Survivor experiences

VICKY TOBIANAH

Geronimo Henry cannot forget. “I cried at the window for 10 years wanting to go home,” he said. “But they never came. Nobody came.”

Henry is one of about 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children who were separated from their parents and placed in government-funded, church-run residential schools.

From the opening of the first such school in the 1870s to the last one in 1996, the schools would not allow parental involvement in the cultural, emotional, spiritual and educational upbringing of their children; they were known for forcing Aboriginal children to attend church against their will, prohibiting them from learning their own language, changing their name to a Western one and giving them a number, among other ill treatment.

In 2006, the Canadian government agreed to pay $2 billion to former residential school students and their families and, in 2008, established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to compile the accounts of residential school survivors and help them deal with what had been done to them. In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian government for the treatment Aboriginal communities received during those 125 years.

However, for many people, including Henry, it can never be enough. “A few dollars and a few programs,” he said was the way the government asked for forgiveness, “but a lifetime of conflict – how are you gonna straighten that out?”

Residential school survivors, Holocaust survivors and their descendants made up a panel of speakers at a joint event in Toronto on Nov. 4, run by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the TRC as part of the 32nd annual Holocaust Education Week. The intergenerational panel shared the impact their childhood suffering had on them and their children’s lives.

“I was number 48,” said Henry, who was assigned that number at school, and later had it tattooed on his hand, as he showed the crowd the permanent reminder of his suffering. “My life’s over now. I’m 76. Even if they did something good for me, how much time do I have left to enjoy it?”

“I’ve never met a Native person who isn’t angry,” said panelist Clayton Shirt, a residential school survivor. “We’re angry. We have every right to be.”

He looked straight at the audience and said, “I hated every white man. I hated you.”

While the sufferings of two very difference experiences cannot ever be truly compared, both the Aboriginal speakers and the Holocaust survivors empathized with each other’s experiences and their attempts to cope. “Having seen my mother go ahead of me on the road to Auschwitz-Birkenau to the poisonous gas ... to be poisoned and murdered,” said Hedy Bohm, a Holocaust survivor originally from Hungary, “forgiving is just not possible.”

One of the main things these survivors had in common was the lasting impact their experiences have had on their own children. For Henry, for example, it meant that he never tucked his children into bed or told them that he loves them, because he couldn’t recall anyone ever having done those things for him. For the descendants of Holocaust survivors, like Karen Lasky, it meant that she would grapple with being her parents’ only reason to live. “Even though I didn’t share the experience, it was transferred into me, prenatally,” she said, tears flowing down her face. “My parents lost everybody and everything. My parents could never get beyond their losses. When I was born, I was a beacon of hope, a wonderful thing in one way and a burden in another.”

One of the reasons that the TRC and CIJA joined together for this event was to examine the parallels and differences of these communities’ suffering and to learn how to preserve difficult memories.

“To hear about two communities who have suffered greatly and been resilient, not only survived but are moving on towards a better future ... is powerful,” said Lori Ransom, senior advisor, church relations, of the TRC. “Of course, there are differences, but both have racism and discrimination at the heart of these stories.

“Two communities have gone through these different but dreadful attacks on their identity ... and even a challenge to the notion that they’re human. We all need to learn from that because, let’s face it, around the world, people are still being attacked on the basis of their identity.”

This recent panel was one in a series of events that has brought together members of the Aboriginal and Jewish communities. Last April, for example, about 30 Aboriginal youth from Manitoba traveled to Israel on a youth leadership development mission under the auspices of CIJA.

“We wanted to provide [the youth] with the ability to become inspired,” said Shelley Faintuch, community relations director for the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg and an associate director of CIJA. “If the Aboriginal [community] can take [the Jewish people] as an example, perhaps they can be self-sufficient.”

As well, in June, the TRC’s national event brought in Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman as the keynote speaker.

“When they heard my experiences in the Holocaust, floodgates opened up and they began to speak about their own experiences in the residential schools,” said Waisman in an interview with the Jewish Independent. “Obviously, we cannot compare the horrors of the Holocaust to this but we can talk about the experiences and contribute to the healing process.”

Waisman said knowing that someone was able to rise above after suffering such trauma is what can bring hope to some Aboriginal Canadians. “I tell them the story of the boys of Buchenwald. We were written out,” he said. “But my friend, Israel Meir Lau, became the chief rabbi of Israel; another, Elie Wiesel, is a Nobel laureate. So, I say, look what we did, why can’t you?”

Henry, however, said that moving on is easier said than done. “To forgive, I don’t know,” he said quietly, as he stared at the crowd in front of him. “That’s my whole life they took from me. Just to say I forgive helps them, not me.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto and a recent McGill University graduate. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or by e-mail to [email protected].

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