Karen Treiger's Blog, page 8

OK, so I told the frozen turkey story in New England

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An old Parochet (curtain that hangs in front of the ark), was encased in glass, hanging on the wall of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire. It has Hebrew lettering on it.   As I looked closely and read the words, I was shocked.

“Dedicated for Moshe Capeluto for the Kahal Hakodosh (holy gathering/synagogue) of Ezra Bessaroth.”

“What,” I said, “Capeluto is a name of friends of mine in Seattle and Ezra Bessaroth is the name of the Synagogue in Seattle that was founded by emigrants from Rhodos, Greece. The Capelutos are members there. This needs further investigation.”

“We don’t know its origins,” Stephanie told me, “it was found at a rummage sale and donated to Temple Beth Abraham.”

So, today, I called my friend in Seattle, Lina Capeluto, and told her about the Parochet. She said, her father’s name was Moshe Capeluto and that he was named for his grandfather, who was named for his grandfather before him. But she said that Capeluto is a common name. But she does not know of any other synagogue in Rhodos or in the United States name Ezra Bessaroth.   She will ask other members of EB, as lovingly we call it. A quick Google search, however, did not find any other Synagogue named Ezra Bessaroth.

So, for now, the origins of this beautiful Parochet will remain a mystery.

This was my first visit to New Hampshire.   As I drove through the town of Nashua, I found myself thinking that perhaps I was in a painting of America in the early 1900’s.   Some homes are large and stately with lawns, white picket fences and large front porches and others are smaller, more run down, straddling the two sides of the local hi-ways. The old buildings on the main road scream New England, with their red bricks and square structure. The many Church windows are of stained glass and their spires rise high above the other shops letting me know that this is a place of deeply held beliefs.

But as I pulled up to Temple Beth Abraham, I felt at home. This beautiful Temple established in the end of the 19th century looks more like a house of a very large family than a Nashua religious building. I arrived last night, it was a cold outside, but I knew that I would be warmed by the community. A group of lovely congregants gathered to listen, to learn and to ask. After the event was over and the AV equipment was returned to the closet, I can say that I was correct in my gut feeling – the community welcomed me and made me feel at home.

Earlier in the day, I spoke to 350 High School students in an even smaller town, named Millis, Massachusetts. Millis is a town of 7,000 and is where my friend Sean lives. I met Sean, now a junior at this High School, and his Zeidy, Jeff, on the Ride for the Living in Poland this past June. We quickly became friends and in casual conversation, I offered to Sean to come and speak at his high school in November.  Well, he and Zeidy Jeff introduced me to Mr. Mullaney, the Head of School, and a date was set.

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I spoke to all 350 students in their auditorium. The students listened attentively as I gave them a bit of Holocaust and WWII history. We commemorated the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht with more history and some good visuals. Then, I jumped into Sam and Esther’s story – but focused on the summer of 1942 when Sam was taken to Treblinka as a prisoner and Esther began her long two years of hiding in and around the Stys family homes and barns.

And then at the end, just for fun, I told them the post-war story of Sam hitting the German on the head with a frozen turkey because the German told Sam (calling him a Jew) to sit at the back of the bus. After knocking the German out cold with the frozen turkey, Sam stepped over him and got off the bus. He waited for the next bus, boarded and made his way home to Esther and Fay with the turkey intact.

They loved it!

But then, I could not resist – I continued and told them the story of when my son Jack was 13 and was walking on the street from his school to his tutor when a student from a nearby Catholic school walked by him and gave him the finger.   He stopped and asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re a Jew,” the student said.

Jack did not hesitate; he clobbered the kid in the jaw. The kid fell to the ground. Jack stepped over him and kept walking to meet his tutor.   When I picked him up, he told me what had happened.

“Are you nuts,” I told him sternly. “You could have gotten killed. That kid could have had a knife or a gun.”

But then I paused and smiled and looked at him and said, “but I am proud of you.”

They loved that one too!

It was a great day in New England.

PHOTOS:   

Top: City Hall – Nashua, NH: Photo: By Gary McGath, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5701372

Middle:  Friends in Nashua, NH at Temple Beth Abraham

Bottom:   Zaidy Jeff, me, Sean and Mr. Mullaney.

El Paso/Juárez – A Weekend To Remember

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[Photo: Wall mural in Juárez, Mexico]

 

“Are you kidding?” so many people said to me at last night’s book event at the El Paso Holocaust Museum, “you did what?”

“Well,” I responded, “Shlomo and I visited Juárez this afternoon. We walked over the famous foot bridge.”

“You’re nuts,” they said shaking their heads in disbelief, “it’s very dangerous over there.”

*******

Well, our adventure to Juárez started out to see the “WALL” between El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Mexico – so we drove ten minutes from our hotel to the border and saw the famous WALL. First, compared to Israel’s concrete wall, it’s not much – just a fence with slots.  But more surprising – the WALL doesn’t go very far – it just ends. In fact, we saw four women climb up the small embankment from the Rio Grande, the border between Mexico and the United States, onto American soil.   We were surprised that the “WALL” so much in the news in the past 3 years, is not much of a barrier to entry.

