On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Richard Lowy shared his father Leo\u2019s story at Congregation Schara Tzedeck. <\/i>(photo \u00a9 Silvester Law)<\/i><\/p>\n
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Richard Lowy stood in the spot where his late father, Leopold Lowy, davened and kibitzed for decades after arriving in Vancouver as a young man who had survived some of the most grotesque inhumanity history has known. Leo Lowy was a \u201cMengele twin\u201d and a survivor of Auschwitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where my father sat in synagogue,\u201d Lowy said Jan. 27 to a packed audience at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, beginning a unique and emotional commemoration that doubled as the launch of Kalman and Leopold<\/i>, Lowy\u2019s book about his father\u2019s survival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Leo Lowy was just one of many survivors who joined Schara Tzedeck after their arrival on the West Coast in the late 1940s and 1950s. They didn\u2019t burden others with their stories of survival, the son told the audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Wearing his father\u2019s tallit and carrying his siddur, Richard Lowy shared a little of his father\u2019s story. The complete narrative of Leopold\u2019s survival in Auschwitz \u2013 and the relationship the 16-year-old developed with a 14-year-old boy named Kalman Braun \u2013 is detailed in the book, which took Richard Lowy years of work to complete.<\/p>\n As twins, Leopold and his sister Miriam, as well as Kalman and his sister Judith, were of special interest to physician Josef Mengele, known to his victims and to history as Dr. Death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy father was a boy when he arrived in Auschwitz,\u201d said Lowy. \u201cHe and his twin sister Miriam were sent to the twin barracks, torn apart from the rest of their family.\u201d Leo and Miriam\u2019s parents, grandparents, eldest sister and the sister\u2019s baby were murdered on arrival. His three other sisters were taken to a forced labour camp.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Leopold and Kalman were recruited as servants in the guard barracks.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that unimaginable darkness, they became brothers, bound by a hope to survive,\u201d Lowy recounted. \u201cIn Auschwitz, my father became Kalman\u2019s protector, not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice. Kalman was a na\u00efve, religious boy. He was dangerously unaware of the brutal reality they faced. His innocence threatened to draw the attention of the SS guards. Leopold knew that even the smallest misstep could lead to a beating or worse. Leo, my father, wanted to be invisible. When there was a roll call, he would go to the back of the line. He didn\u2019t want to draw attention. He refused to make friends. He was unwilling to endure the anguish of getting to know someone and then they would end up on the pile. He buried his emotions deep, forcing himself to see the heap of bodies as nothing more than lumber. Yet, despite his efforts to remain detached, he was now compelled to guide Kalman, shielding him as a means of survival. What began as a necessity slowly evolved into a bond of friendship. Together, they endured the horrors of the SS guards and Mengele\u2019s experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n When the camp was liberated, the survivors parted with little fanfare. Kalman and Leopold assumed they would never see each other again.<\/p>\n In 2000, Richard Lowy produced a documentary film, Leo\u2019s Journey, about Leopold\u2019s survival. A year later, it aired on Israeli television.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Reading from his book, Lowy described the moment that Kalman Bar On (n\u00e9 Braun), by now an elderly Israeli, was stunned to see a photo of the young Leo on his TV. There was not a doubt in Bar On\u2019s mind that this was the boy whose protection and friendship had saved his life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A few months later, Richard reunited the two.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir reunion was a moment beyond words,\u201d he recalled. \u201cTwo men, now in their 70s, embraced as if no time had passed at all, as if the decades of separation had simply melted away. In that instant, they were no longer old men. They were boys again, transported back in time to when their survival depended on each other.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time in over 50 years, they stood face-to-face with someone who truly understood the horrors that each of them went through and endured. In each other, they found more than the shared memories,\u201d said Lowy. \u201cThey rediscovered the unshakable bond of two souls who had witnessed, experienced and survived the unimaginable together.\u201d<\/p>\n Leo Lowy was a collector of cantorial recordings, which Richard Lowy entrusted to Vancouver Cantor Yaacov Orzech, who chanted El Moleh Rachamim at the book launch. Also at the event, Lowy presented to Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt a 78 RPM recording of the rabbi\u2019s great-grandfather, the renowned Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt.<\/p>\n Speaking to the audience, Rosenblatt reflected on the amount of desensitization that has to happen to get to the pinnacle of evil that Leo Lowy experienced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur presence here tonight is our attempt to ensure that our culture does not approach even the distant horizon of the periphery of such atrocities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Peter Meiszner, Vancouver city councilor and acting mayor, brought greetings from the city.<\/p>\n \u201cMay we work together to ensure that the tragedies of the past are never repeated and that the principles of justice and equity guide our way forward together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Selina Robinson, former BC cabinet minister and author of the recently published book Truth Be Told<\/i>, introduced Lowy.<\/p>\n \u201cRichard\u2019s work is a call to action,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cIt challenges each and every one of us to remember, to teach and to prevent hatred and antisemitism from taking root. That\u2019s incumbent on all of us as we bear witness. It reminds Jews of our ability to overcome these hatreds. In sharing Kalman and Leopold\u2019s journey, their memory lives on, guiding us to build a more compassionate and tolerant world.\u201d<\/p>\n