Looking Back, Thinking Forward: Reflections on Interviewing Mrs. Toby Kirsh, Holocaust Survivor and Member of the Belgian Resistance
By: Hannah Kaplan
When I began meeting with Mrs. Toby Kirsh in January 2008 I assumed that the most significant knowledge I would take away from our meetings would be a detailed history of one individual's experience during the Holocaust. Looking back, it is true that hearing Mrs. Kirsh speak of her experiences during the war has helped me enormously, as I hope it will help others, understand the horrors that took place during the Holocaust. I have learned so much from the stories she has shared with me. Mrs. Kirsh has told me about how the Resistance relocated children in an attempt to keep them safe from Nazi persecution and murder. Most all of these attempts ended in success and safety, only one is known to have ended in tragedy. I have learned also about her husband's missions with the Mouvement National Belge (the national Belgian resistance movement). She shared with me what it was like to return to her apartment after the war and find it devoid of her possessions. In their place was the most basic furniture provided by the government to all individuals who lost their possessions in the war. She also described the involvement of the Belgian and U.S. governments with the resistance. Finally, Mrs. Kirsh spoke to me about what it was like to learn that her entire family and her husband's entire family had perished, with the exception of her eldest sister who had moved to New York before the war. Mrs. Kirsh made the tragedy of the Holocaust personal to me, as personal as it could ever be more than 60 years later, and that has given me a valuable means to begin to understand the Holocaust.
While the stories Mrs. Kirsh has shared are of immeasurable importance for both myself and others, equally important are the stories of her life since the war ended sixty-three years ago. Mrs. Kirsh provides a model for how to live actively and productively after surviving incomprehensible tragedy. Her life and actions illuminate what I believe to be the most valuable purpose of understanding history. Mrs. Kirsh has taught me that history is most important as a pedagogical tool to be used in the present. It is important to know and understand the past as a way to understand the present and to influence the future. When Mrs. Kirsh began talking about the Holocaust, the conversation usually ended in a discussion of current issues. Most often these topics included the upcoming 2008 Presidential election, international human rights concerns, events occurring in the community, at Manhattan College, or the Society for Ethical Culture.
I had trouble when I first began documenting Mrs. Kirsh's accounts of the war because I was constantly concerned that she was moving off topic, the most important topic being her personal memories of the past. And while recording her memories of the Holocaust is extremely important, its importance is best understood in how it can help to create a more compassionate and tolerant world community. That was where her conversation always headed.
One thing I found very interesting about Mrs. Kirsh's discussion of her memories, is that were are two different ways that she seemed to remember her past. There were certain stories that I heard her tell numerous times, and these incredible stories are the same memories she has shared again and again when discussing the Holocaust. However, in some of our conversations, I asked her specific questions whose answers were not included in those memories. Sometimes these questions would get a well-warranted response of, "It was more than sixty years ago! I have lived a whole life since then, I do not remember." But other times, the questions I asked, especially the day we went through all her old photographs, prompted a completely different type of memory. There was a difference in her speech and in her eyes. The casual yet charismatic demeanor disappeared. When she looked at her old pictures of her father or Flora, her partner in the resistance, she seemed to experience the memory in a completely different way. Watching her at these moments provided a very different experience than hearing the memories that she has repeatedly told. Generally, when she tells the stories she has told before, she seems to recall not the memory itself, but the story of the memory. When she actually returns to a visual memory by looking at pictures that she has not seen in a long time, it appeared to me as though she relives the memory in a more vivid way. I saw a pain and a loss in her eyes that was not there when she told me her stories. It was a much different experience, a more haunting experience.
If there is a theme or catch phrase to describe Mrs. Kirsh's life it might be, "Be active and always stand up for what you believe in." When video taping an interview with Mrs. Clara Knopfler, a survivor that was being interviewed for the Manhattan College Holocaust Resource Center by Kathryn Meyer, I heard a different theme emerge from her interview. Her theme appeared to be hope and faith. During the war, Mrs. Knopfler spent most of her time in internment camps, including Auschwitz, and labor-camp factories. She had little to no agency or control over her situation. The only things she really could do in that situation, at such a young age, was to hope, to have faith, and to survive. And to this day that still seems to be how she interacts with the world. Mrs. Kirsh, on the other hand, was older and was a member of the resistance in a far less oppressed area. Her situation required her to be active to ensure her own safety and that of others. And to this day Mrs. Kirsh lives her life as an activist in every sense of the word. Regarding having hope and faith, Mrs. Kirsh has said to me that hope is a waste of time. From the Holocaust to Darfur, from U.S. segregation to the anti-Semitic notices that appeared in our neighborhoods earlier this year, 2008, things change, but how much? Mrs. Kirsh believes that if you want to see something happen, do not hope for it, instead do something about it, make your hope into a reality.
Before the DVD was published, I showed it to Toby and her daughter Estelle for their approval and any final input. Estelle, who had not been present during the interviews, asked that she would like to make one suggestion: that the number of lives Toby and Flora helped save during the war be more clearly conveyed in the DVD. Up until this conversation, it had seemed as though Toby and Flora had relocated approximately 10 to 15 youths. However, Estelle corrected that Toby and Flora had helped protect at least 60 children during the war. This number is a low estimate, which does not attempt to include all the lives that were indirectly saved by having received information from Toby and Flora regarding the Nazis and their local as well as other threats to those in hiding and in the resistance. When Estelle corrected this information in front of Toby and I, I was incredibly surprised, it had never occurred to me that Toby and Flora's work had been so extensive. Toby, hearing this information, refuted that it had been so high a number, saying that was too much, and not how she remembered it. But Estelle did not budge from her position, saying that Toby and Flora had decided on this number in front of her during a visit to Belgium almost 30 years ago. Learning this information about Toby's past not only reminded me of her humility, but opened my eyes in a new way to the efforts and sacrifices she made to help the lives of others during such a dark period of our history.