Holocaust Survivor's Life
Touched by the Japanese
Solly Ganor and his family were part of the 6,000 Jews during WWII who received visas from diplomat Chiune Sugihara, 'Japan's Schindler.' He credits 522nd soldier Clarence Matsumura with rescuing him from the Nazis.
Holocaust survivor Solly Ganor, 80, often jokes that he must have been a Japanese in a previous life. That may explain why a Japanese diplomat and a Japanese American solider came to his rescue during the most trying moments of his life.
Solly was an 11-year-old boy in Kaunas, Lithuania when he first met Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara at his aunt's shop. Little did he know then that the man with the "kind eyes" who gave him money for Hanukkah would go on to save the lives of thousands of his fellow Jews from the Nazis.
Five years after that fateful meeting, Solly was among the thousands of Jews on a death march from Dauchau near the end of World War II. Having gone days without food or water, the prisoners collapsed onto a bank of snow; many froze to death. But as the Germans began to retreat, the American soldiers arrived including a Japanese American soldier of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. Soon Solly was looking into the eyes of Clarence Matsumura, his rescuer.
"My destiny is connected with the Japanese people," said Solly who spoke with the Pacific Citizen from his summer home in La Jolla, Calif.
Solly's unique story has been a part of a number of exhibits in recent years and is documented in his book, "Light One Candle." For the past two decades he has dedicated his life to telling his story of survival, a story in which Chiune and Clarence are always featured prominently.
"I promised my friends that if I survived I would tell the world what happened to us," said Solly. "When you write things down it gives you some sort of catharsis. It isn't easy to do. You go through the emotional upheaval all over again.
"Many of the survivors don't want to talk about it. It's a shame. We have a lot of stories that are important for the world to know."
Courage to Speak
Solly was just 16 years old when he was plucked out of the snow by the 522nd soldiers and given a new lease on life. Soon after he regained his strength, Solly joined the U.S. Army as an interpreter, helping to prosecute Nazi collaborators. When Israel was declared a State he joined the Israeli Defense Forces and fought in the War of Independence. Later he joined the Israeli Merchant Marine, rising to the rank of captain.
In 1963 he met and married his longtime wife Pola and they had two kids: Daniel and Leora. By the mid-70s he had relocated his family to La Jolla, Calif. where he ran a textile factory. In the mid-80s he was once again back in Israel.
During these 50 years, he never once spoke of the horrors he had witnessed as a survivor of the Holocaust, not even to his family.
But everything changed in 1992. Solly had seen an ad in the local newspaper announcing the visit of JA WWII soldiers who had rescued Jews at Dachau. Solly called the listed number and arranged to meet with the soldiers; among them was his hero Clarence.
Although their dinner meeting was set for 6 p.m. Solly could not muster the courage to enter the hotel. He kept driving around the block for three hours until he was finally able to gather his nerves.
"It was very emotional. They looked at each other and hugged. They started crying," said historian Eric Saul who helped arrange the reunion. "It was like opening up the flood gates. It was a real fulfillment for both of them," he said, noting that Clarence had always wanted to meet the people he had helped liberate.
"I credit Clarence with saving my life," said Solly. He can still taste the Hershey chocolate bar Clarence fed him after digging him out of the snow, the hot broth that warmed his frozen soul. "He brought me back to life."
After their reunion the two remained the best of friends until Clarence's death in 1996. In the exhibit "Unlikely Liberators" by Saul, Clarence spoke of rescuing the Jewish prisoners in 1945:
"They asked who we were, and I told them we were Americans. I told them, 'You're free, you're liberated. The war is over' ... They were obviously starving to death. We tried to feed them, and they couldn't take the food. Some of them died in my arms, unable to swallow the food that we had given them. I cried. I still feel guilty to this day."
"Solly's story is tremendously important," said Lani Silver, founder of the Holocaust Oral History Project who has worked alongside Saul to tell the story of the 522nd soldiers. "The 522nd never got the credit they deserved. They are heroes. They saved Solly Ganor and hundreds of other people."
My Hero
Solly's reunion with Clarence could only be equaled by the rediscovery of the Sugihara family. He got his chance in 1994.
Chiune had passed away in 1986 but at the Sugihara Memorial Park dedication in the city of Yaotsu, Japan, Solly was asked by Chiune's wife Yukiko to attend the event as a guest of honor. Since then the two have remained close, touring the country on speaking engagements.
In Yukiko's book, "Visas for Life," she includes the passage: "Chiune Sugihara's decision to issue visas may have been influenced by an eleven-year-old boy named Solly Ganor."
It is something Solly humbly acknowledges as he helps spread the story of the Japanese consul who saved 6,000 Jews during WWII.
"He was the only lighthouse in a sea of darkness at the time," he said, recalling his days in Lithuania playing with the Sugiharas two young boys as Yukiko brought them sweet desserts and tea.
Although Solly's family was one of the first to receive the precious visas from Sugihara, the Russian occupation of their country at the time had rendered their Lithuanian passports invalid. They could not escape the Nazis and the family found themselves in the Kovno ghetto. Later Solly and his father were sent to a satellite camp of Dauchau, Lager X. Solly's sister and mother were sent to the Stutthof concentration camp. His mother passed away at that camp of typhoid fever.
Although Solly's family did not directly benefit from the visas, Solly treasures the kindness of a man willing to help his fellow Jews during a time when many turned their backs.
Sugihara "enabled the next generation to flourish. We were like people saved from death," he said.
Today, more than 40,000 "Sugihara survivors" continue to spread the story of Chiune Sugihara, a man who defied direct government orders to do the right thing.
"Sugihara followed his heart. He always did in many aspects of his life," said Anne Akabori, chair of the Visas for Life Foundation. "He always believed human life was God's most precious gift."
Spreading the Word
From his home in Herzalia, Israel Solly spends his days writing articles about his Holocaust experiences and running his own Web site.
Solly's personal experiences have also served to form a close bond between the Japanese and Jewish communities. At many of his speaking engagements the rooms are filled with members from both communities.
"There are a lot of similarities between the two communities - the World War II internment, the ghettoization of Jews," said Saul. "For both groups they became canaries in a mine, a warning bell that this shouldn't happen again."
"It's a fantastic story. It gives everyone hope that we can learn to do the right thing," said Silver.
At 80, Solly shows no signs of slowing down. Later this year he will attend an event at New York's Carnegie Hall and will also travel to Toronto, Canada.
"I'm spreading the word," said Solly. "It's important to keep doing this. We should tell everybody about such a cataclysmic event ... a warning of what happens when you allow dictators to take over your lives. It's an important message that goes through to our younger generation."
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