Remember!

Dalia Mazouri
Maariv, April 15, 2007

Six survivors were chosen to light the six memorial beacons on this year's Holocaust Memorial Day. They were young when they parted with their parents and siblings and were left to deal alone with the Nazi war machine. They acted with great valor. These are their accounts:

David Gur was born to a family of four in Okany, Southeastern Hungary, in 1926. In 1938 the Hungarian regime began to implement anti-Jewish laws. Imbued with Zionist ideals, David decided to move to the Land of Israel. But first he had to travel to Budapest and learn a useful trade. He was apprenticed by a master builder and also became a member of the "Young Guard" (Hashomer Hatzair) underground movement.
In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by the Germans. David joined the underground movement and was put in charge of forging documents. One day he and his friends were caught by the Hungarian security services. They quickly swallowed the forged documents, but the equipment their were carrying gave them away. During the interrogation one of them died, and the rest were taken to a military prison in Budapest to be executed. However, instead of being march to the execution site, they were taken to the Swiss consulate where they were released. David discovered later that the resistance had bribed a senior officer in echange for their lives.
When the war ended, David found out that his father had been murdered in Auschwitz, but his mother and sister had survived. David resumed his activities for the Hashomer Hatzair. In 1949 the communist regime in Hungary outlawed the Zionist organization, so emigrated to Israel to smuggle Zionist youths into the State of Israel.
In 1985 David was one of the founders of the Association for the Research of Zionist Youth Movements in Hungary, and he is still an active member. He and his wife Naomi have three daughters and ten grandchildren.

Zanne Farbstein was born in Bardejov Slovakia in 1926. She was the seventh child of a religiously observant family. Her first memory of the war is of group of German soldiers breaking into her parents' home one Shabbat eve (Friday night). Her father's business was confiscated and her two older brothers were taken to a forced labor camp.
In March 1942 all girls below 25 years of age were ordered to report to the local school. Zanne and two of her sisters, Edith and Sarah showed up together with about one thousand other girls. Their father walked them to the school, and when they arrived, he burst into bitter tears and gave each one of his daughters a korona coin for luck. The three sisters were part of the first transport to Auschwitz. When they arrived, they were ordered to leave their possessions on the train, including their father's good-luck coins. After a few months in Auschwitz, they were taken to Birkenau for forced labor.
Thanks to her Aryan looks, Zanne survived several selektions and even managed to be assigned "desirable" jobs, such as clothes sorting or unloading luggage from the trains. One day she found her father's prayer shawl among the luggage she was unloading, and later she learned that he had been taken to the crematoria. The three sisters never missed a day's work, because they knew that the weak and the ill simply vanished without a trace. One day, Edith, the eldest, was weak and weary to go to work, and offered her good shoes in exchange for Zanne's worn out ones. The three of them knew what it meant. Edith was never seen again.
On January 18, 1945, Zanne and Sarah were forced to join the death march to Germany. But in one of the villages the German guards disappeared and the haeftlings were left on their own. Learning that the war was over, Zanne and Sarah went on to Prague and Bratislava, where they discovered that two of their brothers had also survived. They went back to their hometown for the emotional reunion of what was left of their family.
They remained in Bardejov and tried to go on with their lives. In 1949 the extended family was brought over to Israel aboard the Independence. Zanne is married to Moshe and they have two children and five grandchildren.

Yaakov Janek Hollander was born to a family of five in Krakow, Poland, in 1929. In 1942 the family was taken to the Krakow ghetto where Janek and his parents were separated from the other children.
The family was deported to a work camp and from here to Plaszow concentration camp. Janek remembers Plaszow as hell on hearth, because of the terror reigned on the inmates by camp commander, Amon Goeth, who was madly shooting at whomever he pleased. From Plaszow, Janek and Benek, one of brothers were taken to Starachowice and eventually to Auschwitz. There they survived a number of selektions, and were eventually taken to forced labor in a coal mine in Rideltau, where Benek severely hurt his leg. In March 1944 they were forced to march to Mauthausen. Benek could hardly walk because of his injured leg, but Janek begged him and urged him to go on. They reached the camp, but Benek didn't make it further. They were separated for the first time. Janek was assigned to a work detail and never saw Benek again.
In April 1945 the camp inmates were forced to march to Gunskirchen. Many died on the way. Rumors in the camp had it that the Germans had fled. Janek, weighing 33 kg (thirty three kilograms at age 16 !!!!!!!), barely able to stand or walk, managed to crawl outside the camp. He was found by the Red Cross and taken to the nearby hospital where he met soldiers of the Jewish Brigade and decided to join them and fight in Italy. But a group of Jewish war orphans was formed in Selvino, Italy, looked after by the Youth Aliyah in order to be relocated to Israel. One year later the children were put aboard the Catriel Hayaffe ship, but the British intercepted the ship and ordered her to Cyprus. In 1947 the children arrived at the Mishmar Hasharon kibbutz. Janek joined the Palmach Harel Brigade. He fought in the War of Independence and went on to found the Zeelim kibbutz in the Negev, together with other orphans he met in Italy.
After WWII, Janek learned that his father had been murdered in Auschwitz, his mother had been brought down by illness in Plaszow, his bother Dolek had been shot in Bergen-Belsen three days before the end of the war. In 1953 Janek married Dvora. They have two children and one granddaughter.

