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大屠杀中兄妹失散 65年后终得团聚
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/06/30 10:25  英语文摘

  Siblings Separated by Holocaust Reunited After 65 Years

  译者点评:60年前的6月6日盟军在诺曼底成功登陆标志着二战胜利的开端。今天,二战中失散的一对犹太兄妹亦重新团聚。文中的主人公真实地经历了电影《辛德勒的名单》中描述的犹太人在二战中遭纳粹屠杀的悲惨遭遇,文中的妹妹正是由于辛德勒的救助才保住性命。

  For 65 years Binyamin Shilon believed his sister was among the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Now he holds her in his arms and cries with joy.

  Shilon 78 and Shoshana November 73 were separated from each other and their two brothers in their native Poland during the 1930s. After World War II broke out Shilon ended up joining the Soviet Red Army. His sister was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in southern Poland. They survived and emigrated separately to Israel each believing all the rest of their family had been wiped out by the Nazis.

  Then on Dec. 19 2003 an American cousin brought November to Yad Vashem Israel’s official Holocaust memorial authority in Jerusalem to check the records left by other survivors. The simple check revealed that Shilon was alive and just a 90minute drive from her own house. That night she spoke to her brother for the first time since 1938. “Today even I don’t believe it” November said. Shilon and November are worn by their years but were still Bronik and Ruja Szlamowicz their Polish childhood selves hugging and nuzzling each other.

  Their story has ignited a media frenzy in Israel and November’s tiny Bnei Brak living room has been filled with visitors for the past two days. The siblings have barely had time to embark on the monumental task of catching up on two remarkable lifetimes. November was a child when her family broke apart and she spent many of her earliest years in the orphanage of Dr. Janusz Korczak who became famous for sacrificing his life rather than abandoning the children under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto.

  When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 the siblings’ father was shot dead in his home by the Gestapo and soon she found herself in the Jewish ghetto in Krakow in the care of a stepmother. The little girl escaped the death camps for a time first by charming a Nazi policeman and then by hiding in the filth of a latrine while the ghetto was liquidated relatives said. November nearly died in 1943 when she was sent to Auschwitz and selected to be gassed. She was saved when a stranger pushed her into the line of those allowed to live. Some 3 million Polish Jews 90 percent of the country’s prewar Jewish population were killed in the Holocaust. November soon found herself back in the care of her stepmother who she said had become “a bad woman” serving as a nurse in the hospital of the notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele known for his medical experiments on young Jewish twins. She survived the war in work camps.

  Shilon meanwhile spent the first years of the war stoking the engines of a river ship in the Sovietoccupied sector of eastern Poland. Sent to the city of Minsk in 1941 after the Germans bombed his ship Shilon was treated for his wounds then walked through three cities on foot and hopped a train to Siberia. “I wanted to get away from the fighting” Shilon told The Associated Press. But over a long winter working as a blacksmith the 17yearold realized he couldn’t walk away from a war that threatened to consume his family. Posing as a Russian he joined Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s army and headed west. In 1943 as a sergeant he was sent to the Ukrainian front. Shilon’s battalion spent two years pushing through the Ukraine and Romania. In early 1945 he returned to Poland with new orders Liberate Auschwitz.

  There was no chance of an immediate postwar reunion. November survived the end of the slaughter in the Ravensbruck camp in Germany. Shilon accepted the fact he would never see his mother sister or two brothers again. The siblings came to Israel for different reasons. November spent three years in Germany after the war a period memorialized in a photo of her with Oskar Schindler who saved Jews by employing them in his factory in Poland. She moved to Palestine on the eve of Israel’s 1948 independence to avoid following her stepmother to Canada settling in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak.

  Shilon immigrated in 1957 to Tivon near Haifa to escape a revival of antiSemitism in Poland. The two resumed their lives married and raised children. November filed her testimony as a Holocaust survivor at Yad Vashem in the 1950s. It took Shilon until 1999 when he finally filled out forms for his mother and all the siblings he believed had been killed by the Nazis including his little sister Ruja.

  On Friday the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah November’s grandson Nir Silberberg 24 called to ask Shilon three questions “Does the name‘Szlamowicz’ mean anything to you﹖” “Did you have a sister named ‘Ruja’﹖” And finally “Would you like to talk to her﹖” The siblings spoke twice that night and on Saturday saw each other for the first time since 1938. They traded stories and lit Hanukkah candles. November learned she was two years older than she thought.

  “It’s hard to explain that feeling we have... It’s hard to measure in terms of gain. It’s all inside” Shilon said. “You cannot explain it.”

