INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Have faith, Magda Brown told Pittsburgh
Her daughter sat her down and told her: A shooting at a synagogue, around the corner from where Magda was scheduled to give a presentation,
the following the day, about her experiences surviving the Holocaust.Was it all too much Her daughter asked if she wanted to bow out or
Staff at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, on whose behalf Magda regularly gives speeches, wondered if it would be safe for her to take the
stage at such a foreboding time, in such a raw place.Magda did not hesitate."Now the world needs to hear the message even more," she said
"Let's go."So she and her daughter got on their plane in Chicago, landing Saturday in Pittsburgh hours after the worst attack on Jewish
history."A strange phenomenon," Magda said Sunday evening
"To have that tragedy, and to have me here."She is 91
Thin legs in black tights
Manicured nails painted a dusty rose
She was buoyant and cheery, doling out "grandma hugs" in a chapel at Chatham University, in the same neighborhood as the synagogue
A short walk away was a heap of soggy condolence: Grocery-store bouquets
Thoughts and prayers on posterboard, ink running in the rain
"SORRY," proclaimed one, with blunt simplicity.The leaves had turned
The city was sitting shiva
The Steelers had won, after a moment of silence
And the pews were filling up at the chapel to hear Magda Brown.Magda Brown, 91, of Skokie, Ill., traveled to Pittsburgh hours after the
synagogue shooting for a scheduled speech"She's spoken all over the world and never, ever, ever encountered anything close to this," said
"So this is just devastating
And I'm hoping that her presentation makes a difference."In times like these we look to our elders to sort things out, to put things in
What does Then say about Now Magda Brown has faced far worse than a country gone crazy with guns
She has a scarred bump on her left foot, from the wooden slippers at Auschwitz
Every step is a reminder.She spells it out when she talks to a group:"Premeditated
Scientifically coordinated
Mass murder."Then is not Now
And yet.Then: "The feeling that I have 5 million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction," said Adolf
Eichmann, the Nazi leader who coordinated the transportation of Magda and 400,000 other Hungarian Jews to concentration camps.Now: "I just
want to kill Jews," the man with the semiautomatic rifle told police after he allegedly slaughtered 11 congregants at Tree of Life
synagogue.Chatting backstage in the chapel, Magda was feisty and sharp
Among her notes was a printout of a poem by a fellow Hungarian Holocaust survivor."Hitler never died," it begins
"He only slumbers."A security officer was with her
You could hear the whiny chirp of metal-detector wands in the lobby
Purses were searched, bags were banned
There was extra muscle on this night, carrying sidearms
The pews were nearly full, a few hundred people who had come to hear her story, the same story she always tells, but in a more immediate
The organizers of the event - the Chatham University Women's Institute and the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh - had put a small leaflet
inside each program with the names and ages of the dead: "May their memories be a blessing."Hate has always been around, Magda said
backstage, but it spreads faster now
The world is more connected, for better and worse
Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States spiked in 2017
She looks at Tree of Life, at the march in Charlottesville last year, and she feels an old fear
Horror starts slowly, here and there
They reduce you step by step."Nowadays a teenager who is very impressionable can be brainwashed
And brainwashing works, I'll tell you that much
Propaganda and brainwashing work hand in hand
Young people follow a leader."It was time for her to go onstage
"I just hope the words come out right," she said.She addressed her audience from an armchair
The chapel was full of Pittsburghers who wanted a story, a message, something, anything.Magda Brown greets audience members after her speech
Jealously guard your freedom, she told them
"Once you lose it, you lose everything."Story first.Magda was a happy-go-lucky child, a spoiled brat blessed with a positive attitude
Her parents ran a meat market
Anti-Semitism was a part of life - Jews' access to education was limited - but the Nazi invasion took it to unimagined levels
First came the mandatory wearing of the Star of David
Then ghettoization, with 40 other Jews forced into Magda's family home
Then, on her 17th birthday, the march out to the railyards, with the promise that paid labor awaited them in another country."This way they
kept us calm," she said, "so we didn't resist."Then they were packed into cattle cars, for three solid days in the June heat
Then they were offloaded at Auschwitz-Birkenau, sorted according to gender and fitness, shaved and disinfected, fed green sludge for
breakfast and black bread for dinner
The smell on the breeze - like charred chicken feathers - was the airborne remains of older Jews who had been gassed and sent to the
After two months of starvation, humiliation and torture, Magda was sent with other Hungarian women to a munitions factory in Allendorf,
Germany, to help put bombs together
In the spring of '45, with the Allies closing in, they were marched toward Buchenwald, and intercepted by American soldiers."God was
watching over us," Magda said.An orphan at 18, she found relatives in Chicago and immigrated there in late 1946
She met a nice Jewish boy named Robert Brown at a party and married him within a year
It wasn't easy for him to grasp the depth of her pain, but he was a good man, compassionate and caring, and he gave her space to pursue her
She took night classes in history and English and worked in a physician's office as a medical assistant
They had two children, and Magda taught them never to hate anyone
Ever.Now she was here - 73 years removed from the Holocaust, one day removed from another mass shooting - with a message
It was nothing you haven't heard before, but it meant something different because it came from her
Because the world once gave her every reason to despair.Have faith, she told Pittsburgh
Exercise determination and drive.Don't train your children to hate
Push back on the deniers.Believe that tomorrow will be better
And jealously guard your freedom."Once you lose it, you lose everything," she said "So work for it."The audience gave her a standing ovation
People lingered afterward to get a picture with her, to receive a grandma hug, to kneel at her feet and hold her hand and absorb some
resilience from her.Then it was time to go
She had another appointment in the morning, with impressionable schoolchildren
Outside the chapel, it was cold and black and raining
She was not bothered by it
She remembered what her elders said."You know," she said, "when I was a child, they said, 'If you are in the rain, you will grow.'"(Except
for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
