Working on the Trauma

Maya Laster-Wallfisch’s mother survived the Holocaust. It affects the family over generations

First published in Der Freitag, Number 16, April 15, 2020

Maya Lasker-Wallfisch

The Holocaust was not ended with the liberation of the concentration camps. It lives on in all those who were in contact with it,” writes Maya Jacobs, née Lasker-Wallfisch, in her debut. The 62-year-old tells very personally how the persecution and murder of her family affected her. Her mother Anita Lasker-Wallfisch survived Auschwitz because she “was allowed” to play the cello in the orchestra there – for the forced laborers and those doomed to die on their way to the gas chambers, day after day. The cellist was also able to save her older sister Renate. The teenagers overcame typhus and in 1944 were transported to Bergen-Belsen, where they were liberated. Anita was 19 then and had been an orphan for three years: The Nazis had murdered her parents.

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Negacionismo

“Alexandra Senfft from Germany says to “The Clinic”: “Human Rights are universal and should be globally recognized. If we don’t acknowledge the crimes of the past and remain silent or worse, deny what has happened, new injustice will be done. Denial makes us accomplices of crime. It is our duty to stop denial in order to protect people and to safeguard moral and legal standards.”
In: De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de negacionismo?, Catalina Llantén The Clinic, Chile, 31.1.2020
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Laudatory Speech

with Eti Livni and Julliet Kahwaji, Women Wage Peace Foto: Melanie Öhlenbach

Women Wage Peace
International Bremen Peace Prize 2019, Foundation die schwelle
Bremen City Hall, 15 November 2019

International Bremen Peace Prize 2019, Foundation die schwelle
Laudatory Speech Women Wage Peace
Bremen city hall, 15 November 2019
Alexandra Senfft

Shalom, dear Eti, Salamat, dear Jullet!
I am very happy that both of you are here today on behalf of Women Wage Peace to receive the Peace Award 2109 given by the schwelle Foundation and to present your movement here in Bremen.

Dear audience,
I invite you to make the acquaintance of two courageous and unusual women: Eti Livni, a Jewish Israeli woman from Tel Aviv, lawyer, former Knesset member – and Julliet Kahwaji, a Palestinian Israeli woman from Akko, Arabic teacher, educationalist. Despite their many differences, they also have a lot in common: Both are mediators, women activists and each of them is the mother of three children. However, the strongest bond between them is their pursuit for peace in the Middle East as members of Women Wage Peace.

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