From the “March of the Living” ceremony yesterday at Birkenau:
Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau — a survivor — recalled that the first time he returned to Birkenau nearly 20 years ago, he was angered by the Yiddish word nekama (revenge) someone scribbled in one of the barracks.
The answer is not revenge in the traditional sense of the word, Lau said.
"The revenge is that we are here. The revenge is that we are home; the revenge is in that we have a homeland; the revenge is in that we have a garden of Israel; the revenge is that we have come here with a blue-and-white flag and a Star of David," he said.
Following the Birkenau ceremony, Sharon drove over to Auschwitz and hammered a mezuza onto the door of the Jewish barracks which houses a Holocaust display.
Am Yisrael Chai.