Yaakov (Jacki) Handeli was born into a wealthy family in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1928. In 1941 German troops marched into Thessaloniki and established the Jewish ghetto in the Baron de Hirsch neighborhood. The Handeli were also forced into the ghetto, in a humiliating display of Nazi force. Two weeks later Jacki's family was deported to Poland. Over 80 persons were forced into each car and travelled without food or water. Jacki learned his first German words on the train: "You won't need this any more!"
One week later the train arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the passengers were thrown out of the cars and underwent their first selection. After the selection Jacki never saw his parents and sisters again. He and his brothers were assigned to different work details in the camp. In addition to the harsh living conditions, Jacki and his brothers along with the rest of the Thessaloniki Jews suffered from isolation, because they didn't speak German, Yiddish or Polish and therefore couldn't communicate with the Germans or with the other Jews in the camp.
After his brothers died, Jacki remained on his own, until Thessaloniki boxer Jaco Razon took
him under his wing and helped him get more food and survive the terrible conditions in the camp.
In January 1945 the prisoners were sent on a death march. Jacki recalls the snow-covered road stained red with the blood of those who had been shot on the long march to Gleiwiz camp and riding towards Dora Mittelbau in open coal cars in the freezing rain without food or water. The journey ended in Bergen-Belsen where they remained until their liberation by British troops.
Jacki came to the Land of Israel in 1947 aboard the Pan York carrying South African volunteers, and fought in the War of Independence. No other member of his family survived the Holocaust. Jacki and his wife Rachel have two children.

Manya Brodetzky-Titelman, an only child, was born in Zhabokcrich, Ukraine in 1932. In July 1941 German troops marched into her hometown, followed by Romanian troops. The Jews were ordered into five cellars, where Romanian soldiers opened fire on them. Manya passed out and when she regained consciousness, she saw that her mother had been killed in the massacre. Her father also fainted and fell to the ground before the shooting began, and was also saved. Manya and her father remained hidden among the corpses until it nightfall. Then they went back to their house only to discover the neighbors had looted everything. They fled to the woods where they hid, hungry and thirsty, in the rain and the cold for a week. Eventually they decided to go back to their house.
A week later they were sent to the ghetto where they shared an apartment with several other families. They were hungry and cold all the time. There they found out that the bodies of their massacred relatives and friends were decomposing in the cellars where they had been shot. The local police ordered a number of adults and children to carry the bodies out of the cellars and bury them in mass graves. Manya recalls how she identified her mother's body by the red boots she had been wearing. She and her father hid the body and buried it near their home.
Towards the end of the war, the Romanian soldiers took all the Jews to the main square of the town to shoot them, but the German troops arrived unexpectedly and warned the Romanians that Russian troops were coming. The Romanians fled and everybody was surprised to find out that the German troops were in fact partisans in disguise.
After the war Manya went back to school and remained with her father in her hometown. The family immigrated to Israel in 1980. In 2003 Manya was part of a group of survivors who erected a memorial tombstone on the mass grave in her home town. Manya was widowed last month. Her husband, Boris, was also a Holocaust survivor and a Red Army veteran. Manya has two daughters, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