[Shlomo standing before the WALL and showing where the WALL ends]

After the WALL visit, we saw the famous foot bridge from El Paso to Juárez. There were lots of people heading over, so we went to look. It cost 50 cents per person to cross the foot bridge.   We were worried that I wouldn’t be able to return easily, since I only had my Driver’s License, not a Passport.   We walked over to the side where people were entering the U.S. from Mexico and asked the Border Patrol Officer if my enhanced driver’s license was enough.

“Absolutely,” he responded cheerfully.

So back to the foot bridge we went, dutifully paying $1.00 and heading across.   As we crossed the Rio Grande without even a hint of security, we noticed a change in our surroundings.   Next to us, on the ramp, were cars waiting to cross into the U.S. and there were vendors selling things (or trying to sell things) to people in cars. There were also beggars on the foot bridge, and it looked, felt and smelled very different.

Well, we made it across and were greeted with a scene that reminded me of Beit Lechem – on the other side Israel’s Wall.   When I visited Beit Lechem some years ago with my daughter, Elisheva, we cross a checkpoint into the West Bank with no security, and entered an area where taxis wait to drive people home or somewhere else. There were open air vendors selling food and tchotchkes. The stores were run down and sad, and there were lots of people milling about.   And of course, there was/is a large wall that separates the two places. In Juárez, it looks pretty much the same, except the WALL is smaller and the language is Spanish and not Arabic. Shlomo and I wandered the streets a bit, inhaling the savory and sweet smells coming from the street vendors’ carts. We noticed that on the main street there are lots of Dentists offices and a building that has “Zoo” written on it with an artificial hippo. Also, we found a small park that has a garden of animals made from old tires. This place enjoys its artificial animals.

We walked down a side street and saw an encampment of tents that, I am sorry to say, reminds me of the I-90 on-ramp in Seattle. But we decided that was enough and we walked back towards the foot bridge – the one that goes back to the U.S. We needed 50 pesos to pass through the entrance, but we didn’t have any Mexican money. As we stood there, looking at each other with one of those “what do we do now?” looks, a gentleman that was also crossing, saw our dilemma and gave us the needed change. We offered him a dollar in exchange, and he refused – saying – “de nada.” Shlomo insisted and stuffed the dollar into his hand. This gesture of kindness from a stranger was so moving. It made me realize that the people here in Juárez, with its poverty, crime, and fake animals, are people with hopes and dreams to fulfill.  There may be a lot of crime in Juárez, but we found kindness.

We made it back across the border, after presenting out documents to Border Patrol. As we re-entered the U.S., we noticed the sad looking stores on the El Paso side of the border – not as sad as Juárez, but still sad, selling cheap shoes, socks, and backpacks. Shlomo said, it reminded him of certain parts of Brooklyn, where Spanish is spoken everywhere, and the stores sell cheap goods.

This Sunday afternoon adventure came after spending a wonderful, sunny, Shabbat in El Paso with Larry Lesser and Laurie Davis. They were wonderful hosts and we found much in common. We certainly hope to stay in touch.   Shabbat services at Congregation Bnai Zion were meaningful. Rabbi Scott Rosenberg was welcoming and engaging. He is a “Jack of all traits,” as he serves as the Rabbi, the Chazan, and the Baal Koreh (the one who reads the Torah).   I am told that the El Paso Jewish community has shrunk in the past decades and now stands at not more than 3,000. However, this small community packs a punch, they have vibrant programming and engaging people. It was suggested that because El Paso is so isolated, that they must make the Jewish community thrive on their own.

El Paso is a place full of melancholy, surrounded by sand-colored mountains that hug the city. Spanish is the predominant language and white-skinned people are in the minority. It makes for a fascinating mixing of cultures and languages that I don’t find in Seattle. Curiously, there is one hilltop where Mexico, Texas and New Mexico all converge – a physical metaphor for this city of nearly 700,000.

After dropping Shlomo at the airport Sunday afternoon, I went straight to the El Paso Holocaust Museum, where my book event was to be held at 6:30. The Museum is beautiful and well designed. Many students come there throughout the year to learn about the Holocaust. I began my talk with a song composed and recorded by our Shabbat host – Larry Lessen. It’s a beautiful song, titled Stack the Stones, about the Holocaust and includes a mention of Treblinka. Larry’s CD of original Jewish music will be coming out in January. I can’t wait to get it.

[Photo – left – me with Laurie Davis and Larry Lessen; right – me with Jamie Flores, the Executive Director of the Holocaust Museum and Rabbi Scott Rosenberg]

The rest of the event went on without a hitch. I was thrilled to meet and talk with the attendees after the event as I signed books. One man told of me his Uncle who lived in Germany in 1938 and was arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to Sachsenhausen and though he was scheduled to be released on November 27, 1938, he was ill and then died on November 28 in the camp. It eats him up until this day – why did he die? What happened to him? He will never know. It’s a reminder that everyone, everywhere, has a story to tell.

