Tag Archives: Jewish survival

June 2, 2025 · 7:30 am

Displaced People

Milt Zolotow (z”l)

(with his daughter, Nina Zolotow)

Note from Nina: I want to tell you a bit about my father. He grew up in New York, the child of immigrants, with Yiddish as his first language and a fairly conventional Jewish upbringing, which meant he also learned Hebrew. During World War II, he served in the army and was sent to North Africa, Italy, France, and ultimately occupied Germany, where his ability to speak Yiddish helped him understand German. Well, you can imagine that because of this background he had some interesting adventures in Europe. In his old age he outlined a memoir about his war years, which he never actually wrote. I cobbled together a one-sentence story years after his death about an experience he had in Germany. In it I use information and phrases from his outline, a kind of a posthumous collaboration, which you can read below.

During the occupation we were sent to a small German town near a camp for Displaced Persons, where all the DP’s were women, and someone had the bright idea of sending a truck down to invite any interested women to a dance we were giving—with musicians and food, too!— and when the truck filled with girls arrived, we brought out the schnapps and food, and soon there were couples making out in the bushes outside the cafe and everyone was as drunk as raw schnapps can make you, but then as I was drunkenly dancing with a pretty girl, I suddenly realized that I clearly understood every word she was saying because she was speaking to me in Yiddish, so after that I sobered up pretty quickly and listened as she explained to me that no one in the camp knew she was Jewish because she carried the identity papers of a Pole (she had jumped off the moving freight train carrying her to a death camp, found a young Polish woman who was roughly her size and coloring, and then she killed this woman, took her identity papers and lived as a Pole in a Nazi work camp) and that she had come to the dance to try some Yiddish phrases on everyone she danced with and finally succeeded in making contact with me (quite a miracle since there were only two Jews in my battalion and the other one was not at the dance), and all I could think to do was to take her back to my quarters and give her every bar of soap and carton of cigarettes I could find, however, that kind of backfired because when she returned to the DP camp laden with my gifts, she was immediately the center of hostile attention—no other girl had been so lavishly treated and suddenly suspicions rose: she was different, she was a Jew—and the officer running the camp saw the ruckus, knew she had to be separated, and phoned our HG to tell us what happened, so then I made some calls and found a quartermaster truck that was going south to a Mediterranean port, put the girl on it and got the GI driver to agree to put her on board a ship to Palestine, but later I learned that the British turned back all the Jewish refugees trying to get to Palestine, so I guessed she must have ended up stranded in some French waterfront town, and I still wonder if I did enough (I never heard another word about her because the very next day I was given a two-week pass for the French Riviera).

Nina Zolotow just loves to write, and she has been doing it for her entire adult life. Currently she is writing creative non-fiction and experimental fiction/poetry, which you can find on her blog Delusiastic!, where there is both brand new and older works, and you can also subscribe to her on Substack, where she is releasing one story a week. Nina has also written or co-written four books on yoga (seeyogafortimesofchange.com) as well as being the Editor in Chief and writer for the Yoga for Healthy Aging blog for 12 years. Before that there was 20 years of writing instructional manuals for the software industry, including many books for programmers. And somewhere in there was an MFA from San Francisco State in Creative Writing. All of that taught her how to write simply and clearly when needed but also to go crazy with words when that seems right. 

Milton Zolotow was born in New York City, the child of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Trained as a fine artist as well as a graphic designer, he enlisted in the US Army during World War II, hoping to join the map making division in New Jersey. Instead, he was assigned to a tank battalion and after training was sent to North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. Because of his drawing skills, he mainly did reconnaissance for his unit. But during the occupation of Germany, he was used as a German translator due to his knowledge of the Yiddish language, and his ability to speak Yiddish as well as some Hebrew and French also led him to have some interesting encounters with other Jewish people in Europe. After the war, he returned to New York City, where he created a body of war- and Holocaust-inspired artwork and where he met his future wife, Edith. After a couple of years of studying art in Mexico City, Milton and Edith settled down in Los Angeles, California, where they raised a family and Milton worked as a graphic designer and taught graphic design in art schools. In his retirement, he began to create black and white drawings that continued to explore imagery that evoked war and the Holocaust. 



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May 20, 2024 · 7:30 am

Ancestral Family Secrets 

by Ronit Widmann-Levy (Sunnyvale, California)

In the summer of 2013, my Swiss uncle, Albrecht, invited the extended German side of my family to visit Rostock for a family reunion and to hear from a historian who was commissioned by the city of Rostock to write the story of a prototypical Jewish family between the seventeen hundreds till today. 

