Karen Treiger's Blog, page 3
November 9, 2020
Kristallnacht – From the Archives
Today and tomorrow, we commemorate Kristallnacht. This is a re-post from June 27, 2017.
November 1938.
Kristallnacht – the Night of the Broken Glass – was a pogrom against the Jews of Germany in which synagogues were destroyed, Jews were killed, injured, and sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht was not, however, one night of broken glass, but three days and nights of broken glass. David Cesarni’s Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1939, provides an analysis of this pogrom and the fateful conference held in its aftermath.
What the pretense for starting the pogrom?
In October of 1938, the Polish government announced its intention to bar any Polish citizen residing abroad from ever reentering the country unless he or she applied for and obtained a passport revalidation by November 1. This had to happen on Polish territory. Well, there were many Polish Jews who were living in Germany. So, Germany, knowing that it wanted to somehow expel these Polish Jews from its land, rounded them up and delivered them to the Polish border. This way, they could get their passports revalidated and keep open the possibility of later expulsion from Germany. Poles refused to let these Jews into Poland to revalidate their passports and many languished on the border.
Among the deportees were the parents of Herschel Grynszpan, a young Jew living illegally with relatives in Paris. Herschel was angry at the treatment his parents received and he took revenge by walking in the German embassy in Paris on November 7, 1938 and shooting the third secretary, a young diplomat named Ernst vom Rath. Von Rath died the next day, which was the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putch – Hitler’s 1923 coup attempt.
Goebbels used the death of vom Rath to inflame the German people against the Jews. He exhorted the people, as an act of self-defense, to revenge vom Rath’s death – against the Jews. Beginning with November 9 and lasting until November 11, a “spontaneous demonstrations” took place. I would call it a pogrom.
“That night fires were ignited all over Germany, and the shattered plate glass that was to give the pogrom its name littered the streets of German towns and cities. Synagogues and Jewish institutions were burned to the ground. Over 7000 Jewish businesses were destroyed and killed nearly 100 people.” (Dawidowicz, War Against the Jews at 136)
As the Jewish community picked up the pieces of their destroyed infrastructure and egos, the Nazis were busy planning to further destroy the body and soul of the Jews of Germany. On November 12th, just one day after the streets quieted, Hermann Göring, the second most powerful man in Germany, called a meeting of approximately 100 people – all the major players in Germany’s economic and domestic affairs to discuss the “Jewish question.”
Göring began:
“I have had enough of demonstrations! They don’t harm the Jew, but me, who is the ultimate authority for co-ordinating the German economy . . . It’s insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse then have a German insurance company make good the loss. . . the fundamental idea in this programme [sic] of the elimination of the Jew from the German economy is first, the Jew being ejected from the economy transfers his property to the State.’”[1]
Göring continued, that although the Jews were to be deprived of their livelihoods, they would not benefit directly from the sale of their property: “they would be compensated with bonds that would generate enough income for them to live off.”[2]
During a four-hour meeting, this group of esteemed Nazis agreed to forbid Jews’ entry to cinemas, theaters, and concerts. Resorts, beaches, woods or parks would be off limits to Jews. They could only rest on park benches marked for Jews. Jewish children would no longer be allowed to attend state schools.[3]
Officials of the German insurance industry attended this meeting. They were concerned about paying out claims for all the lost and destroyed Jewish property from Kristallnacht. On the one hand, they did not want to pay the claims of these Jewish property owners. On the other hand, if they did not pay the claims, their reputation in the world economy would be tarnished. “It was eventually agreed,” states Cesarani, “that the claims would be met, but the payments would never reach the German Jewish claimant. As Reinhard Heydrich put it, ‘That way we’ll save face.’”[4]
After several hours of debate and discussion, Heydrich felt that the conversations were drawing to a close. So, he spoke up: “‘In spite of the elimination of the Jews from economic life, the main problem, namely to kick the Jew out of Germany, remains. May I make a few proposals to that effect?’”[5] He recommended that a Vienna-type emigration system be put in place that would send 8,000 – 10,000 Jews out of the country each year for the next ten years. The remaining Jews in Germany, would be impoverished and isolated to keep them out of “normal German routine of life.”[6] Undeterred by the realization that this would lead to overcrowding and mass starvation of Jews, the group agreed that driving licenses of Jews should be confiscated and car ownership prohibited. Further, Jews should not be allowed into spas or resorts and should be restricted to “Jewish-only” health services.[7]
During the closing moments of the meeting, Göring obtained agreement from all present that the Jews should be fined for the damage caused during Kristallnacht. They would be fined one billion marks, “as punishment for their abominable crimes.”[8]
Goering finished with a doozie:
“Incidentally, I’d like to say again that I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.”[9]
[1] Cesarani, David. Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949 at 203.
[2] Id. at 203-204.
[3] Id. at 204.
[4] Id. at 205.
[5] Id. at 206.
[6] Id. at 207.
