Overcoming Hate: A Lesson for Tamils and Sinhalese from a Holocaust Survivor

Zygmunt Swisrak

“I had so much hate towards the Germans. That hate was killing me. I realised this later when I went to Germany. Three times I have been there. They wanted me to lecture at university, at ­technical colleges, about what I suffered in the ­concentration camp in Frankfurt. I just went there to tell them what happened. And I met so many Germans; it started to change me. After I finished one talk, a student wrapped herself around me. She had tears in her eyes and said, “I am sorry for what our fathers and grandfathers have done to you, your family, and your country.” Then I started to get emails from students saying that my survival was not wasted and that to hear from somebody who was there, as an inmate in their country, was a ­different story. That’s how I got rid of the hate. I didn’t expect that. I have changed a lot. I can’t get rid of the hate altogether but it’s much less than I had and it doesn’t kill me anymore.” …. An Extract from Zygmunt Swisrak’s Last Testament

ALSO SEE

• “Kill Any Sikh: The Anti-Sikh Pogrom of 1984 in Delhi in Bhawan Singh’s IMAGES,”  …………………..

  …. 26 March 2017, https://thuppahis.com/2017/03/26/kill-any-sikh-the-anti-sikh-pogrom-of-1984-in-delhi-in-bhawan-singhs-images/

• Roberts, Michael 2017 “Anguish as Empowerment …and A Path to Retribution,” 22 March 2017, https://thuppahis.com/?p=24595&preview=trueWalia

• “Anguish!! Reading Mike,” 30 August 2017, https://thuppahis.com/2017/08/30/anguish-reading-mike/

• Kathiravan: “An Angry Tamil: Kathiravan confronts Roberts,” February 2011, https://thuppahis.com/2012/02/27/an-angry-tamil-kathiravan-confronts-roberts/
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  * Michael Roberts: “Addressing Two Angry Tamils,” 9 March 2012,https://thuppahis.com/2012/03/09/addressing-two-angry-tamils-heat-distortion-truth-fact-mendacity-and-eternal-enmity/

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  Thanga: “Another Angry Tamil: Thanga sees Pirapaharan as an indelible “part of the Tamil psyche”, ,” 29 February 2012,

  https://thuppahis.com/2012/02/29/another-angry-tamil-thanga-for-pirapaharan-as-indelible-part-of-the-tamil-psyche/

• Michael Roberts: : “Murali is not a Tamil,” says a Tamil doctor during a World Cup encounter,”22 April 2011, https://thuppahis.com/2011/04/22/%e2%80%9cmurali-is-not-a-tamil%e2%80%9d-says-a-tamil-doctor-during-a-world-cup-encounter/

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  Michael Roberts: “Narrating Tamil Nationalism: Subjectivities and Issues,” 19 July 2017, https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/19/narrating-tamil-nationalism-subjectivities-and-issues/

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  A NOTE:

  Zygmunt Swistak is not Jewish. He is a Pole. For several recent centuries Poland has been squeezed between two powerful nation states Germany and Russia. After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23^rd August 1939 Poland was once again battered by their powerful nations to east and west and the subsequent Nazi German invasion capped the process. That is how Zygmunt Swistak and his family ended up in a concentration camp. He was the only one who survived. Read his tale here: https://thuppahis.com/2018/01/27/profound-testimonies-aged-holocaust-survivors-in-their-last-testament/#more-28834