大屠杀中兄妹失散 65年后终得团聚

  65年来,本亚明·希隆一直以为,他妹妹是纳粹大屠杀期间被杀害的600万犹太遇难者之一。如今,他拥抱着她,高兴得哭了。

  78岁的希隆和73岁的绍莎娜·诺文贝尔是20世纪30年代在他们的出生地波兰失散的,他们的两个兄弟也失散了。第二次世界大战爆发后,希隆参加了苏联红军。他妹妹被送到波兰南部的奥斯威辛集中营。他们活了下来并分别移居以色列,彼此都以为家人都被纳粹杀害了。

  2003年12月19日,美国一个表亲带着诺文贝尔到耶路撒冷的以色列官方的亚德韦希姆大屠杀纪念馆查看其他幸存者留下的记录。一查就知道希隆还活着,离她家只需要90分钟的车程。那天夜里,她自1938年以来首次和他哥哥说话。诺文贝尔说:“到今天,我也不敢相信这是真的。”岁月让希隆和诺文贝尔变老了,但他们仍是儿时在波兰的布罗尼克·什拉莫维奇和鲁娅·什拉莫维奇,他们互相拥抱,紧紧依偎在一起。

  他们的故事在以色列媒体引起了一阵狂热,两天来,诺文贝尔在(特拉维夫郊区)布内布拉克小小的起居室挤满了来访者。兄妹俩几乎没时间讲述他们不同凡响的人生经历。全家失散时诺文贝尔还是个小孩子,她在雅努什·科尔恰克博士的孤儿院度过了最初的许多年。科尔恰克博士因为不愿抛弃他在华沙犹太区照看的孩子而献出了生命,因此闻名于世。

  当纳粹于1939年入侵波兰时,这对兄妹的父亲在家里被盖世太保枪杀。不久,诺文贝尔在克拉科夫的犹太人区由一位继母照顾。亲属们说,当犹太人区遭洗劫时,她先是让一个纳粹警察喜欢上了,后来又藏在一个厕所的粪池里,因此一度逃脱了死亡集中营。1943年,诺文贝尔被送到奥斯威辛集中营并被挑选送入毒气室时,她差点死掉。当一个陌生人把她推到那些允许活下去的人的行列时,她获救了。在大屠杀中,有300万波兰犹太人被杀害,占波兰二战前犹太人口的90%。不久,诺文贝尔又回到她继母的照管中。她说,她继母成了一个“坏女人”,在臭名昭著的纳粹医生约瑟夫·门格尔的医院里当护士。门格尔由于拿年轻犹太双胞胎做医学实验而臭名远扬。后来,诺文贝尔在劳役营中熬过二战。

  与此同时,二战最初几年,希隆在波兰东部的苏占区任船舰司炉。1941年,在德国人炸毁他所在的那条船后,他被送到明斯克治伤,后来,他徒步走过3个城市,搭上了去往西伯利亚的火车。希隆对美联社记者说:“当时我想摆脱战争。”但是,在做了一个漫长冬季的铁匠之后,17岁的希隆意识到,他无法从夺走他一家人性命的战争中平安脱身。他装扮成俄罗斯人,加入了苏联领导人斯大林的军队往西挺进。1943年,作为一名中士,他被派到乌克兰前线。希隆所在的营在两年内打过了乌克兰和罗马尼亚。1945年初,他接受解放奥斯威辛集中营的新命令回到波兰。

  二战结束后没有立即团圆的机会。诺文贝尔在德国拉文斯布吕克集中营的屠杀结束后幸存下来。希隆接受了再也看不到他母亲、妹妹和两个兄弟的事实。这对兄妹出于不同原因到了以色列。二战后,诺文贝尔在德国待了3年,这个时期可以从她同奥斯卡·辛德勒的一张合影照片回忆起来。辛德勒通过雇用犹太人在他波兰的工厂里做工而救助他们。1948年以色列独立前夕,她为避免跟着继母去加拿大移居巴勒斯坦,定居在特拉维夫郊区的布内布拉克。

  1957年,希隆移居到海法附近的蒂文,以逃避反犹主义的重新抬头。兄妹俩的生活恢复了正常,各自结婚生子。50年代,诺文贝尔在耶路撒冷亚德韦希姆大屠杀纪念馆提交了大屠杀幸存者证词。直到1999年,希隆才填完他认为被纳粹杀害的母亲和所有兄妹,包括小妹鲁娅的表格。

  星期五,也就是犹太教哈努卡节的第一夜,诺文贝尔的孙子、24岁的尼尔·西尔伯贝格打电话问了希隆3个问题:“‘什拉莫维奇’这个名字对您意味着什么吗?”“您有个妹妹叫鲁娅吗?”最后的问题是:“您愿意和她谈谈吗?”当天夜里,兄妹俩通了两次电话,星期六,他们自1938年以来头一次见了面。他们讲述了彼此的故事,点燃了哈努卡节蜡烛。诺文贝尔这才晓得,她比原先想的大了两岁。

  希隆说:“很难说出我们的感觉……很难用得到来衡量。那全都在心里,无法解释。”

  (逸文 摘译自AP Dec. 23 2003)




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