rent apartment luxembourg

good morning and welcome to the united statesholocaust memorial museum. my name is jennifer ciardelli. i work in the museum's levine institute forholocaust education, and i am honored to host today's first person program. our first person today is mr. alex schiffmanshilo whom we will meet shortly. first person is a series of weekly conversationswith survivors of the holocaust who share with us their firsthand accounts of theirexperience during the holocaust. each guest serves as a volunteer here at themuseum. the life stories of holocaust survivors transcenddecades, and we are grateful to the louis

franklin smith foundation, with additionalfunding from the arlene and daniel fisher foundation, for making this 17th season ofthe first person series possible. we also thank alex, for being willing to sharehis individual account of the holocaust with us today. the museum's website, www.ushmm.org, providesinformation about each of this season's first person guests. anyone interested in keeping in touch withthe museum can complete the stay connected card that you were handed today or speak witha museum representative after today's program. in doing so you will receive an electroniccopy of alex's biography so that you can remember

and share his testimony after you leave today. alex will share his first person account forabout 45 minutes. if we have time at the end of the program,we'll have an opportunity for you to ask alex a few questions, and we will also make a groupphoto. joel will take the photograph with alex inthe front and everybody in the back. you may have seen some of them. it makes a great photograph. to get us started today, i wanted to providea little intro framing to help set up alex's situation.

we begin with this portrait of alex in hiscub scout uniform. alex was born in strasbourg, france in 1933. the arrow on this map points to strasbourg,right on the border with germany. alex's parents had emigrated from poland. his father was a traveling salesman and hismother was trained as a hebrew teacher. the family moved to paris in 1938. so the family moved to france in 1924, parisin 1938. when the germans invaded france in 1940, alex'sfamily moved to the south of france, where the collaborationist vichy government tookpower.

alex's family ultimately moved to villefranche-de-rouergue,the town where alex's great uncle max also lived. and we'll hear more about that. when alex's mother fell ill, alex's aunt cylli,took care of alex and his sister. we see in this photograph, came to take careof the family. throughout the war, alex and his sister, madeleine,were able to attend school and summer camp and lived a relatively normal life until september1943, when the german crackdown on jews there intensified. alex, madeleine, and cylli were able to escapeto a nearby forest until the worst had passed.

after the war alex and his family were ableto return to paris. at the end of the war, a number of years later,alex moved to israel. while there he served for two years in theisraeli defense forces and he went on to have a successful career as an agronomist who workedfor the united nations on international agricultural projects, which took him around the worldto many different countries. alex moved to the united states in 1989, wherehe continued to work on international agricultural projects. and even after retiring, alex continued totranslate documents and contribute to that field.

alex is married. he has three children, five grandchildren. and he volunteers at the museum on mondaysand thursdays. so with that i'm going to invite alex up tothe stage and we'll get started with our conversation. so, please. good morning. before we start, there are quite a few volunteerswho are holocaust survivors. we have a monthly gathering. and it happens that the monthly gatheringis today.

so when you go out and you go where the classroomsare, you can just peek in and you will see some of the faces you just saw on the screen. i think it's one of the real privileges atthe museum, that we get to interact and you give your time to the museum. all right. you ready? yeah. great. we thought it would be great to start withsome memories up of your life before the war

started. so the war starts in 1939. you were born in 1933. the end of 1933. for six years, something like that. i was born on just the german border of france,the eastern part of france. you just cross the river, the rhine river,and you're in germany. we stayed in basel until 1938. my father was a traveling salesman.

and he decided that the town was too off centerto travel. it was an extra 200 miles or more to go. so we moved to paris in 1938. then two things happened. my mom got breast cancer. and the war came. we moved first to a little town where themanufacturers my father used to represent, were located. we stayed there a year.

then we moved further south to another towncalled villefranche de rouergue. it's about for whoever knows, toulouse, it'sabout 60 miles north of toulouse. and you hear more of that. tell us more about your father. he was born in poland. he's a war veteran. my father was a war veteran. he fought, as we could say, on the wrong side,meaning on the austro-hungarian empire. spent two years on the russian front and twoyears in the italian front.

