As we were walking into a small theater room in the middle of a beautiful day in Tel Aviv, I had a slight feeling of disappointment. I thought to myself “Ugh! Why are we spending such a beautiful day cramped up in a tiny room listening to yet another speaker?”. But then Hadas Kaldaron, an actress and granddaughter of the Yiddish poet Avraham Sutzkever, started to speak. Her charisma immediately grabbed the full attention of everybody in the group.
She began to talk about her grandfather’s life as a victim of the Holocaust. Avraham Sutzkever was in his mid twenties when he, along with his whole family, was forced into the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania. But unlike the vast majority of those in the same situation, he didn’t give up hope. He wrote poetry every single day, even the same horrible day that his mother was murdered. Avraham felt that poetry made him a free man because the Nazis could take anything from him, but they could not take away his writing. His poetry, quite literally, saved his life: He smuggled his poetry past Soviet partisans and got them all the way to the desk of Stalin. Once Stalin read these poems containing explanations of the atrocities occurring in the Nazi occupation, he ordered a plane to be sent to rescue Avraham. He also soon became a hero of the Jewish people as he assisted in the smuggling of important Jewish treasures out of Nazi territory. Additionally, Avraham was the only Jewish witness called into the Nuremberg Trials. These events fascinated me as I, and I’m sure most others, have never heard of such a success story occurring during Holocaust.
Hadas Kaldaron’s life mission is to inspire others through the remarkable story of her grandfather Avraham. I’m sure other members of the icnext group will agree with me when I say she does a great job and definitely accomplished this with us. She is a very powerful and engaging speaker who has inspired me and many others.