Mordechai (Motke) Wiesel and his twin brother were born to a Haredi family of eight, in Szatmar (Satu Mare), Transylvania, in 1929. Nazi racial laws were enforced as soon as Germany invaded Hungary in 1944. Fearing for his childrens' lives, Motke's father sent three of his sons including Motke to work on a farm. A few weeks later the three brothers were sent to the town ghetto where they were reunited with their parents. Motke's family was part of the second transport to Auschwitz. He and his twin brother Meir managed to sneak close to a crack where they could breathe. They arrived at the camp on their 15th birthday. He remembers asking his mother why there were women along the tracks and what they were doing dressed in striped jackets and with their hair shaved off. She replied: "This must be a lunatic asylum sort of place."
During he first selektion Motke and Meir were separated from their parents and siblings whom they never saw again. When they went through the gate and read the "Arbeit macht frei" sign, Meir asked candidly: "How long do you figure we have to work here to be freed?" A week later the twins were dispatched to Krakow-Plaszow, to work on Schindler's pig farm and as
apprentice builders.
Later they were transferred to Gross-Rosen and from there to Langenbilau Sportschule near Reichenbach. Motke was burning with fever and barely made it to the train. On May 8, 1945, a Russian tank found its way into the camp. Motke and his brother moved into a vacated house in Reichenbach and stayed there until they regained their strength.
When they returned to their home town, they discovered that only their eldest brother had survived. The "Hagana" organization helped them flee to Italy via Austria, where they waited to be smuggled into the Land of Israel. In 1946 Motke boarded a ship, but it was intercepted by the British and forced to sail to Cyprus. He reached Israel in 1947, and joined his brother Meir who was waiting for him in kibbutz Sde-Nahum.
Motke joined the army and was wounded in the battles to open a route to Makor Haim. Later he fulfilled his dream to become an officer in the Jewish army. In 1952 Motke married Esther and they have two children and eight grandchildren.

July 1942

Ruth Avraham, a Jewish woman from Berlin, is among tens of Holocaust survivors whose story of survival made their way into books. These are excerpts from "Ruth and Maria", by Raya and Al Sokoloff, an outspoken chilling account of Jewish life during the Nazi regime, describing how Ruth parted with her parents.

Every night we prayed for the Allies' to defeat the Nazis and save us. Every day we waited with mixed emotions for the bombings and the shelling they were delivering to Germany. On the one hand we feared we might be killed, on the other hand we praying for salvation.
I cannot figure out why I insisted on having a baby. Walter thought I lost my mind. He thought this idea would be the death of us all and wouldn't even hear of it. We had heard of Jews cruelly murdered, others had disappeared, and as for ourselves, there was no way we could escape the horrors. But I wouldn't give up: I felt I had to bring new Jewish life into the world, despite the monstrosity surrounding us. The desire and the need to have a child kept me sane and gave me a reason to live.
"How will we manage with a baby?" Walter kept asking. "Have you thought it over? What if we die?" I had no answers for the questions he kept asking, but I didn't give up. I had never let anybody talk me out of doing something that I really wanted to do. Eventually, when he could no longer stand my supplications, Walter gave in, and I became pregnant in the spring of 1942. I was still doing forced labor, so I had the necessary documents for traveling on the tramway. I was not allowed to sit down, however, so I had to stand for the entire commute. Sometimes, as I was standing with the yellow star pinned on my coat, a fellow passenger would take pity on me and slip an apple or a piece of bread into my purse.
Walter and I made preparations for the birth of our baby. As a forced laborer I enjoyed a few privileges, such as 5 grams of coffee per day, and the choice to have a midwife deliver me at home or go to the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. Walter and I had already decided for a midwife, because of the rumors that the Nazis were doing terrible things to Jewish babies born in the Jewish hospital. While we were busy planning, we tried no to think about the daily routine of aerial attacks and running to the shelter.