[7] Id. at 207.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
November 4, 2020
Winston Churchill – We Need You
President Roosevelt was urged to bomb the railroad tracks to Auschwitz, but he refused. As John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, advised, “’such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support . . . now engage in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources.’” The US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia remarks: “Yet within a week, the US Army Air Force carried out a heavy bombing of I.G. Farben synthetic oil and rubber (Buna) works near Auschwitz III – less than five miles from Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.”
Recently, I read Martin Gilbert’s Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship, which tells of how when faced with the same information, Churchill made the opposite decision. The 1944 report from four Auschwitz escapees made it clear that Auschwitz-Birkenau was murdering 12,000 Jews a day.
After Churchill read this report he wrote to Anthony Eden: “There is no doubt, that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races in Europe. . . . It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved.” (Gilbert 215)
When Chaim Weizmann and Moshe Shertok urged the bombing of the rail lines from Budapest to Auschwitz, Churchill agreed and told Anthony Eden, of the Foreign Office: “Get anything out of the Air Force you can, and invoke me if necessary.” (Gilbert 212)
As it turned out, three days after Churchill’s order, the deportations of Hungarian Jews ceased because the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy, called for an end to deportations. (Gilbert 212) The bombing raid was aborted.
But, somehow, my heart skips a beat to know that Churchill had the guts and the moral core to order the bombing, where Roosevelt and the United States did not. I’m fully aware that it may have made little difference in the number of Jews who were murdered by the Germans. Still, I feel a sense of gratitude towards this British hero.
[image error]
Churchill and the Jews details Winston Churchill’s long and enduring friendship with many individual Jews, his admiration of the Jewish people through history, his anguish at the mass murder by the Nazis, and his support of Zionism.
The book begins with Churchill’s full-throated support of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which stated “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This declaration was, in part, a “thank you” to the Jewish people for supporting the allies and especially Britain during World War I. And as such it was seen by Churchill as a solemn oath to assist Jews from around the world to immigrate to Palestine and ultimately to create a state. He was, however, in favor of limiting the number of immigrants to a number that the Palestinian economy could sustain.
Churchill’s long friendship with Chaim Weizmann and many in the Rothchild family were crucial anchors for Churchill’s positive feelings towards the Jews and the push to create a homeland for these perpetually persecuted people. He was acutely aware of Jew hatred, but he didn’t tolerate antisemetic statements or policies.
Churchill was a strong supporter of the British Mandate in Palestine as a means to fulfill the promise of the Balfour Declaration. Over the years, Churchill met strong headwinds in Parliament, but didn’t give up and never abandoned the Zionist project. He pushed back against those who said that Britain has obligations towards non-Palestinian Arabs as well as Jews. “No similar obligation had been made to the Arabs outside Palestine,” Churchill declared in a published article, “[i]t was the Jews alone to whom Britain was pledged with regard to building a homeland in Palestine by immigration. As to whether the obligations which Great Britain had contracted by the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate were wise or unwise, Churchill wrote: ‘There is no use answering this at this stage. The sole question is whether they are being fulfilled.’” (Gilbert 94)
During the war, Churchill expressed outrage and frustration with the German’s policy of deporting Jews from France and other countries. In September 1942, the Times of London wrote that Jews were being rounded up and deported with “unabated ruthlessness.” It was reported that “a train containing 4,000 Jewish children, unaccompanied, without identification papers or even distinguishing marks, left Lyons for Germany.” (Gilbert 191) The destination was “somewhere in Poland.” (Id.) “Their destination,” Gilbert continues, “was in fact Auschwitz, although this was not known either in France or by Allied nations.” (Id.)
The day after hearing this news, Churchill rose to speak in the House of Commons. He began by pointing out the “brutal persecutions in which the Germans had indulged in every land into which their armies have broken had been augmented by the most bestial, the most squalid and the most senseless of all their offences, namely, the mass deportation of Jews from France, with the pitiful horrors attendant upon the calculated and final scattering of families. . . . This tragedy fills me with astonishment as well as with indignation, and it illustrates as nothing else can the utter degradation of the Nazi nature and theme, and the degradations of all who lend themselves to its unnatural and perverted passions. . . When the hour of liberation strikes in Europe, as strike it will, it will also be the hour of retribution.” (Gilbert 191-92)
Through the autumn of 1942, more details reached the West and Churchill about the Death Camps – Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor and Belzec. These camps, states Gilbert, “lay far beyond the limits of Britain’s bombers.” (Gilbert 192)
London’s Christian and Jewish leaders gathered for a protest on October 29, 1942. Though he was in the United States, Churchill sent a letter to be read at the rally. “The systematic cruelties,” wrote Churchill, “to which the Jewish people – men, women and children – have been exposed under the Nazi regime are amongst the most terrible events of history, and place an indelible stain upon all who perpetrate and instigate them. Free men and women denounce these vile crimes, and when this world struggle ends with the enthronement of human rights, racial persecution will be ended.” (Gilbert 192)
One way that some Jews were able to escape death was by crossing the Pyrenees Mountains from France to Spain. In February of 1943, Churchill heard that Spain had closed this path of refuge to the Jews and were sending them back to France at the border. Churchill met with the Spanish Ambassador to protest the closure. Churchill made clear to him, “that if his government went to the length of preventing these unfortunate people seeking safety form the horrors of Nazi domination, and if they went farther and committed the offence of actually handing them back to the German authorities, that was a thing which would never be forgotten and would poison the relations between the Spanish and the British peoples.” (Gilbert 197) This conversation led to re-opening of the Spanish border for Jewish refugees.
