I Really Believe I Have Been Reincarnated…

I’ve always been fascinated by reincarnation. I sincerely believe that a person’s spirit or soul can be reborn into a new body after death. Continuously having this strong pull towards learning and reading about the Holocaust, I couldn’t help feeling that I had been through that horrific era in some capacity as a victim.  

Since reading The Diary of Anne Frank in 1955, I have always wondered if I would have survived the camps – been cunning enough, brave enough and/or lucky enough to save my family and myself.

For years, I read every Holocaust memoir I could get my hands on – attended lectures and viewed my life through the lens of how much better I had it than a European Jew had it in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

It was hard to be depressed by a weight gain, a baked apple pie that didn’t live up to its recipe, a child’s messiness, or a minor rear end collision when comparing everyday life in the United States to the travails of the six million Jews who perished and the countless others who escaped by the skin of their teeth.

I also wondered – as I went through life and made countless friendships of those who did not share my Jewish faith – if they would have been among the righteous gentiles who would hide me from the Nazis if we lived in Central Europe during World War II. 
 
So it didn’t really surprise me that on the last morning of the Danube cruise in Germany, I woke up abruptly about 8 am and said to my husband, “Two words just popped into my brain and I have no idea where they came from: REPLACEMENT BUTTONS. I have to utilize AI to research if there is a connection between the two words ‘replacement buttons’ and the Holocaust,” I nervously told him.

To my utter astonishment, there was a definite connection – thus reinforcing my murky feeling of having had a very personal connection to the Holocaust. 

Here is what I asked:

Was there such a term as “replacement buttons” given to Jews who survived the Holocaust?
Here is what I learned:
The term “replacement buttons” refers to a form of identification used by some Jewish survivors to signify their survival status and, in some cases, to help them access benefits or aid. It symbolized both survival and the immense loss they endured.

After the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors struggled with the trauma of their experiences and often faced challenges in rebuilding their lives. Some had lost their whole families and their communities. The practice of giving survivors “replacement buttons” highlighted the need for recognition and support, acknowledging their survival in a world that had often forgotten or ignored their suffering.

The “replacement buttons” served as a powerful symbol for Holocaust survivors in several significant ways:

Helping with a survivor’s connection to their prior community.Serving as a Symbol of Solidarity, creating a collective identity among those who had similar experiences.Symbolizing Hope, Resilience, Survival and New Beginnings – representing the strength of those who survived against great odds.Reminding future generations of the importance of remembrance and the dangers of hatred.

Immensely curious, I then asked AI to show me some visual representations of “replacement buttons”. Nada. 

I asked many of our tour guides if they had ever heard of the “replacement buttons”. No one had. 

Further research yielded no images, but a brief description: 

made of either metal or plasticusually blue and whitesometimes with a Jewish symbol

Days have passed. 

I still can’t figure out why and how the term “replacement buttons” popped into my consciousness that morning cruising the Danube through Germany. Maybe it was because I experienced such powerful moments so often in touring historic Jewish sites in Central Europe and something was aroused in my subconsciousness. 

One such powerful moment was when our tour guide in Regensburg showed our tour group a picture of a large Jewish family gathered together in Germany prior to WW2. 
 


Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Husbands. Wives. Siblings. An entire family wiped out – perishing in the ovens of Auschwitz – save but for one young family member who survived. 

“Here I am waiting to be liberated…and everything is gone.”
– Sara Kay (1926–2019). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section, RG-50.091.0082
 
Immediately visions of my family’s annual Thanksgiving photo of my husband and I flashed through my mind – with our sons and daughters-in-law, our precious grandchildren and loving extended family. That could have been us.
And I felt like throwing up. 
Let us not forget.
 
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,