Curious to learn about my family’s origins, and interested in filling in the many blanks, I accepted the invitation and flew to Germany to partake in this reunion, bringing my thirteen-year-old son and three-year-old daughter with me.

Holding my sleeping daughter in my arms, I stood at the arrivals terminal scanning the crowd for a driver who was supposed to pick us up. My eyes locked briefly with those of a short, blond-haired, middle-aged man who seemed to have recognized me upon sight and appeared, oddly, somewhat startled. Tired from our 12-hour flight, I didn’t think much of it. The man began walking directly towards me.  

“Frau Widmann-Levy”? 

“Yes, that’s me”  

“I’m Frank, your guide and the historian who wrote the thesis about your family, the Josephys” 

”I’m honored. Thank you for coming to meet us here.  I was expecting a driver,” I replied.

“I can drive too,” he quickly responded, and picked up my luggage and walked us to his car, an old, rickety Volkswagen station-wagon.

Later that day, Frank sat me down in the lobby of the hotel and showed me old photos of the Josephy family, including one of a young woman named Carla. Looking at the face gazing back at me from the faded old photo was like looking in a mirror. I felt an immediate connection to Carla.  And so began my acquaintance with a woman who had influenced my life in many profound ways long before I became familiar with her life story.  

In the following days, Frank walked us through the streets of Rostock and shared in great detail his research of our family’s history and origins. Walking the cobblestone streets of Rostock hand-in-hand with my two children that summer, the year of my son’s Bar Mitzvah, was surreal. As we were walking, Frank pointed at the still-standing homes of our ancestors. The well-restored or preserved original buildings and apartments were all inhabited by tenants who had taken over our family’s homes after they were forced out.

Frank unraveled the Josephys family’s history for us—where they had lived, whom they had married, where they had worked, and gone to school. At a certain moment, he pointed at a specific building with windows facing the street where we were standing. Leaning out the windows were tenants currently living in those apartments. Upon seeing our group, they all withdrew, clearly dismayed to see us and our animated guide. 

On the front lawn, children at play were pulled back into apartments in a flash while windows and shutters were slammed shut. Frank, who was explaining about the past while pointing at their building, was not whispering, to say the least. He shared his findings enthusiastically while sweating through his white linen shirt and smoking like a chimney.

Carla’s complete story — and the reality of how I ended up having both Christian and Jewish branches in my family — was revealed to me on my second day at Rostock when Frank, recounting more of our family’s history, mentioned an aunt, (tante) Carla Josephy, a famed Jewish opera singer in Germany before WWII. I had a  surreal image of the words coming out of his mouth and enveloping me, wrapping me in a blanket made of the sum total of my family’s journey. That was the summer of 2013.  

As our little group traversed the streets of Rostock, my great-uncle marched in front. He had been the child in the story and was now eighty years old. I couldn’t help but think again the one thought that had always popped into my head since I was a school-age girl living in Israel. Would I have survived? Would my blue eyes and blond hair have saved me? 

Carla’s story, the alias she created, saving her children by giving them to the nuns, marrying her gay colleague and traveling to Havana Cuba, made me rethink my long time assumption that my seemingly Aryan features would have been enough for me to survive the war. I understood that it was not Carla‘s Aryan features that saved her but rather her creativity and resilience. I stopped putting so much weight on external features as equating a better chance of survival. From that point on, surviving meant something completely different to me. It meant not just coming out of the experience with a pulse, alive, but rather having your soul intact and your spirit in a reparable condition. 

I knew that many people had physically survived the war. They were mere shadows of who they had been six years earlier, and they walked the earth for the remainder of their days agonizing over what they had lost, unable to move forward. After hearing Carla’s story, I understood that living meant more than coming out of the war alive. It meant not just presenting to the world the shell of who you were but truly engaging with life.

I looked at my uncle and saw the boy within, with a one-way ticket on the train to Basel the day his mother put him in charge and responsible for his five-year-old sister. Relinquishing her children may seem like an extreme and heartless choice on Carla’s part, but in fact, this was an act of tremendous bravery and infinite love. Both children would be fostered and saved by a Swiss Catholic family, and  Albrecht and Dorotea would grow up and dedicate their lives to leaving the world a better place than they found it.

My uncle’s wife, children, and grandchildren enveloped him with love and affection,  accompanying him on this self-afflicted journey that he was so determined to go through. 