All this time, the British were in control of Palestine, under the “Mandate” given to them by the League of Nations. Churchill’s friendship was sorely tested in the 1940’s when Jewish members of the Stern Gang in Palestine blew up British buildings and murdered British soldiers, government officials, and civilians. However, once the State of Israel was declared in May of 1948,
Churchill strongly advocated for recognition. His government was not so quick to forgive the Jewish terrorists and worried about foreign relations with Arab countries. One year later, after yet another impassioned speech by Winston Churchill, the British government recognize the State of Israel.
When Churchill died on January 24, 1965 at the age of 90, the world lost a man of conviction, who was willing to speak out and take action against evil.
If he could only return to help us with the mess we have put ourselves in today. We have no Churchill and I am depressed.
[image error]Winston Churchill Photo: Atlas Obscura
SOURCES:
Gilbert, Martin, Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship, Henry Holt and Company, New York (2007).
October 23, 2020
Tehran Children II
We left the Teitel family last in Kazakhstan in Central Asia. They had just placed their children in a local orphanage in the hopes that they would receive sufficient food to stay alive.
Meanwhile, word of the impossible living conditions in Siberia and Central Asia, and the thousands of Jews who found themselves stranded there, reached Jews living in Palestine. The Jewish Agency began to negotiate with the British for visas to get some of these Jewish refugees into Palestine. The British, ever-worried of upsetting the Arab-Jewish population balance, had an annual quota of 10,000 European Jews per year. The British took a hard line opposing any visas for adult Jews stuck in Siberia or Central Asia. However, there was a small possibility that some student visas might be granted. So, step one was to get them out of Central Asia and bring them to British-friendly country of Iran.
[image error]Photo of a Jewish woman in Siberia (don’t know who it is – photo: from Beit Hatfutzot)
In August of 1942, a deal was struck to evacuate 1,000 Jewish children to Tehran with the hopes of getting them entry visas to Palestine. Jewish organizations paid the expenses, while the Polish government-in-exile was credited with saving the children and supported them with four pounds sterling each. The Teitel children, Hannan (15) Regina (11) and cousin Emma (10) said a tearful goodbye and boarded a train to a new world and a new life. Years later, Regina told her aunt: “My parents wanted to save us. It was the right thing to do.”
Hanan, Regina and Emma traveled for three days and fifteen hundred miles, by train and, after several days’ rest, boarded another train and finally completed their journey by ship. When they arrived in Iran, they were taken to a makeshift tent camp a few miles outside of Tehran. There was a separate camp for Polish children who were also brought from Siberia. Leaders of the Jewish Camp spent quite a bit of time trying to identify and extract the Jewish children from the Polish camp. But the Jewish children didn’t want to leave because there was more food at the Polish camp and, after the years of starvation, food was key. Also, these Jewish children had learned through the school of hard knocks that being Jewish was not a desirable status.
[image error]Jewish Boys in Tehran – Photo: USHMM
There was another obstacle to extracting the Jewish children from the Polish camp. The ones in charge of the camp were the priests and they “did not easily relinquish the opportunity to ‘save souls,” Dekel writes, “particularly those of the pure souls who had not yet been ‘corrupted,; — the small children.” (Dekel 257)
The condition of the refugees was dreadful. A Polish Jew who came from Palestine was shocked to see the terrible condition of the refugees, and how the Jewish refugees were even worse than the Polish ones. “It is difficult to describe the condition of the refugees,” he writes, “the like of which I have never seen before. Swollen from starvation, dressed in rags, spiritually broken, devoid of all hope.” (Dekel 241)
The author of Tehran Children found a photo of her father taken shortly after his arrival. “It was as if he had shrunk since his Ostrow photo,” she comments, “the head disproportionally larger than the body. I also saw his expression: the expression of an old man, simultaneously weary, anxious, and cynical, a sunburned man’s face attached to a young child’s body, dressed in a dignified, if stained, khaki uniform.” (Dekel 246)
After a year in Iran, the Teitel children, along with eight hundred, fifty-seven other Jewish children took a forty-eight-day journey over land and sea to arrive in Palestine. They were not given permission to travel the short route by land, through Iraq. They arrived in Palestine in May of 1943 and were welcomed by the Jews of Palestine with great fanfare and excitement. These were the first European refugees of the war arriving in Palestine.
