The Truth Tellers: Noemi Ban

Since I published my first “Truth Tellers” post, the idea of “the truth” has become increasingly controversial. I started this post many times, but nothing ever seemed to be the “right” time. Amidst the false assertions of widespread voter fraud, the demonstrations around the death of George Floyd, the increasingly violent rhetoric regarding the 2020 election and the actual violence that followed, and the conviction of the police officer who killed Floyd on murder charges—Noemi Ban was often on my mind and in my heart. But words wouldn’t come. Was I afraid of the swirling maelstrom of accusation and counter-accusation that has swept over the internet? Exhausted by the constant barrage of rage? Yes, and yes. But at last, somehow, her bravery and kindness are infusing my memories. I hope her story helps others as it has helped me.

Noemi Ban was a tender, kind soul. And she proved that tender, kind people can display a   fortitude  and bravery that the “toughest” among us would envy.

When I met Noemi, she had recently spoken to her fellow congregants at Beth Israel Synagogue about her experiences as a Holocaust survivor. She was 68 years old, and had only begun to reveal this terrible truth to people outside her family. She’d spoken to her community at the synagogue. She had made annual visits to Western Washington University to speak to history students.

 But I was the first journalist she’d ever spoken to about it.

“I wore a yellow star for many years in my heart,” she explained, regarding her long silence. (The Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow stars of David on their clothing before and during the Holocaust.)

She’d been a young woman when she last saw her mother, 12-year-old sister, infant brother, and 72-year-old grandmother at the gates of Auschwitz, an infamous concentration camp in Poland. They were all reeling from the exhausting and terrifying cattle-car train journey from Hungary. Josef Mengele was at the gates on horseback; with a wave of his riding crop, he sent Ban to the showers and her family to the gas chambers. During the horrific weeklong train ride, jostled and bewildered, her little sister had clung to her. Now they were wrenched apart, none of them knowing what awaited them. A few memories stood out:

The look in her mother’s eyes in that last moment of parting: the look that said, “Take care of yourself.”

The Polish prisoner who helped them down from the train. Seeing the baby in her mother’s arms, he asked Noemi if that was her little brother. When she said yes, he replied, “I’m sorry.”

Though the details of Noemi’s story are heartbreaking, what I remember even more vividly was how frightened she was. I could feel it, but I didn’t understand. I was careful, compassionate. The Bellingham Herald, where I worked, was the local paper, and I thought Bellingham and Whatcom County were safe places. Why was she afraid? I was young, and more naïve than I could imagine.

“I wore a yellow star for many years in my heart.”

Noemi Ban

I realized at some point that she wasn’t afraid of me, but of two things: the evil memories themselves, and the evil that might await her in the future. The hatred that had stolen her family, and might threaten her, and her remaining family, if she spoke out. The degree of fear triggered by her experiences as a young woman is hard to fathom if you haven’t been in fear for your life, daily, for months or years on end.

The fear of the future has, sadly, been proven out, with the resurgence of racist hate crimes in the early 1990s in Whatcom County, and more recently, the wave of white nationalist extremism that threatens violence nationwide. Could she even have imagined how widespread the reality of today, that so many people are contesting the truth of her lived experience? Sadly, I think she could.

Noemi faced her fears. She faced her memories, and the possibility of more hatred pouring out from some unexpected—or expected—direction, and she spoke out anyway. She told the truth, despite the fear, despite any who might disbelieve it. She told it over and over again, and to increasingly large groups of people. When she died in June 2019 at the age of ninety-six and a half, the synagogue was packed with more than five hundred mourners, myself among them.

Noemi had a way of lighting up a room. From the pain, the terror, the oppression, rose this indomitable spirit: lively, and joyful. She and her father survived the Holocaust and were reunited in Hungary. She married Earnest Ban in 1945 and they immigrated in 1956 to America, where they raised two sons. A teacher in Hungary, Noemi learned English and began again—going on to an award-winning teaching career that lasted twenty-three years.

What a teacher she must’ve been. I’d heard her speak a number of times, and she could have you laughing and crying within moments. Each time she saw me, even though there were years between, her face would light up and I felt for that moment that I had all her attention.

As racism rises again in the United States, so, too, rise those who will not tolerate it: who speak out, and march, and demonstrate. Last fall, threatening flyers were plastered on businesses in downtown Bellingham that were Black owned or had Black Lives Matter signs in the windows. The Whatcom Human Rights Task Force called a “Show Up for Love” rally on the lawn behind the public library. Many people came, of all ages and colors, backgrounds, and genders. I believe Noemi was there in spirit. She always showed up for love.

The great truth she repeated over and over again? Don’t hate. Oppose racism and bigotry in every form. Reach out and listen compassionately to those who seem different. Never, never let fear of differences make you hateful. The horror of the Holocaust is in the past. Noemi Ban gave all she could to assure that it stays there.

With eyes that had seen one of the worst chapters of human history, Noemi Ban looked to the future, and saw hope. The least I can do is publish the truth as she told it–as she lived it. Hate can destroy, it can quash connection for a time. But it can only win if we let it. Please don’t. Let fear and hatred go. Speak your truth. Be kind.