My grandfather, Solomon Katz

This is my grandfather Solomon Katz. I never met him. He was murdered by the Nazis long before I was born. My mother hardly knew him, she was barely five years old on that accursed day when Nazi troops marched into Lvov, lined him up against a wall and shot him, along with other prominent members of the Jewish community and university professors. One can clearly see how dangerous he must have been to the Third Reich. This is the only picture I have of him, the only picture I have ever seen. I don't even know how old he was in 1932 or when he died. At the bottom of the picture my mother, his daughter, wrote in her own hand: "Daddy in Gubalowce, 1932", in Polish. It is nothing short of a miracle that this photograph has survived 75 years and perhaps a dozen house moves.
This year, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, for the first time in my life I was overcome by the need to wear a new pair of shoes and to perform the blessing "who has given us life": Blessed art thou, our Lord, our God, who has given us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this day," although this blessing is customarily offered on Passover, Feast of Weeks, Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, and Rejoicing of the Torah. But I needed to let my grandfather know that I am alive, his only grandchild, and that my two sons, his great-grandchildren, are alive. One of them is getting married soon, and hopefully great-great-grandchildren will be born.
I wanted to let him know that his smile goes on, my mother had it, I have it, one of my sons has it...
I also wanted to ask him to keep an eye on us and on the children of Israel who are once again threatened with annihilation, so that the smiles of the six million murdered 62 years ago are not forgotten forever.