Hannan, Regina and Emma went to live at Kibbutz Ein Hod, where they had a cousin. Not finding Kibbutz life for him, Hannan enrolled in the Tiez Technical School in Kibbutz Yagur, near Haifa. Deeply concerned about his parents, who he knew were still living in Uzbekistan, he unsuccessfully tried to obtain visas for them to enter Palestine.
Zindel and Ruchele Teitel finally left Uzbekistan and returned to Poland. But after a short and unwelcomed stay, they made their way to Germany and settled in a displaced person’s camp. Sadly, Zindel died in 1948 of Tuberculosis, but, in 1949, Ruchele made her way to the newly created State of Israel. She lived briefly with her daughter on Kibbutz Ein Hod, but then moved in with her son, Hannan and lived with him and his family, including the author, Mikhal Dekel, for the next two decades.
As for the children, Hannan, changed his last name to Dekel (direct translation of Teitel, meaning palm tree) and had a forty-eight-year career in the Israeli Air Force. Regina took her Hebrew name of Rivka and Emma took her Hebrew name of Naomi. Both lived on Kibbutz Ein Hod. Rivka became a draftswoman at an architectural firm and Naomi became the head of Sheba Hospital and Medical Center Nursing School.
I am deeply grateful for Tehran Children and the author, Mikhal Dekel’s quest to uncover the story of her father’s family. We began in Ostrow Mazowiecka and followed the Teitel family east when the war began and then on to Siberia, Central Asia, Iran, Palestine, Poland, Germany, and the State of Israel. I learned more about the town of Ostrow which looms large in Sam and Esther’s story. I also appreciate the deep dive into what life was like for Jews and Poles who were exiled to Siberia and Central Asia. Finally, I’d never heard of the Tehran Children and I’m grateful to have learned about this fascinating piece of Holocaust history. Thank you, Mikhal, for taking us on your journey.
There is a wonderful, one-hour film about the Tehran Children with lots of interviews of the “children” – now adults. Here is a link:
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib264806
October 16, 2020
Tehran Children-A Piece of Holocaust History I Didn’t Know
They are called the Tehran Children. They were a group of 837 Jewish children, forsaken by the world, plucked from a life of disease and starvation in Soviet Siberia. In August of 1942, they were taken to Tehran. However, Tehran was but a way station until they were granted visas to enter the seemingly impenetrable British-controlled Palestine. There they created new lives from the ashes of Europe and from the death and starvation of Siberia.
Teheran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey, by Mikhal Dekel, sucked me in after the first two pages. Dekel begins her story in the Polish city of Ostrow Mazowiecka. I was caught off guard because Ostrow is the closest city to where both Esther and Sam grew up. Sam and his father Zelig went to Ostrow often to sell their produce and to buy things they needed on the farm. In describing a theoretical visit that Sam and his father may have taken to Ostrow, My Soul is Filled with Joy includes a passing reference to the aroma wafting in the air from the famous brewery in the city.
Well, this brewery is central to the pre-war story told by Dekel. Dekel’s father’s family – the Teitel family — were the owners and proprietors of the famous Ostrow brewery. The Teitel family had lived in Ostrow Mazowiecka for eight generations.
When the War began on September 1, 1939, the Teitel family, like so many others, fled east and settled on the Soviet-side of the new German-Soviet border. On September 6, 1939, the extended Teitel family packed up their two Chevrolet trucks and left town and that “was the end of Hannan and Regina’s childhood.” (Dekel 40) Chanan (12 – the author’s father) and Regina (8) were the children of Zindel and Ruchele Teitel. Among the other family members that fled that day was a young cousin, Emma Perelgric, who was visiting from Warsaw.
The Soviet government encouraged all the refugees to become Soviet citizens. Zindel and Ruchele Teitel didn’t want to become Soviet citizens and they requested to be allowed to return to the western side of the border, to return to Ostrow. At that point in the war, there was no way to know how bad it would be for the Jews under the Nazi regime.
“Sure,” the Soviet officials told them, “we’ll send you back home.”
They were given train tickets to Ostrow and boarded a jam-packed train car. Cousin Emma went with them, to go back home. As soon as the train left the station, however, they realized that they were not going west, but east. There was no way out and the Teitel family found themselves on a one-way ride, packed liked animals, to Siberia.
[image error]Photo: Jews boarding train to Siberia (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Upon their arrival in Komi, Siberia, they realized that they were now slaves of the Soviet Union. They were forced to cut timber in the forest. They were paid sixty kopeks a day, when a kilo of bread was 105 kopeks and a glass of milk cost a month’s salary. The other fleeing Teitels had settled in Bialystok and they sent packages to Siberia, with fabrics for trading and a few food supplies. This helped a bit.
Conditions were brutal and some estimates are that between 22 and 28% of those living in these special forced labor settlements died of illness or starvation. The temperatures in the winter fell to minus 50 degrees Celsius.
