Simon Wiesenthal, Elie Wiesel, my mother and my mother-in-law, they should be well, have consistently maintained that we must forever remember; that we must never forget.
The months of January through May 2005 mark an important milestone in modern Jewish history. It is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of a generation of Jews from dozens of European concentration and labor camps. This period brings with it an unusual congruence and requires us to give our undivided attention to relating all this to our children – for, unfortunately, there may not be many survivors present to recount the 70th anniversary of this liberation.
These weeks between Pesach and Shavuot provide an unusual window of opportunity for children to learn about their grandparents’ and great grandparents’ heritage. V’higadita l’vincha bayom hahu – and you shall tell your son on that day – encapsulates the cornerstone of Pesach and underscores the need to recount to our children the miraculous modern-day journey from bondage to freedom.
Call us yuppies, beemers, boomers, the sandwich generation, we in our 40’s and 50’s – the children of Holocaust survivors – have heard and learned the stories from our parents. It is imperative that our children and grandchildren, the third and fourth generation of survivors, understand all this with sufficient depth. They, in turn, need to recount the horror of the concentration camp and the sweetness of liberation to their own children and grandchildren twenty, thirty, and fifty years from now.
The congruence of events I refer to includes the anniversaries of liberation from the camps, the story of Pesach, Yom Hashoah, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Shavuot. Each of these days is a significant milestone on its own. Together, they forge a rich history of our Jewish heritage, of our struggles for survival, of our enduring faith in Hashem. How else can one explain our winning percentage against all odds?
Give your children a quick quiz on the Holocaust, whether or not they are descendants of survivors. Ask your eight-year-old son and your fifteen-year-old questions. Do they know? Can they respond?
There are several indelible dates in my mind. I write this article on May 5, exactly sixty years to the day of the liberation of Auschwitz. I know Rosh Chodesh Sivan 1944 to be the yahrzeit of my maternal grandparents and six brothers and sisters of my mother. That day, they were led to the gas chambers.
My brother Yossie and I recall how, when we were young boys, our father, a”h, woke up many nights sweating and screaming that the Germans were chasing and beating him.
My father-in-law, a”h, had yahrzeit for his parents on the second day of Shavuot. Every year over lunch on that date we would listen to him recount his days of horror as he was taken from one concentration camp to another. I can hear him so clearly saying over and over, “I don’t know how we survived that hell.”
Yom Ha’atzmaut was celebrated last week. It certainly is one of the most significant and proudest days in Jewish history – and provides a compelling opportunity to contrast the death of six million and the birth of a nation that now numbers six million.
When you march with your children in the Israel Day Parade on Sunday, June 5, that also will be a good time to share a story about the Shoah, as you stand tall and proud, and thankful to be living in a free society. Ohel Bais Ezra clients and families will be proudly marching, on a float donated by Dr. Stanley and Mrs. Rhoda (Reese) Goldstein. We must also take opportunities to explain to people with disabilities their heritage, at their level of comprehension.