Thank you to Rabbi Scott Rosenberg, Jamie Flores, and the entire El Paso community for inviting me to visit and for making my stay so meaningful.

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[Photo – exhibit at the El Paso Airport]

 

What’s Your Long Shadow?

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When I hear people speaking German, or even speaking English with a German accent, the hair on the back of my neck stands straight up, my pupils dilate, and my heart begins to beat faster.   This reflexive, visceral reaction to anything German is my brain’s way of telling my body – stay away – DANGER, DANGER.  It was, after all, the Germans who thought up and efficiently executed [pun intended] the murder of European Jewry. My first thought is Yemach Shemom – may their names be stamped out. My next thought is – what was your grandfather or great grandfather doing between 1939 and 1945?

Thus, the question “whether the sins of the fathers contaminate the children – and if so, for how long?” –  posed by Susan Neiman in her book Learning from the Germans: Race and the Meaning of Evil, gave me pause.

Neiman’s book hopes to draw lessons from the post-Holocaust attitude and actions of processing the guilt of starting World War II and murdering six million Jews. Her book hopes to bring these lessons home – to America – and encourage those of us across the pond to think more deeply about how we can look at our past, particularly how we deal with our dark history of slavery.

Honestly, I am only part way through the first section of the book, so I cannot fully report, but I am moved by what I read yesterday and I want to share.

I learned of a German author, Alexandra Senfft, whose grandfather was the Third Reich’s envoy in Slovakia during the war. He was the one to sign the order deporting the Slovak Jews, sending them to their deaths.   During the war, Alexandra’s mother, Irika, recalls the beautiful villa that they lived in during their time in Bratislava. Of course, the villa was stolen from a Jewish family. Irika learned, just before Christmas in 1947, that her father was executed for war crimes in Slovakia.   Alexandra wrote a book – Silence Hurts: A German Family History – about her family’s story. Alexandra’s mother, Irika, suffered from deep depression during her life and the author was searching to understand the cause of her silent pain.

Though her family ostracized her after the publication of Silence Hurts, many Germans wrote to Senfft and spoke with her about their own family’s secrets from the war.   After hearing so many other stories, Senfft wrote a second book titled The Long Shadow of Perpetrators: Descendants Face Their Nazi Family History, about how this long shadow of Nazi past affects the post-war generations.

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“No one likes admitting mistakes,” Neiman writes, “[but] what does it take to admit that your parents were world historically wrong?”

Each German family dealt with this trauma in their own way. But many born in the late 1950’s and 1960’s took a hard look at their history and what their grandparents did during the war and wanted to do “something.” This is the generation that watched the 1961 Eichmann trials in Jerusalem and the 1963-65 Auschwitz trials in Germany, which charged 22 defendants with crimes for their actions at Auschwitz-Birkenau. These trials, especially the Auschwitz trials, brought the horrors of the Holocaust into German citizens’ living rooms and the parents and grandparents could no longer hide in silence. A generation of Germans went from being heroes, to being victims, and then finally perpetrators. It was a shift in the public mindset and the next generations grew up attempting to process it all.

Alexandra Senfft is working to bridge the gap between emotional and cognitive wrestling of the past. According to Neiman, Senfft feels that if the children and grandchildren of the Nazis don’t do this work, they will pass their unprocessed feelings onto their children in an unhealthy way.   Neiman tells of groups, made up of children of victims and children of perpetrators, that get together to look each other in the eye and process feelings and facts. It was the children of the 1960’s, Neiman states, that broke the silence.

In Sennft’s own words:

“Every democracy must be stimulated, challenged and developed – continuously. Democracy lives and thrives through self-critical confrontation with the past – personal and collective – and by scrutinizing the assumptions of earlier generations.

Where such reflection does not take place, people adhere rigidly to generationally-transmitted patterns of thinking, feeling and action. Lack of reflection allows far-right and nationalistic forces present outmoded messages of salvation that develop their own dynamics and create new injustice.

By means of dialogue my work, in an interdisciplinary and international fashion, confronts the past to develop tasks for the present so that society can withstand anti-democratic trends and movements in the future.”

Alexandra Senfft   (http://alexandra-senfft.com/)

I got no sense from Neiman’s book as to how widespread these feelings or actions are among Germans.   Surely, we still see antisemitism in Germany, but unfortunately, antisemitism is alive and well in many places, including our own backyard.

I wonder if we all live in a long shadow of some kind.

 

 

 

Risk My Life? Would I really? The Couriers Did!

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[Frumka Plotnik – one of the Couriers – By Unknown – Warsaw Stories. Frumka Płotnicka, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46490962%5D

 

Risk your life to spread the word – and resist.

Would I? Would you?

