Dateline Jerusalem – Just when we think things are going well, we are brought back to reality. My city of Rehovot, where I have felt so safe for the last 5½ years that I could walk the streets after midnight without fear, has experienced a mob-related drive-by shooting in the middle of the day on the busiest street in the city. After re-building their arsenal of weapons, rockets and missiles during the “cease fire,” the Palestinians in Gaza have commenced firing rockets into southern Israel again, to terrorize children and their families on the first day of school after the Passover vacation. Today I attended the unexpected funeral of one of my best friends, a woman who not only never said a bad word about anyone, constantly found something wonderful to say.
Yet I am constantly reminded that no matter how bad things appear, they could be worse. Therefore, I am thankful to have been blessed with a fantastic family, parents, siblings, children and grandchildren. I have great friends both in Israel and the United States who have been there for me in times of need. I was born in a country where freedoms abound. I live in a country where I feel the presence of G-d at all times.
Israel will observe Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day next week. Yesterday I attended a lecture given by a survivor of the Holocaust. He spoke of life in Holland for the families of him and his wife since their experiences were quite different. Holland had been captured in one day, and percentage-wise, more Dutch Jews lost their lives than in Poland, he said. His wife's family constantly was on the run, from one European country to another, bribing border guards to escape. Because his mother-in-law had been pregnant with his future wife, they were not turned away. They found refuge in Switzerland.
The speaker's parents just waited to be rounded up. They had a history of living in Holland for over 300 years, having fled from Portugal to Holland. His parents contacted the Dutch underground and placed his siblings with Dutch families. To survive, the caretaking families forced them to pretend to pray as Christians. At first they hid in attics. For protection, they tore off the yellow Star of David from their clothes when going into the city. A Dutch woman took the speaker from his mother when he was 6 weeks old. She hid him in her bicycle basket while transporting him to a Christian family who raised him until he was 2½. This adoptive family knew he was from a religious home. They had separate pans and food for him. Other children of the Holocaust were converted from Judaism and kept from returning to surviving relatives. Neither of his parents spoke of their trauma and experiences. Thirty years later, he found an article about the woman on the bicycle who saved his life. She was eventually honored for taking enormous risks to save Jews. She received the honor of being designated a Righteous Gentile at Yad Vashem when she was 98 years old.
In the audience, were survivors of concentration camps. A woman who survived the notorious death camp of Auschwitz, the tattooed numbers still visible on her arm, told me that concentration camp survivors do not observe Holocaust Remembrance Day. Instead, they celebrate the day they arrived at the camp. On Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, six survivors, one for each million of the six million Jews who were killed, will carry torches and light flames in remembrance of those who perished. A siren blasts throughout the country, and Israelis will stop whatever they are doing and stand still, heads down, for a minute of silence. Traffic ceases. Drivers and passengers exit their vehicles. Pedestrians stop walking. Trains halt to show their respect.
Although this has been a miserable week, I am blessed to never have experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. We are on this earth for a purpose known only to G-d. When we fulfill that purpose, He takes us. Death is moving from one world to the next, for the soul is immortal and cannot die. I find strength and inspiration in the blessed memory of my friend and those whom we memorialize on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
L'hitraot. Shachar