The next few days would change my life forever. Every part of my being realized that in the face of an existential threat, it is the silence of our neighbors and friends that is deafening. It’s a silence that contains many shades of betrayal. 

—

Ronit Widmann-Levy, a luminary in the arts world, boasts a multifaceted career spanning curation, fundraising, branding, presenting, and strategic planning. Her remarkable expertise encompasses public arts administration and cultivating global partnerships. Renowned for her captivating performances, Ronit has sung in Carnegie Hall under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas and recorded for PBS Great Performances. Notably, she serves as the Director of the Israel Museum Bay Area Council, a role that reflects her commitment to promoting art and cultural exchange. Passionate about the synergy of arts and technology, Ronit co-chairs and produces TEDxPaloAlto.  She champions art’s transformative role in fostering inclusivity, celebrating diversity, and instigating impactful change. Her career is marked by unwavering dedication to innovation, social responsibility, and exceptional leadership that fuels brand longevity and sustainability in the arts sphere. Ronit resides in Sunnyvale California.

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January 1, 2024 · 7:30 am

Ancestors

by Natalie Zellat Dyen (Huntington Valley, PA)

Last year I searched for my grandfather’s grave at Har Jehuda Cemetery.

Nathan Weisbord. 

Section C25, row 2, location 47.

But couldn’t find him. 

Once, I was able to run my hand over Hebrew letters incised into the stone.

Once I was able trace the date of his death from the Spanish flu: October 1918. 

But now he is twice buried.

This time in a jungle of tangled weeds and branches. 

Buried by neglect that afflicts old Jewish cemeteries like this one.

Cemeteries passed down to owners unwilling or unable to maintain what was entrusted to them. 

We are the caretakers of our ancestors.

Responsible for remembering them and reciting their names. 

It’s not easy for many of us to find our roots. 

Nature unchecked reclaims its own.

Paths to our history are blocked by twisted roots.

And burned records.

And toppled gravestones.

And the rubble of cemeteries in the old country.

The last time I visited Har Jehuda I was a volunteer. 

One of many warriors, armed with rakes, hedge trimmers, and bare hands.

Working to clear the paths, section by section. 

We have not yet reached my grandfather’s grave.

But we are persistent.

We Jews. 

That’s how we survive.

I had hoped to accomplish much as a volunteer. 

Bus alas, my ability to twist and bend

Had gone the way of my youth.

So I sat down and continued weeding and trimming on the ground. 

But when it was time to leave, I found myself stuck.

Lacking the strength to get back on my feet. 

So I wrapped my arms around the nearest gravestone.

A monument to man named Joseph Feingold

Who died in 1948. 

And he helped to lift me to my feet. 

As Jews, we are responsible for each other in life and in death. 

And as I honor my ancestors, they will continue to lift me.

Natalie Zellat Dyen began writing humor pieces and essays for newspapers while working as a technical writer. Since turning to fiction, her work has appeared in a number of publications including, Philadelphia Stories, The MacGuffin, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Willow Review, Alternative Truths: Endgame, Jewish Writing Project, Damselfly, CERASUS Magazine, Every Day Fiction, and Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal. Her short story collection, Finding Her Voice, was published in 2019. Her debut novel, Locked in Silence, a work of historical fiction, will be released on February 1, 2024.

To learn more about Natalie and her work, visit her website: www.nataliewrites.com. 

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June 26, 2023 · 6:30 am

13 Ways of Looking at a Jew

by Bill Siegel (Boston, MA)

1.

Evil takes many forms. To monologist Spalding Gray (Swimming to Cambodia), it’s a nameless cloud drifting around the planet, randomly settling down on humanity now and then –  a Jack the Ripper, an Adolph Hitler, a Pol Pot, an Osama bin Laden. Like a bad dream.

I knew a girl in high school, in the late 1960s, who had recurring dreams in which Nazi soldiers break into her family’s home and take her parents and brother away. When they come to take her, she invariably wakes up screaming, never knowing if, in the dream, they’d taken her or not.

But it’s not a dream. We don’t get to wake up in the morning and shake off the nightmare, breathe a sigh of relief, and return to normal. It can’t be understood and dismissed that easily, because it keeps happening – day after day, night after night, week after week, year after year, generation after generation.

2.

Some people say they are tired of hearing Holocaust stories.

“Enough already, let’s move on,” they say.

“Don’t be such a victim,” they say.

“Don’t try so hard for attention,” they say.

“Stop living in the past, it’s all so boring,” they say.

“It never really even happened,” they say.

That’s what they say.

3.

