Solly Irving - Holocaust Survivor

Solly Irving is one of the few holocaust survivors left. He went through a great ordeal throughout World War II from trying to stay out of concentration camps (and staying alive on them) to having to watch his family being taken away to potentially be killed. Yesterday he travelled from London (where he now lives) to Plymouth to do around 15 talks over the next 3 days to different schools, colleges, universities and organisations. I have already listened to him talk 2 previous times at high school which was very insightful but listening to him speak today really put into pespective how big the holocaust was as it's obviously a global interest. This was a very fitting time for him to visit as the project we are completing currently is about 'others' and being segregated for various reasons. In the holocaust, Jews, pregnant women, children and the elderly were all segregated for these reason as they were seen by Germans (ruled by Adolf Hitler) as trying to push their 'bad' religion onto everyone else. They were all moved from living in normal mixed society estates and streets to being removed and place in bordered ghettos with no way out. What happened to him was very horrific just as others who went through the tough times.

His stories were very laid out as if they were etched into his mind. The way he descibed things which went on over the years were very detailed, raw and moving as it was first hand knowledge and experience. He told us that he never really liked talked about it as when he moved to the UK when it was all over he wanted to have a normal life with a family, career and everything ordinary people have. He didn't want to talk about it often as whenever it would get brought up he felt like it could jeopardize his 'normal' life. Eventually it got to the point where he was retired and felt like it was time to share his experiences as one of the few survivors left.

One thing which really touched me was when he talked about leaving his sister. The two were trying to find somewhere safe as where they were staying was being hunted for jews and as they were trying to get away from the officers who were nearing and approaching fast his sister was stopped by one of them. He managed to get away but as a result had to leave his sister with her. No 11 year old boy or girl should ever have to go through that.

As I've already heard Solly talk before today it was interesting to see how the stories he told sound compared to previous times. He described things in more of an understanding way in todays world with society the way it is instead of being so confused. None of us who haven't been through this can imagine how horrific and scary it must have been especially for a child who didn't understand much. The thought of having to run for miles and hide anywhere you could find from other human beings with large killing machinery is unimaginable. Someone in the lecture audience asked him a question which was 'How does what you have been through effect your daily life?' and his reply was very insightful and obviously truthful. He talked about how when he's laying in bed at night he sometimes thinks of those days where he would be hiding from other people of the same species, he thinks about the way people were killed right in front of his eyes. This really opened up my eyes as everyone has their own demons which aren't alway obvious or know to many if any. We all have stuff going on but in our society today we don't really think about it that way. We have become quite immune as a worl to anything bad as long as it's not effecting us or our lives. We don't really pay attention to things other people are going through and that's because we've all evolved with coping mechanisms which is to blank out bad goings on.