world war i, i should remind you, the italianswere allies with the allies. they fought against austria. so my father was on both. he was wounded once. but he survived. my father was in communications. but in these days communication was telephone. and telephone implies wire. and wires imply to put wires, to lay themdown, and also to repair them.

and they are a very easy target to snipersfrom the opposite side. my father thought he was wounded but theyhad many casualties. and he survived the war. and then he moved back. then he moved to france. when did he meet your mother? oh, they were from the same village. they knew from almost birth, i would say. but after world war i, he went to france.

then he went back in ‘24 and married mymother. they came back to france. and my sister was born in ‘26. by that time they still were poor. they were naturalized french, including mysister. in ‘28 my sister was 2 years old. i was born a frenchman. your mother was trained as a hebrew teacher. my mother was trained as a hebrew teacherbut she never had the opportunity to teach.

she had to help my father make a living. she worked as a seamstress. my sister i was too young but my sister toldme she remember our mother sewing, you know, zippers, zippers, and zippers. hundreds of zippers just to make a living. she was paid by the piece, not by the hour. so thinking about your life, again, beforethe war started in strasbourg and then paris, what do you remember about those days? again, you're a young child but did you goto school?

in strasbourg, i remember almost nothing. the only thing i know, because a few yearsago, i have address where we lived, the house is still there. i know that it's 13 [speaking non englishlanguage]. anyway. so the house is still there. this is what i remember. then i remember coming to paris and goingto elementary school, to kindergarten, near the house.

and that kindergarten also still exists. i know exactly where it is. it still exists. they told me some funny things. for two or three months i started to speaka mixture of german and french. the mixture was not one word of this and oneword of that. the mixture was in the middle of the sameword. a french beginning with a german ending. and so in terms your family is jewish.

do you remember religion playing an importantrole? did you go to synagogue? what was that like? from what i heard, my mother use to the keepa kosher house. my sister told me that. after the war my father couldn't care less. but, he insisted about keeping kosher. on the other hand, he insisted after the warthat his son, me, would go to jewish high school to get a jewish education.

and i went to the jewish high school nearparis. that high school still exists today. one little story. years later, in israel, i went to the frenchbookstore and here is the former director of the high school. but my first job was some job in the slaughterhouses. i was so dirty and stinky that i didn't daresay hello. i regret it to this day because i should havedone it. so thinking back, war started in september1939, when germany invaded poland.

but they wouldn't invade france until may1940. did you have an understanding that war hadstarted? what was that time period like in france? the french call it, that period, they callit the "phoney war." because there was a state of war and therewas no fighting. but then the french had then a reputationfor the previous war. so they fortified all the borders with germany. and the germans went through belgium. and that border was not guarded at all.

so within three weeks the french army collapsed. i remember that we took we went to the south. i remember we took a taxi from paris some60 miles. then we boarded a train south. it's among the few things i remember. and why you ended upit's a small town more or less in the middle of france. we landed there because my father's manufacturers,the people he used to represent to sell my father used to deal with leather goods, likewomen handbags, etc.

the manufacturers were in that town. so it was kind of natural to go there. later on we went further south where an uncleof my mother lived since the end of world war i. he was the youngest, our uncle max. what do you remember about uncle max? oh, i remember many things. he had a fur business. he used to sew furs and to sell jackets, coats,and other things.

when he was a young man, he also worked atthe butcher's. so he made, during the war, the most delicioussausages and hams. this i remember. my uncle max, even before we came, lost hisson during the war. his son was killed fighting the germans. and one thing i remember is one day at theend of the war, one day i came to my uncle max i was a child. i would just knock at the door and come in. i came in.

