‘It was good to be alive there’

Draped in Israeli flags with yellow ribbons, Mark Spigelman and his family – his wife, son, daughter-in-law and three granddaughters – marched towards those awful gates and as they entered under the sign “Arbeit macht frei” they yelled “Am Yisrael Chai”.

Eighty years since the liberation of Auschwitz, Spigelman and his family partook in March of the Living last month.

“It was very emotional because where we marched was the same place where possibly over 100 members of my family perished, and the same with my wife Rachel’s family,” said Spigelman.

“Thanks to our survival there were a further two generations marching with us, which is incredible. So all in all, in a place where there should be sadness, we felt empowered.”

Rachel was born after the war to two Holocaust survivors and a few years ago wrote a book about the story of her husband’s survival. Blue Eyes Wide Open describes how Spigelman, born in 1940 in Poland with fair skin and blue eyes, was dressed as a girl by his parents to save him because boys were often checked for circumcisions to prove they were Jewish.

Indeed, he and his parents escaped deportation from the ghetto to Auschwitz when a German officer found that Spigelman reminded him of his daughter.

Returning to Auschwitz for March of the Living this year was deeply emotional for both Spigelman and Rachel, who was named after her two grandmothers who perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

“It was good to be alive there,” said Rachel. “We survived and made children and grandchildren, and that was the important thing for us.”

Spigelman said he was honoured to be asked to recite the Kaddish at the end of the official ceremony, which was nearly cut short because of a huge thunderstorm. But Spigelman walked up on stage, supported by his son Guy, and defiantly recited the prayer.

“There were supposed to be two or three of us Holocaust survivors out of the 80-odd that were there who were asked to say Kaddish,” he said.

“But in fact the only one who could make it up there was myself because it was very precarious even to walk the road, so my son Guy came up with me.”

Together with Guy, Spigelman recited Kaddish and as he did, he said he thought of his and Rachel’s families and the millions of others who perished there.

“The thought came to me as I was talking that a million souls died in this place and many of them were quite religious,” he said.

“I think many of them would have wondered, had the Germans succeeded, who would say Kaddish over them? Then I said, here I am and I’m saying Kaddish for all of them and the thought entered my mind that I’ve just done a million mitzvot.”

Released hostages – including Agam Berger, Eli Sharabi and Keith Segal – also participated in this year’s march. Outside the crematoria Sharabi, whose wife and two daughters were murdered on October 7, said the presence of survivors of the Hamas-led massacre at Auschwitz was a “reminder that the Jewish people will exist for eternity”.

Spigelman didn’t get a chance to talk to them, but he knew what he would have told them.

“When we were in Tel Aviv I entered that mock-up tunnel [at Hostages Square] and within 30 seconds I felt as though I was back in the bunker,” he said.

“I had a panic attack. I felt the walls were caving in on me and I had to run out. I said to myself, ‘those poor people’. I also got very angry. Where the hell were the Red Cross and the United Nations? These people were being treated worse than any animal in Australia.

“I would have loved to have talked to them. I would have said, ‘I’ve been through these conditions. I think I know how you feel and maybe we should have a talk about it.’ But I didn’t get a chance.”