In the first weeks of pregnancy I started bleeding. Dr. Emil Cohen, who was 84-years-old, was very worried and instructed me to lie in bed for at least six weeks if I wanted to keep the baby. So I lay in bed for six weeks, because I was desperate to have the baby. Luckily, my parents lived close by. My mother, who was 62 years old at the time, was working in an arms factory. My 70-year-old father was too old and weak to work. So he took care of me while I had to lie in bed. He would fix me meals and I ate in bed. My parents were delighted that I was going to have a baby. A grandchild is something wonderful to look forward to even when the world around you is collapsing.
And then, in July 1942 my parents received the order to prepare for deportation in two weeks' time. We knew that deportation meant death. My mother understood, she had no illusions.
Walter and I had decided to go into hiding, but my parents were too old for this. My mother was almost blind, and my father was very weak. My mother knew where they were going, but she was ready to face her destiny: "I'd rather have a horrible end than an unending horror", she used to say. So we went on with our lives as if a miracle was about to happen any moment.
During those two weeks I went to see my parents every day. I was going to give my father a non-rust watch – an expensive item in the reality of those days. I had bought it on impulse several months earlier, but after the ominous letter I decided to give it to my father as a good-bye gift.
The most dreadful day arrived all too soon. It was a Tuesday, July 22, 1942. I hadn't been able to sleep all night. I forget what I said at work, perhaps I asked for a day off, because I wasn't going to wrap Aspirin pills for the Nazis that day.
Even though it could have harmed my unborn baby, I couldn't eat a thing. The air was heavy with fear and horror. At dawn I went to my parents' house to help them pack. But they were already packed. My father recited the morning prayers, as usual, and then put his prayer shawl and phylacteries in his bag. That morning his prayers took longer than ever.
My parents were too weak to carry heavy cases, that's why they put on several layers of clothes, as many as they could, considering the heat of July.
Waiting was a nightmare. Of all their children I was the only one to see them off. Edith was in England, Anna in the United States, Betty in Palestine, and Ella, fearful for her own family had stayed at home. It seemed to me that I was in Germany for a very special reason – to provide comfort and strength for my elderly parents.
Suddenly there was a heavy knock on the door and we were startled although we knew it was coming. That was it. That which we had feared most had materialized. Two SS troops came in. One last look, one last hug. "Keep believing, we'll pray for a miracle", I said to them.
The soldiers started shouting their orders. I helped my parents with the luggage down the stairs. A truck was already there and the building was surrounded by armed guards with assault dogs. There was nobody on the truck yet, my parents' names were the first on the list. We went around the truck carrying the heavy parcels. Our neighbors had gathered in the street to witness the event. I couldn't help myself and I climbed into the truck together with my parents, and sat with them. We hugged, and cried and prayed. I wanted to return the love they had heaped on me all my life. My being on the truck was infuriating the guards. They yelled at me that I could join my parents on the transport if I wanted. It was hard to resist the temptation. I couldn't bear the feeling that I was abandoning them. As soon as I jumped off the truck it started rolling. I followed it like a mourner walking behind a casket. Then I ran around a long block in order to get ahead of it, but I was too late.
I turned around and walked home. I was very weak because I hadn't eaten anything since the night before, so I lay in bed. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn't given my father his watch.
I knew the truck was heading for the Jewish Community Center on Gross Hamburger Street. That building, which had once been the center of a vibrant community, had become a place of death and ruin. By day, day trucks would arrive and unload their cargo of helpless Jews. At night, while the rest of the Berliners were asleep, train would pick up the hapless cargo and lead them to their last destination: death.
I got out of bed and ran to the center without putting on my yellow star. When I got there, I lowered my head. I felt as if the entire world was watching me and could see and hear my heart pounding in my chest. I forced myself to calm down. I examined the building and found an easy way in. I took it as a sign that God was watching over me.
The room I entered looked like a picture from hell. Hundreds of human beings crammed together, children crying, mothers breastfeeding their babies, some men were praying loudly, others were whispering. Then I saw my parents, they were close to the door, as if expecting me. We embraced again. My father was in a state of shock. My mother told me that on the very same morning the Nazis had questioned my father about his bank account and forced him to sign his possessions over to them, in order to pay for his ticket to Theresienstadt, on the outskirts of Prague.
My mother signaled to me not to say something that might upset my father even more. So I pulled out the watch and gave it to him. My father couldn't believe his eyes. He lift it up in the air for a better look and examined it carefully and kept smiling all along.
This is how I remember him, enjoying the treasure that had just landed in his lap, the last happy moment of his life.
My eyes never left the door. My mother understood my anxiety and signaled to me leave. We hugged again, we prayed together – "Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one God" and I left. I made my way out of the building by the same unguarded door.
That night, Walter and I sat together silent with grief. We had that night only to remember, one single night to sit shiva and mourn my parents. We had a plan and we had to act without delay. For if we didn't, both of us and our unborn child would share my parents' fate.
The following night we ignored the curfew and headed towards my parents' house. The swastika seal was already on the door, meaning that the occupants of the house had been taken to their final destination. Nobody ever touched those seals. They were like the markings on a fresh grave. I removed the seal carefully. Walter opened the door.
The apartment looked exactly as it did the day before, except now it was empty and quiet. I thought I was going to be sick. The furniture, the beautiful dishes reminded me of the Shabbat and holiday meals we had had together. But there was no time to throw up. Our plan was to take every piece of furniture we could carry and sell it. We had to focus on staying alive and keeping the baby. And for that we needed money. My parents' furniture would provide us with that money. It wasn't antique furniture, but it was still fashionable. Lots of houses had been bombed and destroyed in Berlin, and furniture was not easy to find those days. That's why we were certain we would find buyers.
We took only the smallest and prettiest items that could fetch the best prices. The next day we snuck in again, and then again the following night. Each time we removed the seal and then pasted it back again carefully. Walter had several old friends dating back to the days he was in the furniture business. They helped us every night, putting their own lives at risk. One of them loaded all the furniture in his truck and then others helped sell it on the black market. I myself managed to ferry some of the lighter pieces using a simple hand trolley. Our hearts pounding in our chests, frightened to death that someone might spot us from some window and denounce us to the Nazis, we pushed my parents' furniture through the streets of Berlin. Miraculously, we managed to sell every single piece without getting caught.
I forget how many Reich marks we made selling the furniture, but it was the last present my parents gave me. They wouldn't know it, but this is how we managed to stay strong and survive. The following year, when we decided to go into hiding, we had enough money for bribes and for purchasing goods on the black market. I hid the money and the birthday greeting from my mother, which turned out to be her last letter, in a secret pocket underneath my clothes.