My nieces – part French-Canadian, not Jewish – are talking. The older one is working on a high school project. “I have to do a collage of images about the Holocaust,” she says. Her younger sister doesn’t even raise her head from her magazine. “Which one?” she asks.

4.

I read a newspaper account of two teenagers who slipped a note into a girl’s backpack as they sat in class studying the work of minority authors. Addressed to “My sweet Jewish princess,” the note explicitly described sexual acts the writer would perform with the girl while pretending to be Hitler. It was written by a girl with her boyfriend’s encouragement. Both of them were charged with second-degree harassment and intimidation based on bigotry or bias, which carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. I don’t know if they were actually tried or convicted, but this was not a first-time occurrence. They apparently had a history of such “antics.”

This happened in the next town to me, in Central Massachusetts, on the eve of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, ushering in the Jewish New Year 5758, in the very Christian year of 1997.

5.

I have letters written by my father from the World War II battle-front in France. Written in Yiddish, using carefully scribed Hebrew letters, they are addressed to his parents, my Bubby Rose and Zayde Harry. I can’t read the Yiddish, but I can make out my father’s name in the letter’s closing. It reads “Dzakie,” the closest he could get to his Americanized name, “Jakie,” since there is no “j” sound in the Hebrew alphabet. His given name in the new land, America, is foreign to his own people.

6.

On Sundays we regularly visited Bubby and Zayde, where my father and Zayde huddled together in a corner of the tiny den, having a lively, though hushed, conversation in fluent Yiddish.  My father might be reading from letters written by Zayde’s brother, who never left Ukraine for America. Other times, Zayde would tell my father what to write, in Yiddish, of course, in letters back to Ukraine.  During these conversations, my mother or Bubby might contribute some valuable bit of information or commentary in Yiddish, though the rest of us, second-born American kids, had no idea what anyone was talking about. Other than a few choice and creatively formulated insults or compliments, they didn’t teach us much of the language.

7.

When my sister was about 16, she rebelled against our weekly visits to Bubby and Zayde’s house.  She was put off by all the “old language” talk and refused to go there again unless everyone spoke English. To this day, it feels like one of the holes in life that can never be filled, something to mourn: the ability to converse with my grandparents in their native language, or at least bathe myself in the sound of it, like a warm, comforting shower.

8.

In Marge Piercy’s novel, Gone to Soldiers, a woman is sitting shiva for her son who was killed in World War II. She is, understandably, devastated. Another woman castigates her for “excessive” grief. “It’s been three days,” she says. “Enough already. Get over it.”

Typically, at the end of the shiva period, which can last for 7 to 8 days, the rabbi takes the family for a walk – around the block, through the village, the neighborhood. The walk guides the family back to an active, purposeful life, and reminds them that the death of their loved one does not signal the end of the world, that though they must never forget the deceased, they are still obligated to continue moving forward — or else, as the rabbi told my mother at shiva for my father, “They will never get all the way around the block.”

What it is not, is an occasion for scolding anyone for their grief.

9.

After my father’s death, after sitting shiva, I find myself in a synagogue that I’ve never been to before. I’ve come to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for him. It’s early morning, but the service has already begun. I’m wearing a black lapel pin and black ribbon snipped by my mother’s scissors, identifying me as someone in mourning, someone who has lost someone. One of the men, dressed in a tallis and cradling an open prayer book, greets me at the door and welcomes me in. Another one comes over to me before I’ve found a seat, and asks who my people are and who I’m mourning for. 

I’ve found a place to be.

10.

The Kaddish prayers, unlike almost all of the other Jewish prayers, are written in ancient pre-Hebrew Aramaic, likely dating back more than 2,600 years, to mourn the destruction of the First Temple. Every time I chant it, I feel grounded in the here and now, but with tendrils connecting me to Jews all around the planet reciting it at the same time I am, as well as  to an unending stream of mourners going back millenia. 

Kabbalah teaches that Creation is made up of “worlds beyond our world,” in time, in space, in spirit. Standing with congregants in early morning, reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, I feel at home in that multi-dimensional, eternal Universe.

And that is good enough.

11.

There are rules: 

Keep a kosher kitchen. 

Stay with your own kind. 

Go to shul. 

Fast on Yom Kippur. 

Find a nice Jewish girl. 

Get an education.

Be a doctor or a lawyer. 

Be a mensch. 

Don’t marry a shiksa.