By the end of 1941 the Nazis had been shooting Jews into pits the size of football fields for six months at places that include Babi Yar, Ponary and Slonim – yes, Slonim where Esther’s entire family and some of Sam’s brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews were murdered.

Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, the Operation Reinhard Death Camps, were not yet operational, but reports of the shootings in the East seeped through the cracks of the ghetto walls. Through their tears, survivors like Esther and Moishe, told family and friends the truth of what happened. People listened, but many didn’t believe. Murder on such a grand scale was beyond comprehension.

But there were some . . .

Abba Kovner, a young resistance fighter in the Vilna Ghetto, heard reports of the shootings and concluded that the Germans were not going to stop until all the Jews were dead (Esther thought the same after the Slonim massacre in August of 1941). In fact, Hitler’s decision to exterminate the Jews, rather than relocate to Madagascar or Siberia, came in the last couple of months of 1941. The Wannsee Conference was held January 20, 1942, when all the top Nazi leaders were informed of this new iteration of the Final Solution and were told of the plan to exterminate the vermin Jews.

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[Photo: Abba Kovner testifying at the Eichman Trial – 1961 (from Wikipedia)]

On December 31, 1941, Abba Kovner gathered 150 young people and called for armed resistance against the Germans.

“. . . Hitler is plotting to annihilate al the Jews of Europe.” Kovner wrote. “[T]he only response to the enemy is resistance! Brothers! It is better to die as free fighters than to live at the mercy of murderer.”

This was a radical statement at the end of 1941. Most did not want to hear this. But Abba Kovner’s commitment and passion drew together young Jews who began to spread the word and build the resistance. But how? How to communicate to other Jews – no radios, mail was censored, trains were off limits.   The Jews were inside the prison walls of the ghetto. These young people had to get inside the ghettos and reach the Jews, scream to them –

“RESIST – WE MUST RESIST.”

Even if there were no physical walls, like in Stoczek, the residents wore the Jewish mark of Cain – a Star of David (except of course for Sam, who refused to wear the star). The men had an additional mark – cut into their skin – a circumcision. So even if a man had blond hair and blue eyes, hallmarks of the superior Aryan race, he was doomed to be discovered as a vermin Jew, good for nothing but hard labor on behalf of the Third Reich and death.

It was the Aryan-looking Jewish women who are the heroes of this story.

Young female Jewish resistance fighters answered Abba Kovner’s call to action. These young women dressed like non-Jews, took Aryan names and new identities. With ID papers tucked into their purses and bras, they traveled from town to town, from ghetto to ghetto, sneaking in with the message that the Jews were doomed under the Nazi regime and their only hope was to join the armed resistance. They supplied Jews in the ghettos with underground newspapers, money, ammunition and weapons. These women risked their lives each hour of each day to spread the word and convince others to join the resistance against the Germans. They became known as “Couriers,” spreading the message of hope, community and resistance.

“Nothing stands in their way. Nothing deters them,” wrote Emmanuel Ringelblum, the founder of the Warsaw Ghetto Oneg Shabbes archives. “How many times,” he continues, “have they looked death in the eyes? How many times have they been arrested and searched? [. . .] The story of these Jewish women will be a glorious page in the history of Jewry during the present war.”

Vladka Meed, one of the heroes of this story, smuggled weapons and ammunition into the Warsaw Ghetto. The weapons were used by the fighters of the uprising in April of 1943. Vladka survived the war and wrote a book called On Both Sides of the Wall. I found the book on Amazon and ordered it. I can’t wait to read it.  In her book, Vladka describes some of her successful attempts at smuggling weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto. One time she had to quickly repack a carton of dynamite into smaller packages in order to pass it into the ghetto through a grate in a factory window. As Vladka secretly left the ghetto, she sometimes took extras – children. When she reached the Aryan side, she would find the child or children a hiding place with a non-Jewish family and dreamed that they survived the war.

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[Photo: Vladka Meed – By Scott Chacon – […] Vladka Meed auf flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38058940%5D

Would I have become a Courier (if my hair was blond!)?

“Of course,” I tell myself. “I would have understood that the only hope was armed resistance.”

Well, would I?

A girl can dream, but I actually have no idea what I would have done. Life in the ghetto was so hard and food was so scarce that the main occupation of ghetto dwellers was finding the next meal and staving off disease.

As we sit here in 2019 with the knowledge of what happened to the Jews of Europe, we know with great certainty that the only hope was resistance and maybe hiding. But at the end of 1941, it was still perhaps reasonable for the Jews to believe that “this too shall pass” and they just had to get through it like so many persecutions that came before and “times will be better.”

Abba Kovner and the women couriers of hope and arms were exceptions and we now see them as visionaries, even prophets.   But like the prophets of old, so few listened, believed, and changed their behavior. And then, it was too late.

