Today is the day everything stops in Israel for two minutes once a year. Please read this post from Israel National News and the Times of Israel; to touch, even briefly, the gripping personal testimony of this survivor. I appreciate her credit to “providence” in the face of the very embodiment of evil.
A Survivor Recounts: Defying Death in the Holocaust for a Sister: Suzanna Braun was told to save her little sister as she was herded away to the gas chambers – and she did at all costs. Suzanna Braun recalls the efforts to keep her father’s last wish during the war, with a little help from ‘divine providence’. by Jonah Mandel
(AFP) – Suzanna Braun, who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust and defied death at least three times, believes she survived because of her determination to save her sister – and some divine intervention.
The first time she beat death was sheer luck.
Suzanna was just two weeks shy of 16 when she, her sister Agi and her parents were rounded up in their hometown of Kosice, in what is now Slovakia, and sent to the Polish death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
There, the women were separated from the men. As her father was taken away to the gas chambers, he shouted his last words to her: “Take care of your sister!”
Agi, four years older than her sister, was already in ill health.
Now 86 and living in a retirement home in Shoresh, a small village west of Jerusalem, Suzanna recalls every detail of how the women were stripped and herded into the “showers” where there was a faint odor of gas.
Locked behind a steel door with soap in their hands, some women waited for water. Others, who had heard the rumours, began panicking.
It was only when the doors opened they realized they had cheated death.
“They were out of gas,” she told AFP in an interview as Israelbegan marking Holocaust memorial day and 70 years since the end of the war.
Wearing dresses from gypsies killed before them, they were loaded onto trucks and driven to Estonia to join thousands of other women on a death march aimed at killing or weakening as many as possible.
After her mother was shot dead during the march, Suzanna did not speak for a month.
But it hardened her resolve to look after her only surviving relative.
“I didn’t think about anything, only how to save my sister. Because father asked me to take care of her.”
Lethal injection
At one point, they were forced to cross a wide river but Agi could not swim so Suzanna made makeshift wooden floats to carry her to the other side.
They survived the march but were taken to Stuffhof camp in Poland where Agi was put into the infirmary and Suzanna would sneak in food for her at night.
When the Nazis realised Russian forces were heading toward the camp, they attempted to kill as many inmates as possible with lethal injections containing strychnine and gasoline.
As the Nazi orderly was going from woman to woman injecting the poison, Suzanna told her sister and three other women to turn their arms over so the injection would hopefully miss a vein.
The poison took effect quickly.
“My hand stopped working,” she said showing a pale, rounded scar.
Looking around, Suzanna seized a wad of hay from their bedding andbegan putting pressure on her arm, she recounted.
“It exploded like a geyser.”
Quickly she started digging into the flesh with stalks of hay to gouge out the poison. She managed to do the same for her sister and another woman.
“It was like providence,” she said.
Covered in blood, she dragged her sister to a nearby hill and rolled her down it. A Nazi officer was passing so she played dead, and he kicked her down the same hill.
She then got her sister to an abandoned cowshed where she nourished her with leftover milk until Russian forces arrived the next day.
For love of a sister
Not long after, at a hospital in Danzig, Agi’s life was once again saved by medical staff who amputated her gangrened feet.
“The whole time, not my brain but rather divine providence worked for me,” Suzanna said of her survival. “And I cooperated with that providence, with the sixth sense.”
The two eventually immigrated to Israel where Suzanna married, had a daughter and now has two grandchildren. Agi, who married but remained childless, eventually died in 2013, aged 88.
That was when Suzanna decided to go public with the sisters’ story by going back to her hometown along with filmmaker Yarden Karmin to document her story.
The documentary, called “In The Third Person”, is being given its first private screening on Wednesday, as Israel marks 70 years since the liberation of the camps and the end of the war.
“This entire story is being told because since I wanted to commemorate her,” she said.
“My last task is not to live well, go to the cinema and other frivolities – but to tell the story.”
All along it was about saving her sister.
“I wasn’t afraid to die. It wasn’t about me,” she said, explaining that the film was a way of preserving her memory. “I wanted something to remain after her.” Israel National News
Selah…
Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists
I was inspired this week by the teaching of 
Elisha Vision - Commentary 
When God’s Judgments Get Personal
28 04 2015Obama Refuses to Meet Netanyahu Until Iran Talks End Telling Jewish leaders that Netanyahu would just vent about Iran during a meeting, Obama says he will only see PM face-to-face after June. Israel National News
For years I have understood a principle of God’s judgments on America. We know that God promised to defend Israel:
“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3
Since the US is a democracy, we are responsible for those whom we elect. When our officials stand against Israel, the entire country reaps the consequences. This has been itemized quite clearly in an excellent book, Eye T0 Eye, by William Koenig.
However, there is a different standard when it gets personal. President Obama has gone beyond the pale in his personal vendetta against Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Our President is not observing international protocol in his personal attacks. How ironic that he accused the Prime Minister of violating protocol by accepting the invitation to speak to Congress. Now the hypocrisy is exposed.
Because President Obama has made it so personal, I believe he will personally suffer God’s displeasure.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Galatians 6:7
Please understand that I am not cursing anyone! There are simply Biblical truths that play out by themselves, like gravity. What goes up, must come down. You don’t apply gravity, you experience it. So it is with sowing and reaping. Three facts are clear with sowing.
1. You always reap what you sow.
2. You always reap later than you sow.
3. You always reap more that you sow.
I am genuinely concerned about the fruit of our President’s anger with Benjamin Netanyahu. We need to pray for God’s mercy and understanding. Don’t be caught off guard by truth.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists (READ MORE)
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Tags: Elisha Vision, Iran Talks, Israel, Netanyahu, President Obama, Sowing and reaping
Categories : Israel Commentary