A brave man

This is one of the saddest things I've ever heard and it's been haunting my thoughts lately. I wrote this after hearing a Holocast survivor speak last year. He's such a courageous man and just remembering him makes me want to cry all over again. He made me promise never to forget his words, and I ask that you remember too.



Rolling up his sleeve, Philip Riteman, an Auschwitz survivor, showed a permanent reminder of the hell he lived through as a Nazi prisoner. The number 98,706 has been burned onto his flesh and into his memory.

Yesterday at the University of Regina, Riteman teared up when speaking of his experiences during the Holocaust. His father, mother, brothers and sisters were all killed.

He was just 14 years old when he was herded off to the notorious concentration camp where 125,000 men were kept prisoners. He witnessed countless murders and was forced to burn the resulting stacks of bodies.

Riteman had to watch as men in groups of seven were lined up and shot in front of mass graves. When their bodies fell into the pit, dirt was thrown on to cover them. Then the next seven men were brought forward to die. And so it continued.

Even his best friend was murdered.

Riteman told of how Nazis picked on the young blond boy and threw him into a water trough. The boy had freckles and the Nazi’s scrubbed his body with steel wool to remove them. Riteman heard his friend screaming and dying as his skin was scraped off.

Then he had to help carry the body to be burned.

Even 59 years after being freed, Riteman is haunted every day by what he lived through. “I couldn’t believe it was happening and I still dream about it,” he said. Struggling to hold back tears, he wondered why he was the one who survived.

Although it is hard for him to talk of what he witnessed, Riteman feels he must. “Maybe I survived to talk to you today,” he said.

Riteman wants younger generations to remember the atrocities that took place to make sure it never happens again. “Millions and millions of souls are listening to me speak,” he said in reference to the 6,000,000 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis.

“Teach your children to love,” he said. “ I always tell the younger generations to be good to each other.”

Riteman reminded his audience how fortunate they are to be free. “You’re all living here in heaven but really you don’t know,” he said.