Communist regime. We met in his office in the Parliament building, after being escorted past guards, up a marble spiral staircase, down a coUonaded hall. Until recently, the building was a source of intimidation. Today, with Solidarity's sweeping victory in Poland's first relatively free elections, Kuron and his fellow former victims were transformed into victors.
Dressed in simple worker's clothes, Kuron had taken out precious time before a crucial meeting with Polish strongman General Jaruzelski. He listened intently to our description of events at Auschwitz, expressed his personal pain, and promised to write an article in the Solidarity newspaper urging the convent's removal. As we left Parliament, we saw a group of young Poles demonstrating against the general. A reporter for Tygod-nik Powszechny, a Catholic newspaper, told us they had been beaten by police the night before.
Round two at PAP came at 6 p.m. Present as witnesses were Anna from Solidarity, a Reuters journalist, and reporters from PAP. Rather than being subjected to an interview, Rabbi Weiss went on a systematic attack against PAP's articles and journalistic ethics. Solecki finally admitted that no PAP reporter was present the day we were attacked or the day we returned to Auschwitz. He agreed to issue a formal apology, and to reprint the reports of eyewitnesses from Reuters and Associated Press.
In closing. Rabbi Weiss turned to PAP reporters: "Do not allow your words to be compromised," he urged them. "If you can't be free in your writing, resign." Silent tears glistened in the journalists' eyes. On our way out, a foreign journalist told us we'd made history. Never before had PAP retreated in such fashion.
Late that night, excited members of the Solidarity newspaper called us to report that PAP had indeed issued a three-page apology titled with Rabbi Weiss's own words: "We Came in Peace and Love." On our departure next morning, we picked up a copy of Trybuna Ludu, the party newspaper where on page 5 was a heavily excerpted selection from the PAP apology. Moral conscience — perhaps more realistically, a response to the firestorm of foreign press and diplomatic protests our beatings had generated — finally achieved a form of victory.
Polish government officials announced they would ask Cardinal Maharski's office to honor the agreement to move the convent. But in response, Church sources asserted it would take up to eight more years to build a new convent. In Rome, the Vatican of Pope John Paul — former cardinal of Cracow — claimed a hands-off policy, even as it announced restoration of diplomatic ties with Warsaw.