By KKL-JNF for Jpost.com
87
year-old Mietek Gorcher, KKL-JNF Sweden's greatest supporter, is
honored at Sweden Park during the Go Green mission to Israel, a
delegation of KKL-JNF supporters from Sweden and Denmark.
It is
impossible to meet Mietek and not be captivated by his charm. He is a
Holocaust survivor who was twelve years old at the beginning of World
War II, and his story is that of a man who survived the Warsaw Ghetto
and nine concentration camps. As he tells it, "towards the end of the
war, my father and I were taken to Buchenwald. As the allied forces
advanced, the Nazis moved us from camp to camp, always one step ahead of
the conquering armies. Two weeks before the war ended, my father was
killed by a bomb dropped by an American plane on the retreating German
forces. At the end of the war, I weighed 22 kilograms, and had no more
will or strength to continue. As I sat by the side of the road, all of a
sudden three English soldiers appeared and came over to see why I was
sitting there. One of them looked at me, realized I was Jewish, and said
'sholem aleichem'. I broke down in tears.
"Today, I spend almost
all my time telling my story to high school children all over Sweden.
This is my mission, and I have already lectured in 212 schools. When I
finish my talk, I always ask if there are any questions. There are
almost never any questions. The schoolchildren just cry. I never take
money for my lectures, but I leave KKL-JNF's address with the schools
and ask them to send whatever they would have paid me to KKL-JNF."
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