There were other forms of resistance to be sure – violent and non-violent. Survival itself was a form of resistance. Educating your children and maintaining Jewish traditions in the ghetto, in the Concentration and Death Camps were forms of resistance. Sam participated in the armed revolt at Treblinka on August 2, 1943 – that was resistance. But what Abba Kovner and these women did, starting in early 1942, is an example to me, of being out ahead – don’t close your eyes to what you see happening – even if the human mind wants to resist the truth.   Believe it and stand up to it. A message we can all heed.

I am grateful for having had the opportunity to learn about these exceptional women from Sheryl Ochayon, who is the project director of Echoes & Reflections at Yad Vashem. She spoke at the Powell-Heller Holocaust Conference at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma a week and a half ago. It was a privilege to attend the conference and to hear Ms. Ochayon and the other excellent speakers. Much of the information in this post is gleaned from Ms. Ochayon’s talk and the Echoes & Reflections website.

P.S. – I am in Philadelphia, at the start of a two-week book tour. First event is tonight at Har Zion Temple. I’ll keep you all apprised of how it is going.   See my website – event page – for info on where I am speaking.

 

 

 

Sam Goldberg – Today is His Yartzheit

[Photos:  Left – Sam and Esther Goldberg in Maimi Beach; Right – Shaya Schloss and Sam at DP Camp.]

Sam Goldberg was a hero. His death left the world bereft of his smile and his indestructible spirit. Today is his Yartzheit – the Hebrew date of his death. It is marked by lighting a 24-hour candle and by his children saying kaddish in Synagogue.

This is Sam’s first Yartzheit since the publication of My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story. Between last September and this September, hundreds, no thousands of people have heard and/or read about Sam Goldberg and what he lived through during the Holocaust. The historical record is being amended to include Sam (Shmuel) Goldberg as a Nazi slave, forced to build Treblinka, as a member of the group that planned and executed the uprising, and as one of a small number that survived this infamous death camp. And then after escape how he hid with Esther and Chayim in a pit and a barn for a year until liberation in July of 1944.

So how shall we remember Sam on this day when we recall his strange death on an airplane over Oklahoma City? We can remember what it says on his tombstone and what Shlomo has turned into a powerful song:

יְ-ה-וָ֥-ה אֱלֹהָ֑י שִׁוַּ֥עְתִּי אֵ֝לֶ֗יךָ וַתִּרְפָּאֵֽנִי׃

יְֽ-ה-וָ֗-ה הֶֽעֱלִ֣יתָ מִן־שְׁא֣וֹל נַפְשִׁ֑י חִ֝יִּיתַ֗נִי מיורדי־[מִיָּֽרְדִי־] בֽוֹר׃

O LORD, my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.

O LORD, You brought me up from Sheol, preserved me from going down into the Pit.

(Tehillim 30)

Here is a link to the song from my website.

This tells the story of Sam’s Holocaust years, but there is part of another verse on his tombstone that also tells of Sam’s character:

שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת

כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:

Shammai used to say: make your [study of the] Torah a fixed practice; speak little, but do much; and receive all with a pleasant countenance.

(Avot 1:15)

Engraved on his tombstone is the latter part of this Mishna – “receive all with a pleasant countenance.”

This is indeed how Sam received each human being.   He was happy to see everyone and embraced them for who they are. Even when he met a Treblinka Kapo at Grossingers on vacation, he did not make a fuss. See blog post about this incredible encounter.

I can still him calling me “Daaaaarlihng” and welcoming me to his Miami condo. As his daughter-in-law, I felt his love and his appreciation of how I was helping to recreate his lost family.   Sam’s parents, murdered by the Nazis, were not present at our wedding or at the birth of our four children. But Sam relished each of his 10 grandchildren. And from heaven above he watched as one by one, many of his grandchildren got married and then his first great-grandchild, William Samuel, was born and now, I am happy to announce, a second great-grandchild has been born. My son, Jack and his wife Emma have given birth to a baby boy.  Bris will be this Sunday morning, as he enters the covenant and continues the chain of Jewish history that Sam worked so hard to maintain.

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[Photo:  Jack and Emma’s baby].

Mazal tov to Jack and Emma and may Sam’s memory be a blessing to us all.

Węgrów Live! What Does Jesus Have to Do with It?

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“Are you of the generation after the Holocaust that was saved and now believes in Jesus or are you still waiting for the Messiah?”

This was the second question I got after I spoke for fifteen minutes via an internet connection to a group of Poles at the Węgrów Library. They gathered this evening to commemorate the liquidation of the Węgrów ghetto 77 years ago.   The centerpiece of the evening’s program was an invitation to come and learn about My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story and “meet” the author, Karen Treiger.

Grzegorz Maleszewski, the grandson of Władysława and Stanisław Styś, organized the evening and set up a video hookup so I could appear on screen in the room. Joanna Millick was my language savior and translated for me (thank you Joana – as always!).

But really — the first burning question after they hear the story of Sam, Esther and the Styś family is whether I now believe in Jesus!