i see his wife sobbing very quietly near theradio. the radio was announcing the names of thefrench prisoners of war who were repatriated. and the poor woman, her son wasn't comingback. and from that radio i remember also something. although it was forbidden, we used to listento radio london. it was a broadcast called the frenchman speakto frenchman, [speaking non english language]. i found out after the war was, for those ofyou who know music, was handel, the opening. a german composer. born in germany but lived in england mostof his life and what the music was for the

british pleasure when they were on the thames. to clarify, the war started in france, 3/5of france is occupied or overtaken by the germans. and then vichy, the part that you moved to,it maintained its own government but it was a collaborationist government. oh, yes. so you moved there to escape the german occupationand still what was daily life like? could you feel that the war was going on? personally, i didn't feel it.

but i know from one or two things, and thingsthat i learned later one day around 1942, more or less, there started to be rumors ofwhat's happening in eastern europe for the jews. and there's another thing, my grandparentssent a few letters. one letter said -- the last letter said wehave to go, we are leaving, we ever to go, we don't know where we are going. and your grandparents at this point remainedin poland. they remained in poland. today we know exactly what happened.

they were marched to a nearby forest and weregunned down in a common grave, directly. so we learned that only after the war. i want to say something else about my unclemax. it will come back. when you moved, did you move there were afew other families that you moved with. yes. there was my mother's elder brother movedwith us. he had a manufacturing business. he succeeded to bring his machinery to wherewe are and he kept on going until this i discovered

only very recently. he was forbidden he got a letter from someauthority, vichy authority. the jew has no rights to own a business. at that time my uncle gave the business akind of handover to a friend of his. and then he got a second letter that he hasno right to work there. i gave both letters, copies, to the holocaustmuseum. and that's an example of anti jewish legislationthat started to permeate that environment. you had a story about a polish jewish familyin the town. across the street we were french citizens.

so somehow maybe we were protected, althoughmy tante cylli was a pol, and how she survived, she never talked about that. she kept it in the dark. but that polish across the street was a polishfamily, stochi family. and they had three sons. two sons were with me, in the same classroom,with the same teacher. one day they vanished. they were very poor. they were relocated to the east.

the irony is that the father, he's known tohave said that "at least my children have something to eat." i checked recently in the holocaust museumin paris, in the memorial. they are on the list of families who weredeported but they didn't survive. that's what the archives says. you mentioned your aunt cylli. she arrived because your mother fell ill. tante cylli was the youngest. she was a dentist by training.

but she was still a polish citizen. she came to our house to help my mother herailing elder sister. one day i know my mother used to call herat night to help, etc. until one day she didn't call and my motherwas gone. that was 1941 in may. then cylli took over. cylli was a little authoritarian, i must say. [laughter] i always say jokingly, she hada lie detector here. [laughter] we kept very close relations, infact, until she passed at the age of 90 and

something. wow. and what do you remember? you were quite young then when your motherpassed away. do you have memories of what that change meant? what it meant? i had a few memories. first of all, at the very, very end, her facewas kind of distorted a little bit. there was a change in her.

then she passed. the burial was in toulouse. i did not go to the burial. then my tante took over. my sister was a teenager. as much as my tante was authoritarian, mysister did not accept the authority. my sister one day screamed at me. she said, you know, she is not your mother,she is your tante, not your mother. i went along much better.

but your sister was seven years older thanyou. but still very good relationship. my sister became a dentist because my tanteadvised her to go. my tante was a dentist. she said go to dentistry; it's good. so my sister went. and during this time you continued to go toschool? i didn't miss one day of school. then i cross checked.

i asked my tante. the only thing i asked her: did i miss a dayof school? she said no. and in this environment it's quite unusual,especially in a collaborationist government where there were neighbors or folks who turnedagainst we were in a little town. the town was not against us. they were not hostile. they knew we were jewish.

once or twice somebody called talking aboutme saying [speaking non english language]. "little jew boy." but that was it. it stopped there. the picture you have is myself, myself inthe cub scouts. you can see that the tie is as good as thistie on me. i was a cub scout. i went to summer camp. the head counselor of the camp was from anothertown.

and the first day he summoned me and anotherjewish boy. he said flatly, "these ones, i don't wantthem." and then his deputy, who was the math teacherin our school, said, "they go, i go." end of story. we stayed. what a powerful testimony to the choice ofindividuals. it actually makes me think of our "some wereneighbors" exhibition, which, if people haven't had a chance to see this is going to soundlike a shameless plug for the museum. but there is a great exhibition that exploresthe role of ordinary people.

