Tag #108845 - Interview #78427 (Janina Wiener)

The first time I met Rabbi Kahane [after the war] was at the opening of the Auschwitz Museum [June 1947, opening of a permanent exhibition on the site of the former Auschwitz I camp, and thus of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]. I was there with my husband. In fact, it was the first and last time I visited Auschwitz. Altars had been placed in front of the individual barracks, and priests of a dozen denominations were praying. When Kahane turned around, because he was standing with his back to the congregation, I suddenly recognized him and later approached him. We talked. The second and last time, I met him in 1957 in Israel. Each compatriot society [31] in Israel holds a hazkara [Heb.: commemoration] on the day of the destruction of the given community. It is a different date for each community. And while in Jerusalem I read in a Polish-language newspaper published there, which is called… [Nowiny Kurier; since 1992 the weekly Weekendowe Nowiny Kurier] that the Lwow hazkara was to be held the next day in Tel Aviv. I went, and when I entered the room, I suddenly heard exclamations: ‘It’s Janka!’, ‘It’s Janka!’ And I met my friends. He [Kahane] was leading the hazkara, praying. In fact, shortly after the war he had been the chief rabbi of the [communist] Polish Army, here in Poland. Then he left for Israel, and at the time when I was there, he was the rabbi of the Israeli air force. In Israel, yes. My teacher.