So, how, you might ask, did I answer the question? I gave myself about a two second pause to collect my thoughts and I responded something like: “I am still waiting for the Messiah. I believe that Jesus was a great man and a prophet and had much to teach the world, but I don’t believe he was the son of god.”

“I love the title of your book” the questioner followed up, “and it seems that if this is your title, you must have been touched by Jesus.”

“As a person of deep faith,” I stammered, “I believe that our shared a belief in G-d can bring us together.”

Before this burning concern came up, I spoke for about 15 minutes about my journey writing the book and how Węgrów is a very important town to our family since it was the place of birth of Shmuel Rajzman.   Rajzman was a slave laborer in Treblinka like Sam, but to Sam and to others at Treblinka, Rajzman was a giant of a man. Sam described him as his best friend and had his picture in his wallet until the day he died.   Rajzman was the cell leader of Sam’s Treblinka uprising group and was lucky enough to escape.   A few months later when Sam and Esther got married in Stoczek, it was Shmuel Rajzman that was the Mesader Kedushin – officiating at the ceremony.

I wrote a blog post about Shmuel Rajzman, which you can see here.

I discussed some of my experiences writing the book and the impact of my trip to Poland and meeting the Styś family.  I described how seeing the barn and the pit where Esther and Sam hid was a life changing experiences. I emphasized that the Styś family stood up to the hate and the murder that was all around them and they are examples of how to behave in dark times.

When the evening came to a close I wondered what Grzegorz thought about the questions. Well, I did not have to wait long to find out.

Four hours later, so about 11 PM in Poland, Joanna received a note from Grzegorz.  She translated it for me:

“Karen is very strong, amazing really. She can find herself in every situation. There are no hard questions for her, she is really great. Please let her know.

One has to be tolerant of others regardless of religious beliefs. As in every group, it’s not always perfect. Through comments like that we see everyone the same way. It’s good there are individuals who change the world: Joanna, Karen, and Grzegorz. The most important is the cement that holds the building together, that is the love we have for others, loving others as much as we love ourselves. That was the message of the rabbi at the meeting.

I thought you might want to know all that.”

Wow. That is an amazing response.

Dziękuję Ci (thank you), Grzegorz. You are one of my heroes and I sincerely thank you for putting this evening together, inviting me to attend, and being part of my life.

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My Life as a Podcast

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Did you ever feel like your life was a podcast?

Well, I feel this way about my life last week. I can hear the podcast playing.  Here’s the intro:

“This is a story about how so many crazy things can happen to one person over the course of four days. . . . Stay with us.”

Then the advertising kicks in –

“Have you ever tried and tried to make a website, but it just never goes well? Well, you should try Go Daddy’s amazing website builder. It makes building your website as easy as pie and friendly customer service representatives are at the ready to help when you.”

[ok, so Go Daddy is my website host and it happens to be the company that my sister-in-law, Lauren, works for and she helped build the “easy to use” website builder. But in all seriousness, the customer service reps are amazing and patient.]

After the break –

“We’re back – Act one – Here’s a story of a retired attorney, turned author, Karen Treiger, who published her first book and met tons of people along the way. But one day she had a book event at the Seattle downtown library and the different worlds she has been inhabiting collided. After the presentation, Tatyana, someone who had heard the author speak at a book club, came to library event to hear more, said – “can you show me that photo again – I think I saw Barbara!”

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The photo shown towards the end of the presentation is pulled up and enlarged -indeed it’s Barbara, someone Tatyana knows from her work with Janusz Korczak Institutes around the world. Barbara, the woman in the picture is the granddaughter of Helena Stys, one of the Righteous Christians that helped Sam and Esther, the author’s in-laws, when they hid from the Nazis. Barbara had attended the Warsaw event where Karen launched the Polish translation of her book, My Soul is Filled with Joy and she showed the picture to provide a visual of the launch party. In fact, Tatyana explained, Barbara had been in Seattle just about a year ago for an educational conference about Dr. Korczak’s educational philosophy.

[For more details of Library craziness see blog post]

After the break, we’ll tell you how Karen went into shock upon hearing she won an award for her book.

Another ad  –

“Have you ever wanted to read a book but, as hard as you try, you just can’t read while you are driving? Well, you can listen to books on Audible. Just think of the things you can experience just by listening while you are on your horrible commute home. Subscribe today and use the code ‘soyouwanttowriteaholocaustbook.wordpress.com’ and you can get 10% off your first book and start listening right away.”

Act Two: “So, this retired attorney, who now thinks she is an author decided to apply for some awards.   She thought that they were all scams because they charge between $100 and $200 to apply and ask that you send a million books to some random address that you don’t believe is real. Then, the author met Jim, a retired publisher rep who now has time to go out to lunch to give advice to new authors, told Karen that she should apply for the PNWA Nancy Pearl award.

“Ya, ya, I know how these work, the author says skeptically, you apply and no one reads your book and someone who has an in with the organization or one of the big publishing companies wins the prize – no thanks.”