it features people such as that, right? we don't know the motivation for why he stoodup but he did and it made the difference. now, i want to say another thing. my father had an id. he was a french citizen. he had an id with a stamp “jew” in it,a red stamp “jew.” ok. my father had a family to support. his job was to visit clients.

and there was no guarantee -- i understoodthat only after the war, long after. there was no guarantee when he boarded thetrain on monday morning that we would see him on friday or saturday. there was no guarantee. we knew exactly his itinerary. and at one instance they are linked, the twostories. you might have read or somebody read therewas a rebellion of the ss troops in the town where i was. the rebellion was crushed.

that was in the summer of ‘43, i think. yeah, september ‘43. and the rebellion was crushed. there were actually soldiers from croatia,not german. they rebelled against the officers. they killed a few officers. the german imposed curfew. they explained they put poster, german andfrench, explaining the curfew. the last line said "don't be influenced bythe british and the jews."

we saw the jews say better to go in hidingfor a couple of days. this is what we did. that's another story. how did we pass the checkpoints, but we didpass. we took a train to three more stations furthernorth and we stayed there maybe a week, maybe 10 days. the problem was, my father didn't know anythingabout that. and the problem was to take my father outof the train before he arrived to our town. so my sister and me went to the train station.

the train arrived. there's no time to run inside the train. this was steam train. steam trains stop very, very, very slowly. and suddenly my father appears at the window. so my sister and me, we ran after the train. it was possible. and we shouted to him, "go out at the nextstation." this is what he did.

was that the first time you saw the presenceof soldiers in your town? were they always around? german soldiers or the ss? german soldiers at the very, very, very beginning. there were regular soldiers. and i remember that because i could speaka little bit of yiddish, which is a mixture of german. i directed one of the soldiers to buy sometobacco somewhere, or some cigarettes. i remember.

then they vanishes. and they came back later. when they came back, i don't remember exactlybut they were there with the rebellion of the croatians. here's one word to add. himmler, the head of the ss, valued the muslimsoldiers, croatian soldiers. most of the croatian were muslims. and he valued them, and, therefore, he triedto erase the whole story of the rebellion. but it was broadcasted at radio london twomonths later, the bbc.

when you fled with your sister, was that whenyou went into the woods and you had a cousin yes, yes. this is when we went, my sister and my aunt,and a friend, italian communist, we went to my mother's cousin who was living in the woodsand was making a living of producing charcoal. he lived literally in the woods. i mean, his bed was marked with a few stones. his mattress was leaves, near a tree. we went to a little farm just nearby. and that's where you stayed for a few days?

yeah, a few days, maybe eight, 10 days. and when you returned to the town? everything was normal. and there were a couple of times you had tostay with a science teacher? two nights, my sister and me stayed with thescience teacher. the reason i don't know. but i know that the french police, not exactlythe police, the gendarme the gendarme is like a trooper. they warned jewish families that they hadinstruction to run them up and to arrest them.

but they warned us one day before. they did it maybe twice. maybe more. i don't know. which is interesting. the story in france, people sometimes think,oh, it was the germans who were rounding everybody up but, in fact, this was french policemenwho were involved. and you were very fortunate to be in a situationwhere the gendarmes gave you that warning. recently, only very recently, shock.

the president of france admitted that theroundup in february 1942 or march 1942 was only french policemen, exclusively. he said there was not one german soldier. they just admitted it recently. so how did you in june 1944, d day happens;the united states goes to the shores of france. how did that impact your experience? first of all, there was a rumor from mouthto mouth, mouth to ear, however you look at it, that the allies came. what we call in french [speaking non englishlanguage], the invasion.

this happened, oh you know it, on june 6,1944. it was a rumor -- don't forget, we were inthe south of france. it's about a good 300, 400 miles from thebeaches of normandy. there was a rumor the allies are coming, theallies are coming. at the same time, there was an ss armoreddivision who was south of france, they were rushed to the front. they went across, some of them, across ourtown here and there. when they saw a nice house, they did targetfighting or target firing and target exercise on them.

