‘The young must engage’
WHEN NATALIE Meltzer was younger, she would listen in horror to her grandfather’s stories about how he managed to survive six concentration camps.
Harry Balsam, who was born in 1929 in Gorlice, Poland, was separated from his mother, sister and younger brother at the age of 12 as they boarded a train to Bergen Belsen. It was the last time he saw them.
His mother Adela, sister Gitel and brother Joseph were murdered in Belsen, while his brother, Sanie, was shot through the head by an SS Officer whilst searching for food for the family outside the ghetto in Gorlice.
“He wasn’t the sort of person who often talked about what happened to him,” Mrs Meltzer, 35, said.
It was hearing her grandfather’s stories which inspired her to set up an initiative designed specifically to teach young Jewish adults about the Holocaust.
“It wasn’t covered on the curriculum the same way as it is now and I think there is a lack of awareness for Jewish people my age and it is important they engage in what happened,” she said.
Last week, under the guidance of the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), she and over 60 young adults from across the community went to Poland to visit 6XUXûK^\] \R]N\ RWûU^MRWP ]QN > K\_yÿ camp in Krakow, which Mr Balsam survived, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When the mother-of-two was growing up, she “didn’t know anything different, I thought everyone’s grandpa had been through the Holocaust.”
However it was not until after Mr Balsam died that she managed to visit Auschwitz for the first time.
“I had meant to go with him while he was alive but it never happened. Ever since then I’ve wanted to do something that helps to keep his memory alive and educates people about what happened to him and others.”
3^[RWP ]QN P[X^Y´\ þR\R] ]X > K\_yÿ she told the delegation her grandfather’s story.
“It was incredibly moving to return to the site where my grandfather was so cruelly imprisoned,” she said. “I was so nervous, I just wanted to tell everyone his story and make sure everyone was aware of what happened.”
3^[RWP QR\ ]RVN K] > K\_yÿ ;[ 2KU sam was selected by the camp’s commandant as a shoeshine boy. It was a job that kept him “relatively” safe, and the commandant’s fondness for him also saved him from death.
Mrs Meltzer said that while he was imprisoned there, Mr Balsam met many Nazi officials including high-ranking Nazi Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and a chief architect of the genocide.
“It felt overwhelming to be standing in the same place my grandpa had been,” she said.
The group was also joined by Leslie Kleinman BEM, a Holocaust survivor who was interned at Auschwitz.
Mrs Meltzer said: “Having Leslie with us was incredibly powerful. Nothing is more moving than going into Auschwitz with a survivor and leaving with them again.”
She said she hoped the trip will be the first of many which HET would run with young adults.
“They educate school children so well but it is important that we as young adults know so that we can educate our children. It is our responsibility as there are fewer survivors to do that.”
One of the young adults who attended was reality television star Lauren Pope. Ms Pope joined the trip because her boyfriend is Jewish.
While Ms Pope did not publicise her presence on the trip, she did use Instagram to recommend that people make the same visit under the guidance of HET.
Mrs Meltzer said: “It is important as many people try to educate themselves as possible, it doesn’t matter who you are. While the trip was mostly Jewish adults, we had others with us who weren’t. It is important to learn about it, Jewish or not.”
Karen Pollock MBE, chief executive of HET, said: “Grandchildren of survivors and their friends have taken it upon themselves to deepen their learning about our shared history. Seeing the sites where the Holocaust took place allows people to learn about the darkest depths of human hatreds in a way they cannot from books and films.”
His brother was shot by an SS officer while searching for food Nothing is more moving than going to Auschwitz’