Friends of IDF marks 30 years with Poland-Israel trip

Montreal natives Judy and Nathan Laufer pose on Mount Herzl with Israel Defence Forces chief of general staff Benny Gantz.

MONTREAL — Nathan and Judy Laufer had never been as impressed or moved.

Arm-in-arm with about 40 uniformed soldiers from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the couple, both Montreal natives, were two of only four Canadians and 70 others from the United States and Panama who strode together into the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, as part of a unique 10-day trip to Poland and Israel this spring.

The other Canadian couple were Allan and Patricia Friedland of Toronto.

The trip April 16 to 27 – with the theme “From Holocaust to Independence” – was held to mark 30 years since the establishment of Friends of the IDF (FIDF), founded by Holocaust survivors, primarily in the United States, to provide support for the IDF and Israel.

The soldiers were in uniform throughout the trip.

 “It was an amazing trip, just incredible,” Judy Laufer said in a recent telephone interview, describing the entrance into Auschwitz as the emotional climax of the Polish portion of the trip.

Ordinary Poles looked at the group and did not quite know what to make of them in their IDF garb, she said.

“I am the child of Holocaust survivors, and so is my husband,” Laufer said. “So there we were in Poland with one IDF pilot, in his uniform, who was looking for his grandfather’s house.”

Laufer said that any apprehensions she and her husband may have had about visiting Holocaust-related sites in Poland vanished once the trip got underway.

Judy’s mother, Kati (Krausz) Egett, now 85, survived Auschwitz, but her parents and four siblings didn’t. Judy’s late father, Adolf Egett, lost a sister in Auschwitz but survived a Polish slave labour camp with his brother.

Nathan’s father, Jack, now 95, survived the war in a Siberian labour camp, while his mother Pearl, 82, survived as a hidden child in Poland. Both remain active Montreal seniors.

The Laufers, now 25-year residents of Phoenix, Ariz., have visited Israel on several previous occasions, but this trip was an experience neither would soon forget, Judy said.

In Poland, the group, besides visiting Auschwitz, went to the Schindler factory in Krakow, and to Warsaw, Tikochin village, which had a thriving Jewish population before the Holocaust, and the Lopachova forest, where thousands of Jews were murdered.

They also used a specially assigned Israel Air Force (IAF) plane to travel back to Warsaw, and again to fly directly to Israel.

“There was no lining up or customs to go through,” Laufer said with a laugh.

In Israel, the FIDF group got more royal treatment, meeting with top IAF and IDF commanders, as well as government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They dined with President Shimon Peres at his residence, visited IDF bases not usually available to visitors, and were hosted by FIDF chair Nily Falic at her Jerusalem home.

The group spent Yom Hazikaron at the official memorial ceremony on Mount Herzl with IDF chief of general staff Benny Gantz, and then celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut the next day at a top secret intelligence base, followed by a closing dinner at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel hosted by FIDF stalwarts Ruth and Leo David, founders of the FIDF office in Los Angeles.

The FIDF (fidf.org), according to its website, provides educational, social, cultural and recreational programs and facilities to soldiers in the IDF and has 120,000 supporters through 15 regional offices in the United States and Panama.

For Laufer, who with her husband, a physician, are prominent in the Phoenix Jewish and pro-Israel community and frequent travellers, the FIDF trip resonated like no other.

“We have been on a lot of trips, but this one will be hard to top,” she said.