On June 22, 1941, the Germans ripped up their friendship pact with the Soviet Union and attacked. After this earthquake of alliances and war strategy, the Soviet Union decided to free the Teitels, along with thousands of others, from their Siberian prison. Now the Teitels had their freedom, but because they were not Soviet citizens, they were given no money, no help to move somewhere else, really, no assistance of any kind.
The family ended up, after a horrible train ride of 4,000 kms, in Kazakhstan. It was November of 1941. Hannan, 14 years of age, described their “houses“ there as “windowless, mud huts with no oven, no beds, no table, only a cooking pot whose smoke would spread in the hut and evaporate though a hole in the wall.”
Life in Kazakhstan was just as rough as Komi. There was so little food that they thought they would all die of hunger. It got so bad, that in March of 1942, Ruchele and Zindel decided to put the three children in an orphanage. They knew that at least they would get a bit more food. Rather than the 100 grams of bread allotted each person, the orphans received 300 grams of bread a day, as well as a monthly allotment of rice. It’s hard to imagine how bad it must have been, living in a mud hut, with so little food that you believed your children would certainly die of starvation and that it was better to give them up to an orphanage.
[image error]Current Flag of Kazakhstan
So how do these children get from Kazakhstan to Tehran and then to Palestine? Stay tuned for part II.
October 12, 2020
Isseroff/Goldberg Twins Carry on the Memory of Their Grandparents
What are their names? Who are they named for?
These questions have come my way since my daughter Elisheva Goldberg and her husband, Judah Isseroff were blessed to become the parents of two tiny people, who were born one minute apart. These two babies spend their days and nights, sleeping, drinking milk, pooping and for short periods of time, looking around at their surroundings. They are precious and I’m grateful to be able to have traveled to New York for the Bris (circumcision ceremony) and Zeved Habat (daughter’s naming) and to help for a few weeks.
Most friends and family gathered for the ceremony by zoom, but a few of us lucky ones, were present on Judah’s mother’s rooftop for the ceremonies. We waited patiently for the names to be announced. Then the moments came:
Baby girl will be known as Chava Lena – in English Evelyn Lena.
Baby boy will be known as Shmuel Chaim – in English Samuel Vidal.
The Ashkenazik Jewish tradition is to give children the name of a deceased relative. The child will carry on the name and hopefully, the blessings of that person’s life. These children are named for two remarkable grandparents.
Evelyn Lena (Chava Lena) is named for Judah’s maternal grandmother – Evelyn Wolf. Before her death, Judah had a close relationship with his grandmother Evelyn. Judah described his grandmother as “stubbornly self-reliant,” and someone who was always striving for justice in the world. At the end of her life, she suffered from Parkinson’s and Judah was presented with an example of how to accept needed care with “extraordinary dignity.”
[image error]Evelyn Wolf with Judah
Samuel Vidal (Shmuel Chaim) is named for Elisheva’s paternal grandfather, Sam Goldberg. Readers of this blog know Sam well – his early years on the family farm, his struggles for survival, the loss of his entire family at the hands of the Nazis, his ingenuity, his heroism. In her remarks, Elisheva focused on how people loved her Zeidi and how he “greeted all with a kind and friendly smile.” In later conversations with Shlomo and his two sisters, they all said – “we hope Sammy gets Daddy’s good luck.”
[image error]Sam and Esther Goldberg, with their children – Shlomo, Ray Molly and Fay
When the names were announced, I felt my heart constrict and then expand. At first it hit me that Sam, Esther, and my father, Irwin Treier, are not here to see the birth of these great-grandchildren and I miss them (Ok, I’m crying as I write this). I also realized that I will never have the honor to meet Judah’s grandmother Evelyn.
But then my heart swelled and felt like it was going to burst with pride as my daughter and son-in-law looked into the computer camera and told the 120 people on Zoom and the ten of us present on the rooftop about what it feels like to bring these babies into the world and their hopes and dreams for them and the reasons they chose these names. Tears welled in my eyes as I listened to them explain how they hope that the traits of their grandparent will manifest in this new life. I am proud that they chose to name these babies for someone they loved and that they hope thereby to honor their grandparent’s life and memory.
I read somewhere that we live as long as there is someone alive who remembers us. When Sammy is older, he will tell his friends and then (please G-d) his own children that he was named for his alta Zeidi who was a resilient hero of the Treblinka Uprising and a man who people loved as soon as they met him. Evie will let her friends and (please G-d) her kids know that she is named for her great grandmother who strove to make the world a better place.
These are big names to live up to. As soon as they finish their next bottle, I’m sure they’ll get started.
September 29, 2020
79th Anniversary of Murders at Babyn Yar
September 29 and September 30, 1941. Two days that live in our memory as two days of German shooting – one Jew at a time – until nearly 34,000 were shot into a huge pit at Babyn Yar. This is the 79th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre. On this important date, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation with the Babny Yar Holocaust Memorial Center to create a memorial to those who were murdered there.
