Leah Kaufman Tells The World

Photo Credit: Courtesy Leah Kaufman

“That is how we should teach about the Holocaust – one child at a time. Children, even adults, cannot relate to the incredible numbers of people who were destroyed, but they can relate to one child, like Willy, like me. I am the one child I talk about.

“My mother charged me with the mission to “Live! Remember! Tell the world! And that is what we Holocaust survivors had to do. First, we had to live. We needed time to build our lives and our families within the context of a Jewish home and to inspire their Jewish connection through Torah education. Only when we saw continuity, could we start to remember and mourn and later to tell the world. I was twelve when the war ended, but I didn’t speak about it to anybody until 1995, fifty years later. Every time one of my children reached the age of nine, I quietly revisited my pain and thanked G-d for his or her happy childhood. I am grateful to Hashem that I had the strength to hold back from sharing my trauma and that I thus didn’t scar the tender souls of my children and students with the horrors of my childhood experiences.

“I first spoke publicly after I retired. The Montreal community was very surprised but extremely supportive. People started to call me non-stop; they had never known I was a survivor. They had never heard of Transnistria.

“After making aliyah, I connected with Aish HaTorah and began to speak at universities, seminaries and even for members of the IDF. I would meet my former students everywhere. They were horrified to suddenly find this out about their former teacher.

“I have been asked many times how could I still believe in G-d. I can only answer: How could I not believe? G-d was right there with us, every step of the way. I lived from miracle to miracle, only because G-d chose me to live for a purpose: to tell the beauty of the Jewish way of living.

“Speech cannot do justice to the hell of the Holocaust. On the death march, I had to witness my schoolmates fall. I had to walk over their bodies to survive. My mother made me promise to live. I was afraid to stop. Hashem gave me the strength. It would have been so much easier to just die. I was nine and a half and tiny.

“There were so many miracles. At the start of the death march, the Nazis tried to grab me and accused my mother of stealing a German child. Miraculously, they let me go, but I internalized that I could pass as an Aryan; amongst my dark siblings, I was the only one with blond hair and blue eyes. The Germans forced us through the most difficult path, through thick mud or up mountains. The death march continued for months! The Germans sat on wagons, striking Jews with a stone-tipped whip. I searched among the Germans for someone whose eyes looked compassionate. I saw a tall soldier gently patting his horse. I ran to him. I remember the humanity on his face. I tugged at the bottom of his jacket which I could barely reach. ‘Little girl, what do you want?’ I answered, ‘Will you let me sit on the wagon? If not, don’t let me suffer anymore and just shoot me.’ He picked me up, as dirty as I was and, with my stomach swollen, a sorry picture. He put me on the wagon and even put a blanket around me, enabling me to be amongst the few survivors of the death march. People who witnessed my chutzpah and salvation didn’t envy me. Nobody said a word. I felt they hoped I would survive and tell of the communities wiped off the face of the earth as if they had never existed.

“I used to have a busy schedule speaking around the world. Now I have few engagements. I’m afraid people are worried about my age, and my health, but I need to speak. I need to communicate how G-d was and is with us, and about how He saved and saves us. He performs numerous miracles for each and every one of us every single day.

“My mission is to inspire Am Yisrael with the love for G-d and His Torah. G-d saved me to tell young people: Choose life! Be committed Jews. Live Jewish lives. Marry a Jew. Raise Jewish children in a warm Jewish home with a solid Torah education. Build Jewish homes and communities. Am Yisrael Chai.”