Holocaust survivor reaches out to students
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Moshe Baran tells of hiding from the Nazis in the dense forests of then Eastern Poland during World War II.
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A lot of stars had to align just right for Moshe Baran to survive the 1940s in Poland. Whether it was his own wits, blind luck or a higher power, something kept moving the grand machinery, opening cracks for him to slip through.
Each time he hoped to live just one more day in the village, the ghetto, the work camp, the woods and swamps, the resistance and the Russian army. The prospect of a long, full life never crossed his mind.
It came to him anyway, after the war, in New York City, where he and his wife lived for nearly 40 years, and Pittsburgh, where they moved in 1993 to be near a daughter. Before long they were active members of the Jewish community and an inspiration to countless students, who paid rapt attention to their stories about the war and admonitions against hatred.
Mr. Baran turned 90 in December. He's having a party today to celebrate the occasion at Community Day school in Squirrel Hill, where his daughter, Avi Baran Munro, is the principal.
"I belong to so many organizations, we needed a lot of room," Mr. Baran said with a laugh. One of them is the Holocaust Survivors Association of Pittsburgh, of which he is president.
"My philosophy is 'I am because I belong.' "
Today he lives in the Squirrel Hill apartment he shared with his wife and fellow survivor, Malka, until her death in 2007. The shelves hold books of Jewish prayer, history and philosophy beside family photographs, old and new. From his window, he can see Beth Shalom synagogue, where he goes to pray every morning, carrying on for those who would be doing likewise had they not been killed.
"I feel a special responsibility to do what they would have done," he said.
His sister lives in the unit next door. His daughter and her family live down the street. Another daughter, Bella, an artist, resides in Jerusalem with her family. Her paintings decorate Mr. Baran's walls.
It's a cozy life, "a lot like my shtetl [a Jewish village]," he said. "Everything someone my age needs is right here. People know you, they greet you."
That shtetl is long gone. The Germans leveled it, except for one brick building that held Mr. Baran's synagogue and school. Today it's a bank. He knows this because he went back in August with two grandsons, his only return in almost 70 years. There he located a resident who, as a child, saw the Jews being rounded up.
First Published January 2, 2011 12:00 am