I just watched this YouTube about the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC). I am impressed with many aspects of what they are doing – especially the cooperation and partnership with Yad Vashem to bring historical reality to the table and show what actually happened in 1941 and how the Soviet Union covered up the atrocities after the war. The hour long program that you will see if you click the above link about the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center is a wonderful piece with important interviews by President Rivlin of Israel, Natan Sharansky, the chair of the project, Avner Shalev, the head of Yad Vashem, and Joe Liberman who is on the board of the memorial center, and many more.
Babyn Yar is a symbol of the murder by bullets that occurred in eastern Poland and the areas of the former Soviet Union – it was after all the largest number of murders over two days.
But I ran into a problem that made my blood boil. There was an interview with Malcolm Hoenline, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. He started out by saying how he’s been to Babyn Yar so many times and how terrible it was that the Soviet Union covered up the tragedy there. So far, I was with him. But then he went on to say that Babyn Yar was “unique” among the murders of the Holocaust because it was not by gas.
That upset me. No Malcolm, it was not unique. It may have been the largest two day massacre east of the border, but it was not in any way unique. My mother-in-law, Esther’s entire family and four of my father-in-law, Sam’s siblings and their families were murdered outside of Slonim, just 370 miles from Banyn Yar, along with 10,000 other Jews living in the Slonim ghetto over the course of a day or two. Approximately 1.5 million Jews were murdered east of the border over the course of a year – shot into pits – just like at Babyn Yar.
Babyn Yar has become a symbol, like Auschwitz has become a symbol, but these were not the only places of murder. The Germans were determined to murder all the Jews of Europe, not just those in Kiev or those one million that were transported to Auschwitz. They murdered six million. That takes more than Babyn Yar and Auschwitz.
It’s important to have symbols of the Holocaust, but those that were murdered at the thousands of killing sites east of the border and at the hundreds of concentration and death camps must also be remembered. Treblinka saw the murder of approximately 870,000 Jews and a few thousand Roma over the course of 13 months. Sobibor and Belzec saw the murder of another approximately 700,000 Jews.
The whole thing is impossible to understand, to comprehend. But let’s use this opportunity of the 79th anniversary of the murders at Babyn Yar to look at the totality of the crime and to remember – the persecution, the torture, the starvation, the murders, the monumental theft of Jewish wealth.
I am grateful that there is effort going into an on-line and physical museum to commemorate Babyn Yar. But we must put Babyn Yar into the larger picture of the Holocaust and remember and learn from the totality of the horror.
Now, let’s go watch the debate!
Go Joe.
September 16, 2020
Today is Sam Goldberg’s Yahrzeit
Today is the Yahrzeit – anniversary of death – of my father-in-law, Sam Goldberg. His death was shocking, not because he was a young man – he was not – probably about 85 years old. It wasn’t shocking because he was perfectly healthy. He was not – he had suffered a stroke two weeks before. It was shocking because he died on an airplane, traveling from Miami to Seattle. Shlomo and his sister, Fay were escorting their father to Seattle to recover in a nursing home near us. Flying high above the mid-part of the country, he looked at Shlomo and said “I can’t do it anymore,” and his heart stopped. Shlomo attempted CPR on the plane, but to no avail. The plane made an emergency landing and Shlomo flew the next day with his father’s body to Israel and buried him just hours before the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I am grateful to have known this humble, yet amazing man, who taught me so much about how to be happy though life may sometimes be filled with tragedy, horror and sadness.
Keeping alive Sam Goldberg’s memory goes much deeper than the shocking story of his death. Sam must be recalled for his bravery and his status as a hero of the Jewish people.
Not only did he escape from a German POW camp – an almost impossible feat – he was one of the Treblinka prisoners who planned and executed the uprising. Uprisings were rare in the Death Camps because the prisoners were so weakened physically by starvation and impossibly hard labor. Even more, they were emotionally weakened by the years of persecution, loss, theft, degradation and humiliation that was the norm for Jews in Poland during the war. But Sam rose above both. He saw his life was worth nothing in the eyes of the Germans, but he wanted to live and he wanted revenge. Being a member of the planning team who blew up the Death Camp that steamy August day in 1943, puts Sam in the history books as a hero and in our family history as the Zeidy, the grandfather, who showed us all how to behave in impossible times.
We now stand just days before Rosh Hashanah. The world is in turmoil – with the list too long to enumerate. I sit in my wheelchair, with my injured feet and look out the window and see a smoke-filled horizon and think of the warming earth as the fires rage up and down the west coast. I think of all the people that have died and so many others that have suffered from the hurricanes, fires, covid-19, from civil rights unrest. It’s hard to unravel all the emotions and feelings as we contemplate the year past and pray for the year to come. But with my eldest grandson turning 1 in a few days and new twin grandchildren born ten days ago, I have hope for the future.
I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. Shana Tova.
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September 3, 2020
Holocaust Kidnapping – Pope Pius XII Implicated.
“Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.” Confucius
Thanks to all who reached out after my last blog post about my injuries. I was deeply moved by everyone’s care and concern.
But now, back to the Holocaust.
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Fritz and Anni Finaly were a Jewish family from Austria. Fritz was a medical doctor; Anni a housemaker. When the German Anschluss occurred in 1938, they escaped to southeastern France. In 1941 and 1942, they gave birth to two sons, Robert and Gérald. Though it was dangerous, both sons were circumcised according to Jewish law on the 8th day. In February of 1944, when the Nazis began rounding up Jews in that area, Fritz and Anni placed their boys in a nursery in a nearby town and asked a friend to look after them. Four days later, Fritz and Anni were taken to Auschwitz and murdered.
The story of what happened to their two sons sounds a bit like the Davinci Code. A recent article in the Atlantic by David Kertzer tells the tale.
The friend was terrified, and she took the boys to the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion, in Grenoble, France, hoping that the nuns would hide them. “Deeming the children too young to care for,” Kertzer explains, “the sisters took them to the local municipal nursery school, whose director, Antoinette Brun, middle-aged and unmarried, agreed to look after them.”
After the war, in 1945, one of Fritz’s surviving sisters wrote to Brun, thanking her for her help and informing her that she had secured immigration permits to New Zealand for her two nephews, now ages 3 and 4. Brun was evasive and did not transfer the children.
A year later, one of Fritz’s other sisters, traveled to Grenoble to attempt to retrieve her nephews. Confronted in person, Brun refused to release the boys. “‘The Jews are not grateful,’” she said. She indicated that she had no intention to ever give the boys back.
In early 1948, Brun pulled a fast one – without permission by the family, she had the boys baptized. This meant, Kertzer writes, that “under canon law they would now be considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be Catholics, and under longtime Church doctrine could not be returned to their Jewish relatives.” This was not going well.
The sisters went to court. One of the sisters was appointed guardian of Robert and Gérald and court orders were issued for their return. Brun ignored the orders and enlisted some Nuns to keep the boys hidden from the French authorities. They gave them fake names and put them in Catholic boarding school in Marseille. By this time, the boys were 10 and 11. Faced with the authorities searching France for the boys, the Nuns with the help of some Monks, secreted the boys to a Catholic Boarding school in Spain. The boys later reported that in Catholic school they were taught that “Jews are destined for damnation.”
The Nun and Monks involved were arrested and put in jail.
The story of the kidnapped Finaly boys was huge in France in 1953. One hundred and seventy-eight newspaper articles were written about it. Pressure grew.
Negotiations between Rabbis in France and the Catholic church ensued. It took some time, but ultimately, Robert and Gérald were released and flew with their Aunt to Israel. Gérald, who changed his name to Gad, pursued a career in the Israeli military and later as an engineer. Robert became a doctor.
So, what’s new about the Finaly boys’ story? What’s new is that Vatican archives were recently made public and the documentation shows that the authorization to keep these boys from their family was approved by Cardinals, Archbishops, and extended all the way to the Pope. The archbishop reached out to the Pope with the following question:
“’In these conditions, should one be advised to refuse, come what may, to return the children, who belong to the Church by their baptism and whose faith, in all likelihood, would scarcely be able to resist the influence of the Jewish milieu were they to come back?’ The matter, the archbishop concluded, is “extremely urgent.”
Though the Pope’s involvement was ordered to be kept a secret, a memo, bearing a “purple stamp marking an official papal decision,” is part of the archives and reads that “positive approval cannot be given.” The Atlantic Article explains that the “Pope felt that the agreement did not offer sufficient assurances that the boys would not come under Jewish influence and revert to their parents’ religion.” The same memo also recognized the “public-relations disaster that the Church faced if no agreement were to be reached.”
After reaching an impasse in the final negotiations, the Pope “reluctantly” gave his approval to release the boys. Kertzer writes that the Pope decided that “prolonging the concealment of the Finaly boys would prove disastrous for the Catholic Church in France.” The date was March 23, 1956, the boys were 11 and 12 years old.
This story makes me wonder how many Jewish children had no one left after the war to come and find them. A sad thought.
August 26, 2020
Two Feet – Two Boots – What I learned from Sam and Esther?
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Sam and Esther Goldberg taught me many things. But if I had to pick just one, it would be – life can change at any moment. You don’t know when the moment will come or what it will look like, but things will happen quickly, and you must react. What happens to us all is part luck, part help from G-d, and part making wise decisions.
This message resonates with me this week because on Saturday I took a misstep off a porch and my feet hit the stepping blocks in the worst way possible and both my ankles buckled on either side of the stone.
Here’s the thing, I was holding my 11-month old grandson, when this happened. It’s one of those moments where the event itself lasts for about three or four seconds, but to me, it felt like it all happening in slow motion. As I was watching myself fall, all I could think of was – “don’t let the baby hit the ground, don’t let the baby hit the ground.”
