Shaul and Mina Sterngast, who lived Krakow, had eight children. One of them, Romek, was my grandfather. He caught the Zionist bug, as did some of his siblings, and together they made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine before World War II. The rest of the family stayed in Poland. They were rounded up in the ghetto and then, like the entire community, were murdered in Auschwitz. Their execution at the gas chambers was also the death of humanity, justice, and morality.
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I visited the home of my family this week. It still stands. For a moment, I could imagine the kids hurriedly descending the wooden stairs as they headed down to play in the yard or the special aura one would sense when the household's Shabbat preparations got underway.
But it was also easy to imagine how the family members were brutally hit as they were forced down those very stairs. When I entered the main hall in the Auschwitz crematorium, with 16 battalion commanders from the IDF standing next to me, I was overcome with emotion. I know them personally; they represent what's best about Israelis. They decided to dedicate their lives to the most important thing there is. Many had family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, and now – having flown directly from Tel Aviv and their shoes still bearing some dust from the Land of Israel – they stand at the shallowest and darkest place in human history as the spearhead of Israel's defense force.
At the very place where our families became ashes, we now stand tall as armed soldiers; in the very place where our clothes had a yellow Star of David, we now have insignia to mark the operations and wars in which we defeated our enemies - in the distant past or in the present. Each one of the battalion commanders and officers represents unique military power; each one has fought and defended Israel and each one continues to engage in combat and fight the threats facing our country, all the while working to bolster the armed forces.
As we stand in the cabins of death, we feel an increased sense of duty. From here one cannot escape the thought that we have a treasure in Israel – its institutions, its military, and its culture, as well as all of its accomplishments – and that its safeguarding must be of paramount concern.
The familial history of each and every one of us takes on a new and special meaning here. My family members, like those of the commanders who joined me, could not have imagined that just three hours away by plane from the very place where Jews were to be annahilated, the Jewish people would have a flourishing and developed state that is based on the Jewish values and is able to defend itself. We are blessed to have our own military that stands out as one of the strongest, as a moral and professional force; we are privileged to serve in it.
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