AUBURN – Holocaust survivor Judith Isaacson, 79, of Auburn said she appreciates the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, but she had no interest in attending Thursday’s ceremony in Brzezinka, Poland.
“No,” she said. “To go to Auschwitz and grieve again, I’m just not particularly up to it.”
Isaacson has twice visited the Nazi concentration camp where she was imprisoned for three weeks as a 19-year-old with her mother, Rose Magyar. They were moved to another camp before being liberated in April 1945.
“I am surprised and very appreciative that it’s being remembered,” she said, “in the name of those who died there more than anything.
“Both of my grandmothers and an aunt arrived at Auschwitz with me,” Isaacson said. “They were gassed on arrival. My three very best friends caught scarlet fever” and were told they were going to be taken to the infirmary, “but there was no infirmary. They were just taken to the gas chambers. And my mother escaped the gas just by chance.”
Isaacson said one of her uncles also died at Auschwitz.
It was an “unforgettable” time, she said, adding that she has been writing her memoirs about it for more than 20 years. “I’m still writing,” she said.
Isaacson has returned to Auschwitz twice, once to be filmed there for a movie about her writing, she said.
“I always feel I don’t ever want to go back again,” she said. “I have survived, and I have had a really amazing and fortunate life here in the United States.”
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