I’m so grateful that our protective superpower is so strong that the messages my mind could direct to my body were all about saving this child. Somehow, my left hand and arm, which were holding him, lifted up as I went down. There was a terrifying moment when I saw his head snap back towards the cement and my mind just screamed – NO. I lifted him up with all my strength and he did not hit the stone.
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My son (his father) was there in a flash, grabbing him out of my arms. I was left in a crumpled heap on the ground, with pain searing through my feet and legs, my head spinning in circles. It felt waves of pain that pulsed through my body and I told those coming to my aid to leave me alone for a few minutes to let me get my bearings and allow the first waves of pain to subside. People heeded my warnings and thankfully did not try to help me. This gave me the space to let my head and heart calm.
When I was ready, two of my family members helped me up into a chair. I could not put any weight on either foot. I knew right away it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. We put ice on both feet and a few of my kids went on a treasure hunt through the neighborhood to see if they could find a wheelchair to get me back home. Ultimately, they returned with a wheelchair and I was pushed up hills and down hills until we finally reached our house where I was ceremoniously helped into a comfortable chair with lots of pillows for my feet and head.
I went to see an orthopedic doctor on Monday. X-rays were taken and pronouncements made – right foot broken – clean break – no surgery needed, left foot bad sprained. You will not be traveling to NY on September 3rd as you had planned.
Now I have boots on both feet and am getting around the house with a wheelchair and crutches. Moving around the house is a challenge, getting food in the kitchen is a challenge. But I have my wonderful family to help me with my needs. I am very lucky.
I keep thinking that it’s remarkable how in the course of 3 or 4 seconds my whole life changed. I went from a full abled, athletic person who runs, bikes, and swims, to someone who cannot even walk to the bathroom. What runs through my mind the most is how this is nothing compared to the instant changes that occurred to Sam and Esther when World War II began on September 1, 1939. That horrible moment led to years of hardships, starvation and murder. Both Sam and Esther lost their entire families.
So, given that my chance of full recovery from my injuries is extremely high, I feel that I have no right to complain about my current predicament. That being said, I can say with a full heart and deep appreciation that the calls and emails I have received from friends and family have been heart-warming. Word of my injuries spread quickly, and I got lots of well wishes and people asking how they can help. It is such a lovely feeling to know that people care and the desire to help someone who is having difficulties is a ray of light in the darkness of Covid19.
Thank you to all who reached out. I feel your love and your concern.
I will heal and intend to get myself to New York city where my daughter will be giving birth to twin sometime in September and will be back running the loop sometime in my future.
I am deeply grateful for all I have in life and my good health – after all – I am fine, it’s just my feet that are broken.
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August 21, 2020
The Alchemist – Let’s Nourish the Soul of the World
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“We warriors of light, must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.”
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
I just finished reading The Alchemist. It’s a beautiful book filled with deep wisdom. After reading the quote above, I told myself: Yes, I want to believe that there is some force in the universe ready to help us achieve our dreams.
In The Alchemist, the protagonist is referred to “the boy.” The boy is a shepherd because he wants to travel and see new places. Along the way he meets a woman who tells him that his future holds a great treasure, but he has to travel to Egypt to find it. Along the way, the boy meets a wise old king, the King of Salem, who explains to him that he must search for his Personal Legend, his mission in life. We each have a desire to search for our Personal Legend and that desire originates in the Soul of the World.
There are obstacles to getting there, though. One of the obstacles is “fear of the defeats we will meet on the path.”
I paused when I read this line. Who of us has not felt the fear of defeat? Fear has the power to stop us from doing so many things that we aspire to do. I feel that fear and insecurity often stop me from trying something new. If the fear can be overcome, we can experience new things and have great joy from our achievements.
To overcome the fear of defeat, Coelho explains, we must fight for our dreams. Then we can realize our “Personal Legend.” On the journey to find his treasure, the boy also meets the Alchemist, who has the wisdom and power to affect change in the universe. The Alchemist attempts to teach the boy how to search for his Personal Legend by knowing the Soul of the World.
At one point the boy is captured by desert tribesmen who want to kill him. To save his life he must turn himself into the wind. The boy is frightened – he doesn’t have any idea how to turn himself into the wind.
“Don’t give in to your fears,” the Alchemist urges, “if you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.” Insisting that he has no idea how to turn himself into the wind, the Alchemist states gently, “If a person is living out his Personal Legend, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
To turn himself into the wind, he has to convince the wind and the sun to help him. The sun is tougher to convince than the wind. The boy explains to the sun about the Soul of the World: “When we strive to become better than we are,” the boy says, “everything around us becomes better too.” The Soul of the Word, like other parts of creation is not perfect. “It is we who nourish the Soul of the Word,” the boy explains, “and the world we live in will either be better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
I’m grateful for these words. In my own journey writing My Soul is Filled with Joy, I too discovered how we can choose to be “better or worse” and that love, indeed, can bring out the goodness within.
Let’s confront our fears and seek our treasures. Together we can nourish the Soul of the World.
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