Nimrod Ariav – Meeting at the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre
In November 2005 the film with the story told by Nimrod Ariav was shown to young people from the Civil Academy that is active at the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre.
They sent a letter to him and a cassette, on which their impressions and thoughts are recorded.
Index
[Collapse]November, 2005. Fragments of students statements
Thank you for something important, for the fragment of history that we were not witnesses to, and for your message about tolerance.
I would very much like to participate in the meeting with you. I believe I could learn a lot from you. What you can hear from someone is totally different from what you can read in the books.
Some information that we heard during this conversation shows the situations and places, which we could not see, experience or hear – for example the information about the pre-war Lublin or the Warsaw Uprising.
I only want to say that this story does not focus on any philosophy or what we should or should not do. This is a true story and I believe that if one is sensitive it will be important for him/her and will be remembered.
It is surely more meaningful to me than the books I read about the history of Poland and Polish- Jewish relationships because all that you went through shows us what these relationships were really like, what human life was like. I would like to thank you for that. I do hope that more persons will be able to see this interview and to learn what I have learnt.
I would like to thank you for your message “not to slide through life, not to be over it or aside of it”. This may be an inspiration for me and for many other persons how to live, how to force our way into life. Thank you very much.
Meeting on February, 2006
On February 13, 2006 Nimrod Ariav came to Lublin to talk to young people. This meeting was held at the "Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre" Centre.
My present name is Nimrod Ariav. When I lived in Lublin, it was Cygielman, in Warsaw - Henryk Górski and Jerzy Eugeniusz Godlewski. And my friends call me Zigi, so please call me Zigi. And now you begin. I will answer all your questions. Yesterday I was in Warsaw and my friend asked me if I prepared myself for this meeting. I told him I didn’t, because I cannot prepare for it in any way. I did not come here to deliver a speech, I want to hear your questions, and I do not need to prepare to answer them. I will tell you what I went through, experienced, and what I feel – if you want.
Since December 12 I have thought about the beginning, when we wrote a letter to you. Because what can we say? First of all, the interview that Director Pietrasiewicz had with you was very surprising to us. And please, believe me: what you say is very important to us. For this place and for the people, who are here – sometimes by accident, but in most cases not by accident – this is an essential issue. And I am happy that you are with us.
Ariav Nimrod: Thank you.
It seems to me that the main reason for us to invite you here is that we want you to tell us how to talk about what your generation went through with such people as us. How to initiate this dialog, which in a way is carried out on the two edges of this abyss – the years that have passed since the war.
I have no answer for you how to do it and whether to do it at all. I believe I made a mistake not to talk about it at home. They asked me to go to schools and tell the students what had happened here. I did not want to. I did not want to talk about it at all. In 1988 – when I was over sixty – I spoke about it for the first time with my sons, I told them what had happened here. I invited them to Poland to show them and tell them about their roots and about what had happened here as seen through my eyes.
Everyone may interpret it in his or her own way. They listened and said nothing. I did not hear a word about it from them for about a year, and later they went back to school abroad and I went back to England, where I already lived at that time. We did one thing together: we went to look for my father’s grave – today there is a Jewish cemetery there.
Since that time, i.e. 1990, my family, colleagues and friends have come to Bełżyce with me; there is no priest or rabbi with us. My sons and their wives say a poem or a fragment of the Bible – they decide themselves what to say. I say kaddish, the prayer for the dead. We put flowers and we stand there in silence. Is it necessary to go to schools, and talk about it? Maybe it is? Now, when I am talking to you I think: it seems that it should be done. It seems so. But am I sure? I do not know. I do not know if anyone can do it. I am probably more moved here and now than when it actually happened. I tell my family what I went through but I do not know if I have the right to tell what I feel to other people. Maybe I have.
I would like to ask you about the time when Israel was established as a state. Suddenly, from all the countries where the Jews lived – those who survived in the Nazi-occupied Europe, those from the States and from other countries - they came to Israel. They spoke different languages, their cultural background and customs also differed. What was most difficult when all these people, who were in a way strangers to each other, had to create their state together, to live together, to communicate and to build mutual relationships?
The most difficult thing for me and, probably, for all of us, was the language. And this was not an easy process. I was lucky that I learned it quickly, because I had the educational base here in Lublin, in Tarbut, which was a Hebrew school. I spoke Hebrew a month after my arrival to Israel. But for most people this was the most important issue. The other one was customs, because what has a Jew from Poland in common with a Jew from Tunisia or Morocco? Zero. Nothing in common. But all of them are Jews! This got sorted out and settled with time.
I will give you an example: I worked for Israel Aircraft Industries – this is the biggest aircraft plant in the area of Middle East. When I worked there, over twenty thousand people were employed at this plant and I was its President. We had engineers from over forty places in the world and each of them believed that his alma mater was the best! Because a Jew from France, from Sorbonne, believed he was better than the one from Oxford, and the one from Oxford was better than a Jew from the Warsaw Technical University or from Morocco University, from Texas or from any other place. And the major task was to make them an integrated unit working together because each of them had some good ideas.
And it was not easy but they succeeded! I have my own theory why a Jew from Morocco and a Jew from Warsaw or Lublin are able to communicate. I will tell you what I think. I flew to Ikito – Ikito is near Peru and Brazil, somewhere that way, a small place at the end of the world! I landed in Ikito. I walked the street and I saw a Jew from Yemen. I ran to him: "How are you?!" And what do I have in common with him? Zero. But I was very glad to see him there, at the end of the world!