But so many Jews try so hard not to be Jewish. Or at least not to be recognized as such. Even in shul, I was taught from a young age to “assimilate” into American culture and society. They never taught us quite how we were supposed to do that, but even as a child I somehow knew that “assimilate” meant “camouflage yourself,” hide, blend into the background, don’t call attention to yourself and your Jewishness. That way – maybe, just maybe – you’d be safe.

12.

“That’s funny, you don’t look Jewish” — the bitter-sweet punch line that doesn’t really need a joke. It’s a tag line in and of itself. We laugh at it, almost proudly, as if it’s recognition of having done a good job of assimilating.

13.

I sometimes believe that there are many people (Jews among them) who will be secretly, and perhaps not so secretly, relieved when the last Holocaust survivor passes on. Maybe they don’t want to confront the truth so directly, the horror, the pain.  But they’re mistaken. Yes, the day will soon come when the last of the victims of Hitler’s death camps are gone. 

But “last survivor?” Never. Survivors of the Holocaust are born every day.

* * * * * * * * * *

Bill Siegel lives in the Boston MA area, and writes both prose and poetry – about family, fishing, jazz, and more. He has two manuscripts in process: “Printed Scraps”, poems inspired by Japanese woodblock prints; and “Waiting to Go Home”, about family and memories of growing up. His work has been published in “Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing Witness to the Holocaust” (Northwestern University Press), and “Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop” (University of Arizona Press). His poems also appear in Blue Mesa Review, Rust+Moth, JerryJazzMusician, Brilliant Corners, and InMotion Magazine, among others.

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April 3, 2023 · 6:30 am

What I know

By Marilyn Schonfeld-Davenport (Louisville, CO)

I am a first generation American and a second generation Holocaust survivor. 

My mother was born in Korosten, Ukraine. 

My father in the shtetl of Oleszyce, Poland. 

They came to this country in 1950 with my three-year-old sister who was born in a displaced persons camp in Ansbach, Germany.

They were lucky, my mother always said. They were not in concentration camps.

They met during the war on a Russian state-owned farm (Sovkhoz) in Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan.

I do not know the name of the farm. I do not know how my father ended up there. Only that while in the Russian army, he jumped off a train to escape banishment to Siberia and found himself on the same Sovkhoz. 

They were lucky, my mother always said

They were not tortured. They did not starve.

They did not have to hide underground or in sewers or cellars with rats. 

They did not have to strip down naked and suffer inhuman conditions and humiliating treatment. 

They did not have to forage for food in the forests. 

They did not have to watch their children die.

My parents were lucky. 

Not like their dear survivor friends whose tragic stories I overheard as a child, amidst the shuffling cards and the clicking chips of the poker table. 

But still, their young lives were thwarted by the horrifying rampage of a madman.

They were scared. They were on the run. 

They were separated from their families. 

They scampered to strange places, seeking refuge and safety.

Their fate collided at the Sovkhoz where they fell in love and lived in relative peace. And waited. And wondered, when will it end?

They worked in the fields, repaired small machinery, slept in bunkers and occasionally had a decent meal of more than watered -down soup.

My mother worked in the canteen and snuck my father extra bread and cigarettes.

That’s all I know about their life there.

After the war, they got married and returned to Korosten so my dad could meet his in-laws and my mother could say hello and goodbye to her family. 

My dad set his sights on America. 

The land of promise. The land of opportunity.

She was going with him.

But first he wanted to go back to Poland to see what happened to his family. 

He had no idea if anyone was still alive.

Somewhere, somehow he discovered they all perished in Belzec. 

Except for one sister.

She escaped with the help of a priest and was in a displaced persons camp in Ansbach, Germany. 

And so they went there.

My mother said they walked.

But how? How did he find out about her? How did they walk all that way? 

Who helped them? How long did it take? 

My past is a patchwork of fragmented stories and unanswered questions.

They hang suspended looking for a place to rest, to make me whole.

My father never talked about his past or his childhood.

I try to seam it together through any research I can do, any tidbit I can find. 

A box of papers from the DP camp; sponsor forms, luggage tags, passport pictures, a diploma from ORT that said my father could make a shoe.

But I reach a dead end when it comes to my Polish family. There is so little.

There are only imagined faces of my relatives instead of photos that do not exist. 

Imagined lives in places I cannot fathom.

I never asked enough and they never said enough. 

I do not know enough. 

But I do know this.

I am a first generation American and a second generation Holocaust survivor. 

I am defined by that more than anything.

