Survivors of a different kind
The simple act of holding hands has rarely meant so much. When Holocaust survivor Luba Marczak met 21-year-old Yazidi woman Nadia Murad – who survived a massacre of her family members by ISIS in 2014 – they didn’t need words to exchange their stories and give each other strength.
THE simple act of holding hands has rarely meant so much.
When Holocaust survivor Luba Marczak met 21-year-old Yazidi woman Nadia Murad – who survived a massacre of her family members by ISIS in 2014 – they didn’t need words to exchange their stories and give each other strength. A long embrace, a knowing glance, the shedding of tears and the offer of a warm smile were all that was required.
After welcoming Murad to her Sydney apartment for a visit on Monday (August 22), Marczak, 88, told The AJN, “There was a translator, but it was still a bit difficult to talk a lot.”
“So I held her hand, and she just felt … she felt what I wanted to tell her. I know this for sure. I just thought, if I can help, why not?”
Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee now living in Germany, was only 19 when she was abducted in Iraq by ISIS and held captive as a sex slave.
She managed to escape after three months, but her mother, six brothers and several members of her extended family were massacred.
The Yazidis are an ethno-religious group numbering about 600,000, mainly living in the Sinjar district of Iraq. They are facing genocide at the hands of ISIS.
Marczak grew up in Vilnius, Lithuania. After the city’s ghetto was liquidated in 1943, she saw Nazis forcing the remaining Jews into two lines – one on the right for people to work and one on the left for people to be killed.
“I had two sisters – one, Sarah, was sent to the left and so was I,” Marczak recalled. “The other, Rebecca, pulled me into the right line and saved my life, but Sarah was killed by the Nazis. Rebecca and I were together all the time until she died six years ago.”
Following their emotional meeting, Murad told The AJN it was a deeply sad, yet inspiring experience.
“We are sharing pain and suffering and when I met her I felt this horrible thing that is happening to us now has happened in the past,” she said.
“Meeting with this wonderful woman, it gives me so much strength.
“My people are still not liberated, but I feel that speaking about it here will hopefully put more pressure on to help our people – it’s important for everyone not to stay silent.”
The meeting was arranged by Nikki Marczak, a researcher at the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
While visiting Australia, Murad was guest speaker at functions at the Universities of Sydney and Queensland. She also met with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
SHANE DESIATNIK
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