“’No’,” the retired book salesman says, ‘this is a prize that is given by librarians. It’s only librarians that read it and make the decision on who wins. You should totally apply.’”

“’Ok,’ the author says, ‘I’ll spend the $100 and try to forget about it, so I am not too disappointed.’”

The author fills out the form, pays the money and sends in the million books to address that is – who knows where.

As a defensive mechanism, she promptly puts it out of her mind and tries hard not to think about it.

One thing you need to know about Karen is she is an avid water skier. Any morning in the summer that the lake is smooth, you can find her out on the water skiing her way to heaven on earth, at least that is how she describes it. One day, she was walking down the dock at the Marina where her boat lives, and her phone rang. Now, she has described to me how it is always a terrible idea to answer your phone on the dock because the chance of the phone falling into the water is extremely high, in-fact, everyone in her family has lost at least one phone to the lake. But, against her better judgement she answered the phone.”

“Hi, says a disembodied voice, “I am Pam (not real name) from the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association. I am calling to tell you that you are a finalist in the Nancy Pearl Book contest, congratulations.”

“What,” the author says, not fully comprehending.

“You applied for the Nancy Pearl award for Best Memoir and you are one of the five finalist. The winner will be announced Saturday night at the awards’ banquet of the PNWA conference. If you have not signed up for the conference yet, finalists can get a discount to sign up.”

“I am actually already signed up to come to the conference,” the Karen stutters, “so that is amazing, thank you for letting me know.”

Ok, that is crazy, the author thought.  But off she went on the boat – only thinking of glassy water and the endorphins that will be released as she crosses the wake back and forth, spraying water high above her head.

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Here is the thing – the awards banquet begins on Saturday night, September 14 at 7 PM and end at 8:30.   Karen observes the Jewish Sabbath and will not be able to leave her house until 8:10 PM on Saturday night. It’s a 15-20 minute drive to the hotel where the conference is, so she figured she would miss the awards ceremony. Ok, such is life.   She figures she can arrive by 8:30 and see who won and congratulate the winner.

September 14th – the big day arrives. The Sabbath ends, Karen starts the dishwasher, and runs out to the car. It’s a Nissan Leaf – so driving is an exquisite pleasure of smooth silence and no gas emissions as she rolls over the streets of Seward Park, onto I-5 towards the airport to SeaTac where the conference is being held. She described to me that as she was driving, she did some self-soothing and self-talk – “it doesn’t matter if you win or not, being a finalist is an amazing honor and that is sufficient. Be ready to heartily and sincerely congratulate the winner when you get there.”

She arrives – it’s 8:26 – the dinner is over at 8:30. “Ok, let’s go,” she says to herself.

She enters the hotel and walks toward the ballroom where the 500 participating writers, authors, editors and agents are sitting having their dead chicken dinners.   She describes her decision to wear her bright yellow leather jacket: “this is my lucky jacket,” she exclaims.

This is how she described the moment:

“OK, so I got there, trying to calm my nerves. I walked into the room with 500 people, figuring I would find the two people that I know and ask what happened with the awards. But as I stepped over the threshold of the door, into the room with 500 stomach-filled people, I hear the following booming noise: ‘the winner is Karen Treiger, My Soul is Filled with Joy.’ I look up and see my face and the cover of my book on the huge screen in both corners of the room. I say to myself, ‘I think I won something, but I am not sure what I just won.’ The announcers of the award are looking around the room to see if the winner will come to the podium to accept her award. So, I just keep walking straight up to the podium to accept my award. To say that I was in a state of shock is an understatement. My whole body went numb, I couldn’t even feel my heart pounding through my chest, though I am pretty sure it was.   But I went up to the stage and took my certificate to the polite clapping of the audience, I grabbed the mike, looked at this large audience and said ‘this is a bit crazy, but since I observe the Jewish Sabbath, I just arrived, walked in, and heard my name. Wow, thank you.’ I really didn’t want those that saw me walk in just at the moment of the announcement to think – “OMG, can you believe it – -that woman was waiting outside to see if she won!” I gave back the microphone and the announcer said -ok, that’s it, thank you all for coming. There will be a reception for the winners and the finalists with the agents and editors. Have a good night.”

As Karen drove home, her numbness wore off and she allowed herself a moment of pride. She hoped that Esther and Sam, were proud of her too.

Podcast listeners – thank for listening and don’t forget to use the promo code – “soyouwanttowriteaholocaustbook.wordpress.com” to get 10% off your first book on Audible. A book we recommend is My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story, by Karen Treiger.

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Karen with Peter Curtis – another Nancy Pearl Award Winner! {wrote a novel about his family’s escape from Prague during Nazi years}

Einstein Strikes Again – This Time at the Seattle Public Library

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“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”   Albert Einstein

Yes, I am usually delusional, feeling indeed like I am a separate entity, living in time and space.   But again, on Wednesday at the Seattle Downtown Library, my delusional bubble was popped, and I was yanked back into the reality of the Universe as described by Einstein. Yank makes this experience sound harsh. It was not. It was more like a nudge off a cliff into the vastness of all. It was another message that my decision to leave my law practice behind and write this book was what I am supposed to be doing.