Marilyn Schonfeld-Davenport has always held the stories of her parents and her ancestors deep inside her, those few that she knows, those fragments that she can piece together. These stories composed the backdrop of a relatively carefree childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, but beneath the surface was the lingering impact of her parents’ trauma: her mother’s anger and fear, her father’s quiet introspection.

Throughout the years, Marilyn has returned to those haunting stories of her youth to try to weave the pieces together and better understand her past. She is currently working on a memoir of sorts, based on her mother’s notebooks of recorded minutes as the secretary of the Trossman Family Club. Uncle Sam Trossman, the patriarch, brought her parents and sister to this country after the war.  She lives in Louisville, Colorado with her husband Mark and dog Wilson. Her two grown sons live in Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, Minnesota and she misses them every single day. 

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October 2, 2017 · 8:48 am

“You Jewish?”

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

“You Jewish?”

At a crowded train hub

a man dressed in a long black robe

pointed at me and repeated, “You Jewish?”

“You, Jew, step out of the line.”

I waved him away.

“Men here, women over there.”

How dare he, out of all the people

rushing for their trains, single me out?

“Achtung, mach schnell.”

Do I have a long nose?

Do I have money pouring out of my pockets?

Do I shuffle along like a prisoner?

Please, God, don’t single me out.

The mournful music of the camps

resonates in my soul.

But then, later, after some thought,

I wondered if I had misread the Chasid.

Maybe he was just offering me

a sweet greeting for the holiday season.

I don’t want to be chosen.

Maybe he was simply saying

we are landsmen, no?

I dismissed him out of hand.

My parents are European.

I could have had numbers on my arm.

Have I been so scarred I may have missed

an opportunity for connection and grace?

You, Jewish? Yes, I am.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

 

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August 28, 2017 · 8:05 am

A Proper Home

by Sheldon P. Hersh (Lawrence, NY)

While growing up in a Yiddish speaking home, I was often witness to the respect and adoration given to the Yiddish books that once graced our small bookcase. It goes without saying that prayer books, bibles and other holy texts were held in high esteem, but books written in Yiddish, the mameloshen (mother tongue), came in a close second. Like many Eastern European Jews, my parents had a particularly strong attachment to books written in Yiddish. Whatever the theme or intended message, these books were often afforded special status not only because they were written in Yiddish but because Yiddish utilizes Hebrew script, the very same letters found in all of our sacred texts.

More often than not, many of these Yiddish books were passed on to my parents by either aged or sickly friends and neighbors who simply wanted their treasured books to take up residence in a proper home. Yiddish books, after all, were like beloved relatives who detailed our long and often difficult history. I remember how we always removed and replaced these books with the utmost care so as not to injure their often spindly, dilapidated spines and worn bodies. In our home, we read these books primarily on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays when there was ample opportunity to lay on the couch, close one’s eyes and perhaps take a solemn journey back in time.

History has a way of repeating itself and perhaps is meant to do so. A short while back, I was approached by a few acquaintances and patients asking if I would be willing to take possession of their Yiddish books. Some followed my advice and sent their books to the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts while others would not hear of it. This latter group wanted their books to reside in a warm loving home rather than in an “orphanage for Yiddish books”.

I remember an elderly gentleman who, only recently, was seated in my examination room. He began speaking as soon as I entered. “I have to talk to you about my Yiddish books,” he began. “I know you speak and read Yiddish. So, doesn’t it make sense for them to be with you? They mean so much to me. I can’t just throw them out. Please, come to my home. The books will be waiting for you.”

His pleas were repeated with ever increasing urgency. How could I possibly refuse this clearly distraught gentleman? He was concerned about the fate of his beloved Yiddish books now that he had sold his house and was about to move to a small apartment where there was simply no room for his books. Aware of how much this request meant to him, I agreed to come by that very night and take possession of the box of Yiddish books that, I was told, was silently awaiting my arrival. As I left his home carrying the box, I heard a long tremulous sigh follow me to the door. It was an unmistakable declaration of sadness at seeing his beloved friends leave, accompanied by a sense of relief that they would at least have a proper home.

Since then, in addition to a few books that once belonged to my parents, I have accumulated a fair number of Yiddish books as I found it difficult to refuse those pleading on behalf of their loved ones. And so, just about every Sabbath and Jewish holiday, I’ve gotten into the habit of carefully taking one of these aged volumes in hand to reacquaint myself with many of the words and phrases that no longer see the light of day.

Much like aged relatives, these books speak volumes of survival and adaptation and give voice, as well, to immense pride and joy. Each time I’m done and get ready to close one of these books, I start to wonder who will be next in line? Who will be willing to accept books that are written in a strange language dealing with topics that have little or no relevance to most people? I’ll ask around when the time comes, but, apart from the praiseworthy mission of the Yiddish Book Center, I fear there will be no takers.