but besides that maybe you heard what happened. maybe some of you heard about that. that was a massacre by german troops in afrench village in the center of france. maybe these were part of that same division. we know they were part of the same division. now, the sad thing is i mean sad. when hitler invaded france, he re-annexedthe last province of france before you go to germany. you have the rhine river, the black forestis on the other side.

hitler re-annexed. therefore, they became german citizens. they were drafted into the german army. they were eligible to volunteer in the ss. why do i tell that to you? because the people who perpetrated the massacrewere [indiscernible]. now, after the war, [indiscernible] came backto france. the president gave blanket amnesty to allwho fought in the german army and therefore they didn't prosecute the german soldiers.

the commander of that unit was a german. and he was killed later on in combat withthe british. how much, during this time, 1943, ‘44, wasyour family or the community aware of what was going on throughout europe and in particularwhat was happening in the east? yeah, we were aware. we knew two things. there were rumors. maybe i told you that just before. there were rumors about what was happeningto the jews in eastern europe.

one day i came back home and i said to myparents, you know, today i spoke with my friends i was 9, 10, something like that. i spoke to my friends and they said, “thesepoor jews in eastern europe”. and my sister and my aunt said, "shhhh. don't talk about that." so i didn't talk anymore. my father had a map of the russian front. and he was following the progress of the redarmy, of the russian army, on the eastern front.

when did you know so then d day, what youjust described, the shelling of nice houses in the summer of ‘44. when did the war end for you? when were you aware that it was done? i don't think we have a precise date besidesthe official day, may 8, 1945. i don't know exactly. i have a relative who was killed in the liberationof toulouse in august 44, meaning two months after the invasion. can you speak a little bit about that relative?

what did you know? that was your cousin? he was my mother's first cousin. he was a communist. in the same village. he went to then it was palestine. from palestine, he fought in the internationalbrigade against franco. i'm sorry, i'm sure many of you don't knowall of these details. but franco was the ruler of spain and he wasa fascist.

the word fascist, i think, comes from that. i'm not sure. maybe from italy. but he was a fascist. he ruled spain. one good thing he did, he decided he was notinvolved in world war ii. it would have been natural for him to be withthe germans because the germans helped him to seize power. the german air force exercised the kind oftraining in dive-bombing in spain during the

civil war. and franco didn't reciprocate. he stayed neutral. he did not drag spain in the war. and your mother's cousin? my cousin then went to france. he was in what they call in the french underground,a special group which was foreigners. he was killed at the liberation of toulouse. he received a plaque, didn't he?

there is a plaque in toulouse where he fell. he is called commandant philippe, meaningmajor philippe, his war name. you had another family member who was involvedwith the resistance, who was a doctor? [inaudible]on my father's side, one of my cousins was a doctor who was in the underground. he was an md, medical doctor. he was taken prisoner by the german because,according to the medical ethics, he couldn't leave wounded people, wounded patients butthe germans wouldn't have it and they executed him.

i have on my computer the notice, the familynotice of his passing. and that was just a day or two before thehostilities two or three days he was executed some 10or 12 others of his group, one or two days before they were liberated. what did you come to learn after the war aboutother family members, family members that you had lost? there was another uncle who had stayed inpoland? that was my father's youngest brother. he didn't leave poland.

he didn't leave that village. we know that he survived the war. we don't know if his family survived. he was married, had two daughters. we don't know if the wife and the daughtersurvived. he survived but in 1947, two years after thewar, he went to a ukrainian peasant to reclaim his watch. i guess he gave his watch for food or formoney or for whatever. and the peasant killed him to keep the watch.

