As I wrote last week, my grandchild’s teacher assigned her class to interview Holocaust survivors. And so my grandchild called me and asked, “Bubba, can I come over to interview you?”
I began sharing some of her report with you last week and continue here from where we left off. (Please note that the references to “Zaida” and “Mamma” are to my parents – her great-grandparents.)
Conversations With Bubba
Not long after the Germans arrived in Hungary they stuffed all Jews into ghettos. The street on which my great-grandparents HaRav HaGaon HaTzaddik Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, and Rebbetzin Tzaddekes Miriam Jungreis, a”h, lived became the center of the ghetto.
The Nazis brought people from all over and many of them stayed in Bubba’s house.
Many years later Bubba spoke in Hungary and when she went to visit the place of her childhood she was shocked to discover that the house she remembered was not a house but a little apartment. And yet Zaida and Mamma through their love for every Jew were able to make room for everyone.
There was a widow who was expecting a baby. The Nazis had killed her husband. Pregnant women were in great danger; the Germans would kill them right away. At great risk Zaida and Mamma hid her in their home. When it was time for her to give birth, Mamma delivered the baby, who was sickly and needed medication. My great-uncle Yanki jumped over the walls of the ghetto. It was extremely dangerous, but with Hashem’s help he returned with the medication in hand.
When the Jews in that ghetto were deported to concentration camps, that woman was sent to a camp near Vienna. In that camp Mamma’s father, the rosh hayeshiva HaRav HaGaon Tzvi Hirsch HaKohan, zt”l, was incarcerated. The Germans, who realized they were losing the war, desperately needed funds. Consequently they offered to make a deal and were willing to sell Jews for a certain price.
Rav Tzvi Hirsch was on the list to be sold but he gave up his seat on a freedom truck for the widow and her baby. She was seated on the truck next to the Tzelemer Rebbe, whom she ended up marrying. Her little boy became the esteemed Tzelemer Rebbe of today.
One night the Germans entered the ghetto and broke down Zaida’s and Mamma’s door screaming, “ Jews, get out get out quickly, quickly!” Zaida managed to take with him the Kisvei Yad – unpublished manuscripts on five tractates of the Talmud. They were monumental works going back seven generations to HaRav HaGaon Mordechai Bennet. Zaida also took with him the tefillin of the holy tzaddik the Menuchos Osher, HaRav HaGaon Osher Anshil HaLevi Jungreis, also going back seven generations.
Throughout his time in the concentration camps Zaida managed to keep these two priceless objects. Many laughed at him. “This is what you smuggled into the camps? You should have taken some food, some money, some jewelry. Were you thinking that you would be able to publish this manuscript in Bergen Belsen? And the tefillin – how would they help you?”
Bubba told me that despite the skepticism, every day at dawn men would line up at the risk of their lives to say a berachah on the tefillin.
In 1947, Zaida, Mamma, Bubba, and her brothers arrived in the U.S. with their great treasures – the tefillin and the manuscripts. Some years later Zaida got the manuscripts published. Those five tractates that were saved by Zaida are being studied by great Torah scholars today and the tefillin of the Menuchosh Osher are a treasured heirloom of the family that brings blessings.
The March to Bergen Belsen
The Jews were transported to the concentration camps by cattle cars. Multitudes were stuffed into each car. There were no sanitation facilities. There was no food and no water.
The train that took Bubba’s family to Bergen Belsen made a stop before its destination. Children were separated from the adults and forced on a vicious march. Bubba, together with my great-uncles Yanki and Brudy, had to march to Bergen Belsen. However, Brudy was sick – he had the mumps and a high fever. Zaida told Bubba and her brothers to be very careful and carry Brudy all the time and not to drop him. As a result, for three miles Bubba and her brother Yanki carried Brudy until with Hashem’s help they were reunited with Zaida and Mamma in Bergen Belsen.
Horrendous sights awaited Bubba and the family there. Dead people everywhere, and in the barracks there were no regular beds to sleep, on just planks of woods. There were six people on each of those planks. The bathrooms were holes in the ground filled with rodents. The food served was a piece of dry bread and some horrible liquid – a soup made of mud.
Zaida asked Bubba if she would like to do a big mitzvah. “What mitzvah could I possibly do here?” Bubba asked.
“Try to smile,” Zaida responded. “If people see a little girl smile it will strengthen them.”
“How can I smile?” asked Bubba. “I’m so hungry. I’m so cold. I’m so afraid.”
“Try, try!” said Zaida.
Bubba tried – and smiled.
Years later Bubba was speaking at Oxford University in England and a young woman, one of the students, came over and said, “Rebbetzin, I read your books and I know how much you suffered, how much you went through during the Holocaust, and yet you are always smiling. I would like to know, where does your smile start? In your heart or on your lips?”
“What a powerful question,” said Bubba. “I guess it starts on my lips because in my heart I have so many worries. But if I place that smile on my lips, from my lips it goes to someone else’s lips and from their lips it travels back to my heart.”
Throughout the long nightmare Zaida and Mamma would do everything to keep the light of Torah shinning in the hearts of their kinderlach. Every day Zaida would count the days with reference to Shabbos. Zaida would eat his piece of dry bread just to that he could make a berachah on it and then he would try to hide the rest in order to give it to Bubba and her brothers on Shabbos. He would gather the family and say, “Kinderlach, it is Shabbos!” And he would sing Shalom Aleichem in his melodious sweet voice.
“Close your eyes,” Zaida would say in Yiddish. “We are at home; Mamma just baked delicious challah and it is still warm.”
One Shabbos Bubba’s brother Brudy started to cry and said, “Tatty, Tatty. Where are the melochim? I don’t see any angels of Shabbos here.” Zaida started to cry and replied, “You my precious little ones – you are the angels of Shabbos.”
That teaching never left Bubba. Every time after that when it was time for roll call and the Nazis would scream “You Jewish pigs!” Bubba would say to herself, “No, I’m an angel of Shabbos!”
(To be continued)