Sheldon P. Hersh, an Ear, Nose and Throat Physician with a practice in the New York metropolitan area, is the author of Our Frozen Tears (http://tinyurl.com/kuzlscb), as well as the co-author of The Bugs Are Burning, a book on the Holocaust.

 

 

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May 4, 2015 · 6:33 am

A Poem for the Jews of Belmonte in Portugal

by Lisa Ruimy Holzkenner (New York, NY)

During my visit to Belmonte, Portugal, I met people whose families for centuries have hidden their Jewish heritage and who are finally free to reclaim their roots. Their stories moved and inspired me to write A Poem for the Jews of Belmonte in Portugal. 

It was while writing this poem that I became aware that I was still struggling with unresolved issues of early childhood experiences with prejudice and persecution. From an early age I learned to hide my identity as a Jew.  Numerous times I was humiliated, beaten up, and, worse yet, afraid of being killed. You see, I was born in Casablanca, Morocco, to loving parents, where both my maternal and paternal grandparents, of noble spirit, were revered in their Jewish community. 

As a child, while spending a week of summer vacation with my maternal grandparents, I saw my grandfather, Moshe Abuhatziera (Zechrono Lebracha), returning home from the synagogue after an incident of persecution, an experience which left me even more traumatized.

On a Sabbath day, on his way home from the synagogue, he was beaten up. His white beard was pulled. Blood was all over his white Shabbat clothes. Seeing my beloved grandfather this way, I felt a specific rage, which as a child I never experienced before. Yet no words of anger or revenge ever came from my grandfather’s mouth. Instead, he addressed my anger with the following, and with a gentle pat on my head: “Dear child, don’t hate. Muslims are our brothers and Gentiles are our cousins. These people didn’t know what they were doing.” 

These words from my grandfather have inspired me on both personal and professional levels in the way I view the world.

Eventually, my family fled Casablanca in the dark of night, with only the clothes on our backs, to France and then, finally, to Israel. For the past 50 years, I have lived in the United States.

Because of the people of Belmonte, I have had a chance to face my past.

I have an affinity with the people of Belmonte and genuine respect for their tenacity in overcoming the obstacles they faced over 500 years in order to preserve their identities as Jews. Finally, they are free to practice their Jewish heritage.

Their story saddened me and their tenacity inspired me. This poem is my effort to pay homage to them and for me to master my own early trauma of persecution:

More than 500 years ago
Jews lived and died resisting conversion.
Here, hidden in the antiquity of Belmonte,
I find an authentic living miracle.
I walk through the labyrinth of the city,
With its ancient steep maze of alleyways,
Among the narrow streets, houses from a bygone era,
Colorful flowers like gems bestowing
Their beauty upon their surrounding.
Some people look out their windows
While others sit on wooden benches in front of their homes
Gazing at strangers passing by.

As we reach our destination, before our eyes is a placard saying,
“Museum Judaico De Belmonte.”
We are welcomed by Mr. Levy, our guide.
With sadness I learn about the atrocities
Inflicted on the Jews during the Portuguese Inquisition,
Heart wrenching stories that
My emotions can no longer absorb,
My mind can’t comprehend.

In 1453 King Manuel l, the Church
And Isabella, the Queen of Spain,
Co-opted God’s final authority on human destiny.
The Jews once again became sacrificial lambs.
A royal decree was issued.
In droves, from all over, Jews came to Lisbon Port.
They were given an ultimatum:
Convert to Christianity
Or death will be your fate.
Those who held onto their Jewish beliefs
Were burned alive.
Children were snatched from their families,
Breaking their parents’ hearts and souls,
Taken on a journey unknown
Never to be seen again.
Some parents, who did not want
Their children apostatized,
With a bleeding heart and tears in their eyes
Threw their young into wells.
Innocent children who died in vain
Forever in the memory of their people will remain.

Manuel, in league with the Church,
Starved the Jews nearly to death.
Dirty holy water fraught with malevolent intent
Splashed on helpless faces.
Mass coerced conversion took place.
As the darkness on earth and heaven loomed over the Jews,
With half-frozen tongues
They prayed in a silent scream.
With copious tears, their eyes sought heaven,
Their words piercing through celestial doors
Tightly closed against the
Agonizing Chosen ones.
The stars and clouds seemed to bleed,
Heaven above remained silent.
The Jews had their doubts,
Yet tenaciously believed
God was not dead, only ominously mute.