(I translated the Hebrew translation of the English version. I hope I didn't stray too far off the original).

photographs: Ruth and Walter Avraham, spring 1939.

Ruth's parents, Frieda and Meir Frum, 1941 (?)

Mourning over a lost sister

I have lived in Israel for 23 years now, i.e. twenty-three Holocaust Remembrance Days. Twenty-three times I read and heard survivor accounts, stories of murdered relatives and friends, shattered communities, mass murder and genocide.
Anti-Semitism is raising its monstrous head once again. Most Europeans would like to bury their part in wiping out European Jewry by giving blind support to the Arab propaganda that would make even Goebbels proud. Therefore I have decided to dedicate part of this blog to testimonies of crimes committed against the Jews of Europe during WWII as they are published in Israeli newspapers. This is the story of Esther Weiner, by Avraham Tirosh.
(The Weiners, Esther seated in the middle, her brother Joseph standing behind her).

My aunt Esther waited for three years for her permission to join her two brothers in Palestine, until she was deported to Treblinka. My father never forgave himself for failing obtain the certificate that would have saved her life. This is what he wote sixty years ago: "I had but one sister, sweet and pure, but she did not have wings, and I couldn't save her."

Although I was born before WWII in mandatory Palestine, I sometimes define myself as a Holocaust survivor, no offense to those who have "earned" this title in earnest. I was pulled at the very last moment from that "Valley of Death".
My late mother came to the Land of Israel in 1930 at the age of 21. She rebelled against her non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox family and persuaded her equally Hassidic uncle, who was less opposed to the Zionist idea to pay for her ticket in utmost secrecy. Six years later, in Palestine, she married my father, Joseph Weiner (Tirosh). I am their first born son.
I was almost two years old at the beginning of summer 1939 and my mother decided to travel to her native Bialystok, to proudly introduce me, the Land-of-Israel grandson to her parents. We were ready to leave in August, but due to the imminent war my mother decided to put off the voyage. Luckily! War broke out on September 1st. Other Land-of-Israel mothers, I don't know how many, who wanted to show off their children, were stuck in Poland. Some managed to flee, others perished.
But this is not what this story is about. Neither is this story about my family solely, although so it might seem. All of my mother's family perished in the Shoah, except one of her sisters who followed her to the Land of Israel. On my father's side, his brother was here, and they both helped their widowed mother to travel to Palestine. Only Esther, their younger sister stayed behind and was murdered together with her husband and infant son in Treblinka, in all likelihood.
My late father was involved with bringing legal and illegal immigrants to Palestine/Land of Israel, but despite being well-connected, he couldn't obtain the necessary "certificate", the immigration visa from the British Mandate officials, so Esther had to stay behind. My father never got over his tragic failure and he never forgave himself.
During the 1940's and 1950' my father was writing for "The Tzofeh" (The Onlooker) under his nom de plume J. Tirosh (although his name was still Weiner). This newspaper had a large Zionist-religious audience. Although being a young child at the time, I remember the "celebs" among them. But I was taken by surprise when I found out what had happened to my aunt.
My father passed away eleven years ago. Among his belongings we found a number of articles and letters, most already published by different newspapers and magazines. A few months ago, I went through his papers once again, and found an old edition of the newspaper, and among its yellow pages the following article, published 60 years ago, on February 28, 1947. This was my broken-hearted father grieving over his younger sister's death and agonizing over his own inability to save her.