this is well documented. we know that for sure. so at the end of the war your family was ableto move back to paris. can you speak about that? my father moved back to paris. after the war my father moved back to paris. for sentimental reasons, he insisted on havinghis former apartment. the apartment we had before the war. because also because my father faithfullypaid the rent, the apartment belonged to the

city of paris. he faithfully paid the rent until august 1943,when they locked the apartment and they took they, all the french, all the german, tookall the furniture. they stole everything. and my father, for sentimental reasons, wantedhis apartment. ultimately he got it. but at the end of the war my father was wornout, kind of worn out. he had to rebuild his business. the normal trek would have been, before thewar you are a traveling salesman.

then you settle. you open a little store in the same branchas you were traveling salesman. that part of the program didn't take place. and after the war he still went on traveling,traveling until he retired. and immediately after, you mentioned at thebeginning when you returned to school, while you had gone to french schools, now you returnedto i went to a jewish high school. the school still exists. just a curiosity.

i know you cannot translate jokes into anotherlanguage. the school is [speaking non english language]school. it was 11 street of abandons. so after the war we nicknamed it [speakingnon english language], which is the school of the empty stomach in the street of suffering. [speaking non english language]. i spent three years there. this is where i learned the basics of thehebrew language, especially the grammar. now, linked to that, many years later i wentto tel aviv in a french bookstore, and here,

in front of me, is the headmaster of thatschool. i did not dare say him hello because my firstjob in israel was to work in a slaughterhouse and i was dirty and stinking, you name it. i regret to this very day i didn't do it. i just should have said hello, it's me. i'm sorry what i look like. it's unusual. i didn't do it. so, at this point, so then eventually youmoved to israel.

eventually you moved to the united states. is this a good time to stop and see if ouraudience has some questions for you? we can open this to questions. what we'll do is we have time for some questions. and then the tradition at first person isto always give our survivor guest the final word. so we'll take questions and then we'll handit back over to alex. he will be the last voice we hear from todayand then we'll do the photograph and invite you folks to come up and shake his hand, aska question if you haven't had a chance to.

we have runners with microphones on eitherside. so if you have a question, you can just raiseyour hand and we'll get a microphone to you. we'll go from there. so questions? hi. thank you for telling your story. we appreciate that. and also, sorry for the losses that you'vehad. i would like to know you talked about yourfather fighting on both sides of the world

is that usual? how does that occur? i'm sorry, i have to repeat the question soeveryone can hear and we can get a recording. for the recording. the question is regarding alex's father duringthe first world war who fought on both sides, was that usual? it wasn't both sides. the italians were allies of the french andthe british. my father fought in the austrian army on theeastern front against the russian and the

western front against the italians. other questions? a question in the back. when and how did you get your experience yourexpertise in agriculture? how and when did you get your expertise inagriculture? well, i am a graduate from the agronomy schoolin paris. it's still there. not far from the garden of luxembourg, whichis a huge park in paris. i'm one of the alumni.

now, i never worked in france. i worked -- after i completed my studies iwent to israel. first i joined idf for two years and thenworked at the ministry of agriculture. how did you choose that profession? at that time i was kind of idealist. at that time? i loved life. agronomy was a agriculture was a good profession. but i never lived in the -- just a few monthsbefore i went to the military.

right here. wait for the mic. sorry. thanks. >> what made you decide to move to israel? it was a good zionist. i still am. what made you decide to move to the unitedstates in 1989? decide is a great word.

what led to your move? what led me. i met my second wife in haiti. then we got married. we i was working for the united nations. i worked in haiti, nepal, rwanda, and jamaica. and after jamaica i got a job in haiti. and my wife is american. my wife says, stop, you go to haiti if youwant but i'm going to the united states for

a doctor degree. and she learn it in washington. i followed her at the end of my job in haiti. where is your family? you have three children. three. we are dispersed all over the world. my son lives in israel with two grandsons. my elder grandson is now in the military.

my second grandson is a big name, i think,in the boy scouts or something in israel. my elder daughter lives in australia. and she has three children. and with my second wife, we have a daughterwho is an attorney in new york. any other? are there any other questions? there was a lady here also. you wanted also to ask a question. the lady just behind the previous.

