Irene Shashar was three years old when her mother took her out of the Warsaw ghetto through a sewer in 1941 and
hid her for years in a friends' closet
to save her from certain death.
At 86 years old, her mission is to tell the world that she defeated Hitler and ensure that another Holocaust is never repeated.
Cheerful and lively, Shashar spoke with the EFE agency from the European Parliament, where a special session was held for the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust.
He wears a bright red jacket, blue-rimmed glasses, a yellow ribbon to ask for the return of the hostages in Gaza, and a pendant with a metal tag that repeats the same wish in English: "Bring Them Home." ).
-In front of Parliament she spoke of her guilt as a hidden girl. Because?
-I didn't understand why I was punished.
The Germans entered Warsaw in September 1939. I was 1 year and seven months old.
After a year and a half I became a hidden girl.
What sins could I have committed to be put in a dark hole and told 'don't call me and don't complain'?
-And what do you think the answer is?
-Today we know that it was due to the fact that she was born Jewish.
Hitler wanted to exterminate me.
I survived, but a million and a half children did not.
Sometimes I wonder, could it be that I have taken the place of another girl?
That if they had killed me, would she have survived?
I ask myself this not out of guilt, but rather out of the mission I have in having survived.
Tribute to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto at the memorial in the Polish capital, on the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Photo: EFE
-You have been telling your story for decades. Does it help you ease the weight of the past?
-One hundred by one hundred.
Every time I speak to students, teachers or diplomats, at first it is difficult for me to get into the topic, but once I have entered I feel relieved when I finish.
It is as if I am unloading the heavy backpack that I have carried on my shoulders to the next generation, in the hope that they can follow the message that I am trying to pass on, the warning that this will never happen again in future generations.
-He has also launched an alert within Parliament about the rise of anti-Semitism. Do you see a parallel between what she felt as a child and the attitudes seen now?
-There is no comparison, because the Holocaust was a barbarism that lasted six years and was multinational.
It cannot be compared, but it has been a massacre.
I have spoken with other survivors and for us it has been like a living, real thing that brings memories back to your mind.
The hiding place, the German standing with the rifle, the German shooting, killing one by one and then taking out a bottle of liquor and taking a few drinks of alcohol to forget what he did.
Here the 'déjà vu' became the terrorist calling his father and telling him: "dad, dad, I have killed fifteen Jews."
"I have spoken with other survivors and for us it has been like a living, real thing, that brings memories back to your mind. The hiding place, the German standing with the rifle, the German shooting, killing one by one and then taking out a bottle of liquor and taking a few drinks of alcohol to forget what he did"
-It has reopened wounds.
-If you burn yourself a second time it reminds you of the previous burn.
I have seen the faces of those terrorists in the videos.
Sad memories come, painful memories.
One cannot understand how a human being can reach such barbarism.
-How have you lived the last four months in your country, Israel, being aware of both sides of the conflict?
-Very hard, especially very hard because I have a grandson in the (Israeli) army.
Do you know what it is like for my daughter every day that she doesn't hear from him?
It is a martyrdom.
We did not choose to attack them, they attacked us.
I understand that the people of Gaza are not guilty of what has happened and what is happening, but the people have their voice.
They had to raise their voices knowing that they were being dominated by Hamas, that Hamas was building tunnels when the money sent to them should be for the flourishing of the country, so that they could sow and harvest.
That they hide behind those innocent people hurts me a lot.
What is happening hurts me a lot, but it is the only way to never repeat it again.
Source: EFE
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