This is the article "I Had One Sister":
I had one sister, sweet and small, my beautiful young sister. But she didn't have wings, she didn't know how to fly. We grew up as two soft chicks in the loving nest of a pair of lovebirds: mother and father.
I grew up and became a man. I grew wings and I thought I had to fly away from the nest, far far away, to the land of the sun and the azure. My younger sister pleaded with me and begged: please take me with on your wings. Wherever you shall fly, I shall fly. Wherever you shall dwell, I shall dwell. How shall I eat and breathe alone, on my own, with no-one beside me, when your soul is my soul?
I encouraged her, I promised to take her with me later on: wherever I shall go, you shall go. But I didn't keep my promise. With God as my witness, accursed evil stopped me and stood in my way. The gate was locked behind me. High walls stopped me in my tracks and wouldn't let me pass. My powers failed me.
I sent her messages to comfort and encourage her: I will bring you over, I will help you leave. Tomorrow we shall receive the good sign. I will build a paper bridge for you. I will send you your "certificate". It will allow you safe passage to me, to the land of sun and azure, and you shall find peace.
I had this sister, my one and only sister. But she didn't have wings, she couldn't fly away. She stood by her window every evening, looking into the twilight, waiting for the letter man. She stood there wishing him to come, waiting for the sign, for the paper bridge. She stood there for one year, two years, three years, but the sign didn't come. Yet she didn't despair. She grew up, became a woman, a few gray hairs found their way among her curls. She got married and still she waited, wished for the sign.
My wings were severed, there was no wind beneath them. I had no power to send her an eagle. I had no power to bring her to the promised land, close to me, to my home, to the safe nest. The wind didn't help her, she had no power to fly like a dove, to fly far away. To find refuge from the coming storm. She was waiting for me, for a sign from me. She was hoping I could save her. Even though the sign was long in coming, she kept on waiting.
Treblinka was not far away. In fact it was very close, in place and time. Too close. She could almost see and feel it. About one hour away from her home. There sat my fragile sister, lonely
and forlorn, so close to Treblinka, swallowing her tears and waiting. Humming a soft tune and waiting. Eating her bread in sorrow and lying in her bed in grief. She was so sad, so sad, but she waited. She sat in her home, but she did not despair. She looked out the window and waited, tapping on the window sill and wondering: "Why is the postman late? Why is he always late?"
She waited one year, two years, three years. She sat there feeling sad and abandoned, but she didn't despair. She was still waiting for a miracle. Still praying. Until the man from Treblinka came for her and took her away, along with the rest of the children of Israel, and led them to the fires of Treblinka, which sucked her bone marrow and smashed her bones, until she and the baby in her arms were no more.
And still she laughs, hope hovers on her scorched lips: a paper bridge will be built and salvation is near. Very near. It is nearing my house, it is by the gate.
But alas, I had but one sister, fragile and pure. She didn't have wings. And I couldn't lift her to fly on my wings. Let her soul, holy and untainted, rest on the wings of heavenly angels. Glorified and sanctified be the great name of the Lord (mourning prayer).
When is my sister's yearly commemoration (juhrzeit)? When is your sister's commemoration, or that of your brother, your mother or father? Even this "pleasure" has been denied us. My sister died without a name, without a date. She left nothing behind and nothing remains of her. Not even the day, not even the month. Alas!"

As I said, this is not only the story of my family. I am sure many Jews in wartime Palestine were grieving and agonizing over the fate of their helpless families, over the unsuccessful attempts to bring them over to Palestine and save their lives. Instead, those left behind in Europe went up in the smoke of the crematoria. The scars in their hearts must have never healed, just as my father's heart bled to his very last day.
All that is left of my aunt Esther, my father's younger sister, is a tiny book-shaped tombstone that my father left on his father's grave, dedicated to the memory of Esther and Ephraim Ditkowsky, her husband, and their infant son Avraham Shmuel, named for our grandfather, just like me. Except I have no idea how old he was or what he looked like when the murderers took his young innocent life.

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.