not you. we'll go to the woman right here and thento the gentleman behind. what was i'm hesitating how to ask you. what was your family language that you talkedat home when you were a young child? first, then in paris and france? what was your mother tongue in strasburg. it's hesitating because your mother's mighthave been polish but you might have my parents used to speak yiddish among them. maybe that was the very, very first wordsi ever uttered were in yiddish.

but when i was 5 or 6, we moved to paris andwithin a few months the yiddish was gone and the replaced by french. as i told you before, i had a mixture. and the mixture wasn't the same word sometimes. but in the family you spoke french with yourparents? i spoke french. don't forget, my mother passed when i was7. i used to speak french to my father. he used to speak french to me, with my sisteralso.

we spoke french. my father spoke perfect german. he even told me once he came to a stationin paris and wanted to buy some tickets and he didn't pay attention. switched to german. he told me that. did he speak german in [indiscernible]? i guess so, yes. i cannot know.

thank you. was there a question still in the back? it kind of relates to what she said before. how many languages do you speak currently? how many languages do you currently speak? broken yiddish, as you can hear, french, whichis my mother language, and hebrew because i lived in israel 18 years. but french, i can tell you, sometimes if youdon't practice, even if it is your mother language, you forget words.

and sometimes i have to look for a word iforgot or when somebody says something to me, i understand perfectly and said, oh, iforgot that word. i understand the meaning but i forgot theword. the gentleman in the maroon shirt. i was wondering if you had some sort of journeyof bitterness and unforgiveness that you had to work through in your story, you know, toforgive the people that committed these atrocities and things like that. is there a journey of bitterness and wrestlingwith how to forgive or deal with those who perpetrated these events?

it's hard to say. the only thing i can say is a few weeks agoi went to auschwitz. i had to see it. i wanted to see it. before that we went to krakow in poland. i went with my son. it's a very nice city. it's a city where you still feel the influenceof who was then wojtyå‚a, who became pope paul ii.

then i went to auschwitz. it's a hard experience. it's a very hard experience. we are a generation i am today the peopleyou meet are the generation after. ok? another thing, i had a little incident notan incident. in france when i was a student, i went tosweden and to denmark hitchhiking. on the way back, hitchhiking, i wound up inthe town of cologne in german. i was there with my backpack, 4:00 a.m. someridiculous time.

and there were two policemen came to me, twoyoung guys, german policemen. they did a joke asking what kind of [indiscernible]is that 4:00 a.m. in the streets of city. but i saw the color of the [indiscernible],which is what we call in french [speaking non english language]. it is gray green. i got goose bumps. but that was a long time ago. also, i had a weird feeling once. i switched once, plane, in frankfurt, germany,coming from the united states going to israel.

and there was a special waiting room in mostof the airports. it was a kind of confined room. and here was a young german security man wasthere just in case something bad happened. it was a kind of weird feelingso, thank you for the questions. in a moment i will hand it to you so thatyou have the opportunity to leave us with your final thoughts. before that, i would like to thank everybodyfor spending this past hour with us. a reminder that if you have time pad, haveit stamped, if you have a completed stay connected card, hand those in.

please do stick around. joel will come up on stage immediately afterfor our photograph. if you have additional questions or you wouldlike to greet alex personally, he will remain on the stage and you can come see him here. thank you very much. and alex? the last word i mean, every time i have anotherlast word but.two weeks ago or three weeks ago i was in france and we traveled througha village, a little town. it is a one street town uphill.

and on top of it is one of the most beautifulchurches in france. it's a real jewel. it's worth the trip from paris, about two,two and a half hours driving. it's worth it. but this is not the subject. coming down, i noticed an entrance to a kindof convent, to a nunnery. and there was a nice english speaking nuninside. and outside was a sign. the sign said that in this place two nunsit gives the name helped to rescue and to

help jewish children in 1942 and in 1944. and therefore these nuns in that place wereawarded the title of righteous among the nation, which is given in these circumstances by thestate of israel. so that plaque is outside. i went there before but never noticed it. now i noticed it. it's comforting to see that. we will never be thankful enough to thesepeople. thank you, alex.

you're welcome. thank you for talking with us today.