All my senses are overwhelmed with anguish.
Tears cascade down my face,
Knots in my throat.
I shake with intense rage,
Like a leaf on a tree shivering from cold drops of rain,
Mourning the decimation of innocent Jewish souls
Whose only crime was being Jews.
I want to scream so loud,
Let the reverberation
Reach the bottom of the sea,
The sky’s infinity.
Words congeal on my tongue,
I can’t find words
To piece together a fractured world.
I want to forget but I cannot forget,
The mantra goes on in my mind.
The past always intrudes on the present.
I will no longer numb my psyche,
But face the past in service of the future.
I must remember, everything must be told.
Like an embryo, slowly, words come to life.
I move on to see the rest of the exhibition.

A memorial plaque hangs on the wall
Dedicated to the victims who perished in the Portuguese Inquisition,
Their names engraved for eternity on a dark stone.
Among many other precious artifacts
I see several stones engraved with Hebrew letters
Dating back to the 13th Century, indicating that Jews had lived in Portugal
Hundreds of years before the Inquisition.
Beautiful mezuzot which Jews, devoured by fears,
Never hung on their doors.
In pockets they remained hidden,
To be kissed only in secrecy.
I find paintings depicting daily rituals of Jewish life,
The rite of passage from birth to death:
A wedding under a chupa,
A table embellished
With challah, a cup of wine for Kiddush,
And Shabbat candles
Reminding the Jews in hiding
To strive against the darkness,
Bring into balance the
Frailty and beauty of their lives.
These artifacts in the museum are testimonial evidence that
Despite appalling atrocities and waves of tyranny that tried
To obliterate Jewish culture and spirit,
The Jews maintained their tradition.
For five fear–ridden centuries
In hiding, they clung with passion to their roots.
On the mountain of Belmonte.

After leaving the museum, on our way to the synagogue,
My heart beats with pride when I see in the midst of town
A menorah standing proud and tall,
A living testimony that despite the forces of evil,
The Jewish tenacity for survival triumphed once again.
The Menorah, once in the Holy Temple,
Represents eternal light, wisdom, and divine inspiration
To spread the light the of godliness to the entire world.
But this menorah,
This menorah in front of me, commemorates
The calamities that befell the Jewish people
Before, during, and after the Portuguese Inquisition
And, still raw in memory, the systematic annihilation
Of my people during the Holocaust.
This menorah carries the legacy to bear witness
To all the Jews who perished in anguish,
Whose voices were never heard.
And with love and pride it salutes those who survived,
A menorah for future generations,
Affirming human values in a disintegrated world.

Questions run through my mind,
No answers to be found, only more questions.
How will humanity learn to sublimate
The thanatos, the death instinct, that leads to fear, hate, and war
And to nourish the eros, the life instinct, which will create
A new culture that strives for world peace?
If we don’t, the human race will cease.

Once in the synagogue
I could envision how the Jews in Belmonte
In hiding, quietly prayed to God
With sadness beyond words,
And with genetic memory
Imagined that they were present at the Wailing Wall,
Praying for freedom and triumph over evil,
Breaking the chains enslaving their souls,
Striving to regain their humanity.

Today, a renaissance flowers in Belmonte.
The perennial fear of being a Jew is slowly diminishing.
Jews can exercise their freedom of choice.

Dear Jews of Belmonte,
This is what I dream for you:
Today, when you pray, whether in the synagogue
or in your own hearts,
Let your prayers be loud and clear,
Let your voices in unison vibrate, reach
Ears and hearts far and near.

On your way home after synagogue
As you stroll the streets,
Fearlessly greet each other
With the ancient and precious words,
“Shabbat Shalom ”or “Shalom Aleichem.”

Never again should any group of people
Regardless of the color of their skin,
Religion, race, age, gender or creed
Suffer malevolence from their own kin.
May our way of life always echo the precious words,
Shalom, Salama, Peace.

Born in Morocco and raised in France and Israel, Lisa Ruimy Holzkenner has lived in Manhattan for 50 years. She is a psychoanalyst with extensive clinical experience in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and family therapy. A member of the New York City Audubon Society, she loves photographing birds, flowers, and anything visual that creates nostalgia for what we were, what we are, and what we always will be: part of nature.  Her photographs have appeared in Dance Studio Life, the Audubon Society newsletter, and Persimmon Tree, as well in a traveling exhibition on the life of Bayard Rustin.

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