First, two back-stories:

One: A few months ago, my Samke (Shtetl in Belarus) cousin Linda asked me if I would come to speak at her book club as they were reading My Souls is Filled with Joy.   I, of course, said “yes.” It was a wonderful group of intelligent women who found the book meaningful. One of the women who was in the book club, Tatyana, brought two bottles of Kwas – a drink mentioned in the book as the type of bubbly drink produced by the Kwiatek family in Stoczek. Tatyana informed me that it’s a popular drink in Russia, her place of birth. We all tasted the bubbly brew. Honestly, it’s an acquired taste.

“Karen,” Tatyana said after the drinking party was over, “I am helping to organize a conference in Vancouver on Janusz Korczak. Would you be interested in speaking at this conference?”

“A whole conference about Janusz Korczak?” I asked with an eyebrow raise. “Why? I mean, I know he was a hero, going to Treblinka with the children of his orphanage and all, but a whole conference?”

“Oh, there are institutes all over the world that study Korczak’s educational philosophy and his approach to raising healthy, independent, children.”

Who knew?   Not me, but “Sure,” I said, “I would love to participate.”

So, I did – I went to Vancouver one day in July and spoke to a group of educators about Treblinka, the place where Dr. Korczak and his orphans were murdered by the Nazis in August of 1942.

Two: In June I went to Poland to launch the Polish translation of My Soul is Filled with Joy and participate in the Ride for the Living – a 60-mile bike ride from Auschwitz to Krakow. Members of the Stys family came to the book launch event in Warsaw. Grzegorz Maleszewski, one of the heroes of my story, was there, and even spoke at the event. I was also honored to have a group of descendants of Helena Stys with us – grandchildren and great grandchildren! I took a photo with this group and everyone went home with a book.

Ok, now here is where we get to the nudge off the Universe cliff.   This past Wednesday I had a book event at the Seattle Downtown Library.   Tatyana and her husband came to the event – so nice. Towards the end of the presentation I shared that the book was translated into Polish and that I launched the Polish version this past June in Warsaw.  One of the photos I showed was the one Helena’s descendants.

“Can you show me that slide from Warsaw again,” Tatyana asked after the Library presentation.

“Sure,” I responded.

I pulled up the photo on my computer and her fingers enlarged the center part of the photo.

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“Yes,” Tatyana said pointing to a woman third from the left, “that is Barbara, Barbara Sochal.  She came to Seattle last August and spoke at our Korczak conference.”

We looked Barbara up on Facebook and indeed her name is Barbara Janina Sochal. The “Janina” is a giveaway. She must be Janina’s daughter and thus, Helena’s granddaughter. Amazing.  Barbara and I are now friends on Facebook and Tatyana connected us via e-mail.

How crazy is that?   A woman I met through my Samke cousin Linda has worked together with Janina’s daughter on a conference in Seattle about Janusz Korczak. Connection made on the fourth floor Seattle’s Downtown Library from a photo that I took in Warsaw.

Well Einstein, welcome to my Universe – we are all connected.

Check it out-short interview on KING 5 This morning!

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Here is a link to the interview I did this morning on King 5 News.  Enjoy.

https://www.king5.com/video/features/author-karen-treiger/281-d2ea7adb-e1f0-43b0-b8a2-ee06d67dc9be

 

 

Feeling Grateful – Shabbat Shalom

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There was just a hint of sunrise as we saw the light pink sheen reflected on surface of Lake Washington at 5:50 AM.  The water was still, calling out for a pebble to be thrown or a water skier to glide across its smooth surface.  The birds were singing and the herons still, standing on its impossibly thin legs, waiting for a fish to come near – breakfast.  It was me and my two nephews at the marina this morning – no one else was foolish or as we think smart enough – to get up that early.  I was so hoping that we would see a beaver or two heading out to find their morning breakfast or an eagle swooping down to catch a fish in the Lake.  But we were satisfied with an almost empty lake as we zoomed toward Mercer Island at 30 miles per hour – looking for glass – the dark, smooth, glassy water, that is heaven for a water skier in August.   

This post has nothing to do with the Holocaust except that after digging deep into Sam and Esther’s story and the reality of the Shoah, I want to live life to its fullest and full of gratitude.  As I sit before my computer just an hour before Shabbat, I am so full of gratitude for my life and for what I have in my world.   The water skiing experience this morning is a representation of all the goodness that life brings.  My body is healthy and I am able to be physically active.  I have a beautiful home and wonderful children who bring me joy each day. 

My gratitude towards all who are part of my life is real.  So thank you for being in my life.

And if you live in Seattle and you want a boat ride or want to go water skiing – send me a message and we will do it!!!   Live life to the fullest.  Shabbat Shalom.