Photo Courtesy of Choate Rosemary Hall
As a part of last week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Program on April 8, Choate students, faculty, and staff met virtually with Rabbi Philip Lazowski, a renowned Rabbi within the Connecticut Jewish community and a survivor of the Holocaust, to listen to his heart-wrenching and inspirational story. A collaborative effort between Rabbi Barbara Paris and the Choate Equity and Inclusion team, the Yom HaShoah program served to educate the community about the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Hailing from the town of Bielica, located in modern-day Belarus, Rabbi Lazowski’s hometown was stormed by the Nazis when he was 11 years old. “Words and images are powerful,” he warned. “Say something enough times, show pictures repeatedly, and people will start believing. It is imperative that this part of history is never forgotten. There are those who say the Holocaust is not true, I am living proof. I am a survivor.”
As Rabbi Lazowski told the community, a few months into the occupation of the Nazis, his family was sent to a ghetto in Zhetel. A Christian family friend alerted the Lazowskis about the Nazi execution of Jews, and his family constructed a cave to hide. During the first massacre in April 1942, the Lazowskis went into hiding. As the oldest son, Rabbi Lazowski volunteered to seal the entrance to his family’s hiding place. “As soon as I covered the cave, I tried to hide, but a Nazi spotted me,” he recalled.
Along with a few other Jews, Rabbi Lazowski was rounded up and packed into a marketplace. There, officers divided people into two groups: those useful enough to work — including nurses and doctors — and those who would be executed. Rabbi Lazowski asked a nearby nurse who was standing with her two children if she could pretend that he was her son, and he was sent to the working group. “If you wish to be with us, you may,” she said. “If the Nazis let me live with two children, they will let me live with three.” He would eventually marry the daughter of this woman who performed the act that saved his life.
A few months later, the Nazis returned to execute everybody in the ghetto where the Lazowskis hid. Once again, the Lazowskis went into hiding but were discovered five days later and sent to a local movie theatre to be transported and killed. Rabbi Lazowski remembered, “My mother said to me, ‘I want you to live. I want you to go tell this story to others. I want you to be somebody in this world.’ Then, she pushed me out the window.” Barely escaping the massacre, he was reunited with his father, maternal uncle and aunt, and brother in the woods and lived in hiding for the next two and a half years.
Students and faculty alike were moved by Rabbi Lazowski’s story. “His story was unique and inspiring and totally unforgettable. We are told to never forget the Holocaust and those whose lives were lost and to continue to tell these stories to our children and our children’s children. Rabbi Lazowski’s story will not be forgotten, and it will be one that I know I will pass on,” said Rabbi Paris. “It is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Those who are ignorant of history, others will write for them. And those who are not conscious of their past, have no assurance of their future. This is a reminder of how important it is to study and know your history.”
Kenadi Waymire ’22 echoed this sentiment. “Rabbi Lazowski’s story was incredibly powerful and moving,” she said. “You hear about so many atrocities committed by the Nazis, and it’s harrowing. It’s disgusting. But really hearing it from a man who experienced it firsthand pushes it to another level. The things that Rabbi Lazowski had to go through, I could never.”
Director of Spiritual Life Reverend Aaron Rathbun viewed the program as an unique opportunity for the entire School to better understand the horrors of the Holocaust and learn how to prevent similar tragedies today. “We are seeing the rise of authoritarian and nationalist sentiments around the world right now, and we need to be cognizant of these dynamics and how to stave off the atrocities that can come as a result,” he said.
Rabbi Lazowski ended his talk with a final piece of advice: “Don’t be a bystander. People must act justly and righteously and in order to do that you need to be educated. Once you are educated, use your intelligence and ability to act.”
