In its continuing efforts to explore common ground and educate others about tolerance, the B’nai Brith Manitoba Jewish Christian Roundtable, in association with the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada, sponsored a moving and inspiring event in Winnipeg on Sunday, May 30.  

The afternoon program, held at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Winnipeg, featured a tribute luncheon for local Holocaust survivors, a brief address by Auschwitz upriser Felix Opatowski, entertainment by the Chai Folk Ensemble, and an impromptu hora. More than 200 people from the Jewish, Christian and Aboriginal communities attended the event, which was designed to honour the memories, courageous actions and noble deeds of the Holocaust’s victims, survivors, liberators and Righteous among the Nations.

Raising awareness about the Holocaust and honouring its victims and survivors has become one of the main focuses of B’nai Brith in general and of the Manitoba Jewish Christian Roundtable in particular. This roundtable was established in Winnipeg two years ago and has since sponsored half a dozen interfaith events.

“Both the Jewish and Christian communities are united in purpose to honour the survivors for their accomplishments and achievements and to pay tribute to them,” Earl Barish, chairman of the Executive Board of B’nai Brith Canada, explained in his opening remarks. “B’nai Brith will never stop making sure that the lessons of the Holocaust will not be forgotten.”   

This commitment to remembrance was echoed by Reverend Rudy Fidel, spiritual leader of Winnipeg’s Faith Temple and a founding member and co-chair of the roundtable. Fidel spoke briefly about his life altering trip to Poland and Israel in September 2009 in the company of Felix Opatowsky, and then had the honour of introducing the 85-year-old Opatowski as the program’s guest speaker.       

Toronto resident Opatowski is a survivor of the Lodz ghetto and of six concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
               
“I survived by pure luck,” he told the audience, before launching into an account of his participation in the October, 1944 uprising that destroyed four of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria.      

This uprising was engineered by British prisoner of war Charles Coward, known to his fellow inmates as the Count of Auschwitz. Opatowski was recruited to procure dynamite for the uprising because his job at the camp, collecting the bodies of prisoners who had committed suicide by throwing themselves against the electrified fence, allowed him a little more freedom of movement than most inmates.        

“I was not a hero,” he said adamantly. “I was involved by accident.”      

As a result of the uprising and the temporary destruction of the crematoria, thousands of Jews en route to the gas chambers at Auschwitz were rerouted to other camps. Many of them, Opatowski said, owed their lives to Coward without even realizing it.            

Following his liberation in May, 1945, Opatowsky made efforts to locate the Count in order to thank him in person for his heroic actions. Although Opatowski never managed to meet him, Charles Coward has been duly recognized as a Righteous Gentile at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.        

Still, Opatowski continues to use every opportunity, such as the B’nai Brith event, to inform the public about Coward’s courage and the horrors of the Holocaust. He also has written a book about the Auschwitz uprising, entitled October 7, 1944, and chronicled his 2007 journey back to Poland and the camps in the mini documentary, Following in the Footsteps of Felix Opatowski. This documentary was scheduled to be shown at the Faith Temple on Monday, May 31 with Opatowski in attendance.        

No doubt, his presence at that event was as well received as it was at the Sunday tribute luncheon where, both before and after he spoke, Opatowsky was given a standing ovation - testimony to the fact that although he may not consider himself a hero, others, especially those committed to the ideals of the B’nai Brith Manitoba Jewish Christian Roundtable, certainly do.