The year was 1964.
The World's Fair opened in Flushing Park. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," by some long-haired kids from Liverpool, was #1. Some far-out location called Vietnam dominated the news. The Mets played their first game at Shea Stadium. And Dallas' "grassy knoll" was becoming a familiar term in the American lexicon. Those were the headlines that danced in the mind of a 12-year-old New York City boy. That boy was me.
Life was good, I recall. Lots of friends, loving parents, Leave it to Beaver, my trusty Vada Pinson black outfielder's glove, and an older brother to show me the ropes. What could be bad?
I suppose that in my own naive way, I was decidedly unaware that there was anything special or distinctive about being a child of Holocaust survivors. Everything seemed so very normal. In fact, it was.
As it turns out, many of my baby boomer friends were of similar ilk. Their parents had also either spent years in concentration camps or had barely escaped the clutches of catastrophe on more than one occasion, and lived to tell about it. But looking back, I find it odd that we were all so oblivious to our unique lineage. We never compared notes, never wondered if we were "different," never discussed how our parents' suffering and deprivation may have affected us, never seemed to even notice that we were members of this proud yet sad club. Not in class, not in the synagogue, not even during sleepovers when the darkness sheltered our fragility. Never.
And I guess that's how our folks really wanted it to be. "Blend in, be normal, forget the past, look ahead…" read their unspoken banner of post-war parenting. I suppose that they had had quite enough of being part of an exclusive grouping of any kind. Being special does have its disadvantages, you know. No. Now was the time to de-emphasize our distinctions and hope for a brighter, or at least, normal tomorrow.
And if this society of kids of survivors was, in fact, bent on changing its moniker to "Club Inconspicuous," then surely I was prime candidate for President. Despite having spent over 3 years in the torture cavities of Puskow, Mielec, Wieliczka, Flossenberg, Leitmeritz, Dachau, and Kaufering, my father, of blessed memory, never ever uttered a single word to us about the butchery and carnage he witnessed there daily. It was as if life on this planet somehow began in 1947 -- when he arrived on Ellis Island.
It's not like we didn't know that "something" dreadful had happened. We cried when we were awoken by his terrifying nocturnal screams and tremors.
It's not like we didn't know that "something" dreadful had happened. We saw the "KL" that had been eternalized on his wrist, we knew about the huge bump he carried beneath his black, shiny yarmulke, and we cried when we were awoken by his terrifying nocturnal screams and tremors. Oh, we knew. But the horror was just too ghastly to verbalize. The "pink elephant" could not be spoken about. The children had to be protected.
The only exception to this pact of silence was when Daddy took me to Riverside Park just about every Shabbos afternoon. It was there that Paul and Danny and Joey and the rest of my fellow club members would join me for a weekly Freeze-tag or Ring-o-leevio game. But it wasn't long before I noticed that while we were busy darting and leaping on and off base, and releasing our pre-adolescent tensions, our fathers formed an enclave of their own.
The spirit and animation of their discussions always seemed a trifle inappropriate; until one day I happened by within earshot and discovered that it was there that they swapped horror stories, never to be forgotten. It seems every week for 2 hours or more, these valiant heroes turned the clock back 20 plus years and compared their dreaded experiences, to re-live and recount what their eyes had witnessed and their hearts had endured. It was a support group of the most therapeutic kind.
THE MYSTERIOUS TRIP
The mystery unfolded that summer. Like every year, I was safely ensconced in my home away from home -- my summer camp near New Paltz, New York -- when I received a letter from home. This itself was a rather common occurrence in the pre-email decade of the 60's. Preposterous as it sounds, people (especially parents with kids in camp) would actually sit down at a table or a desk, pick up a ball point pen and some blank paper (ruled or unruled), and communicate news from home and abroad. The paper would subsequently be inserted in an envelope (#7 or 10), which was then addressed, sealed, stamped and brought to a mailing receptacle. Days later, the letter invariably arrived.
After the usual maternal exhortations to wear a sweater at night, learn how to swim, and eat my veggies, Daddy would customarily add a few obligatory greetings in his forced, but loving, broken English. But this letter was different. No message from Daddy. He would never say very much anyway, but I always looked for his unfinished, yet ever so sincere message of missing me and loving me. It wasn't there. At 12 years old, that struck a chord.
When I couldn't speak to Daddy on my weekly call home, an explanation had to be tendered. "Oh," Mom stumbled, "he went to Israel to attend your cousin's wedding."
Plausible enough. But not for 1964…and not for my father…and not without months of preparatory excitement and anticipation. I knew it didn't smell right, but hey, I was only 12 and heavily involved in Color War and batting leadoff. Priorities, you know. I let it slide.
And so it remained -- a minor mystery -- tempered somewhat by Daddy's return home two weeks later, armed with wedding pictures, a silver candelabra for Mommy and Jerusalem trinkets for the boys. Perhaps I was wrong.
Fast forward nearly 40 years. Daddy is with us but in spirit and memory now, and big brother Izzy has grown fascinated with Daddy's earlier years in particular and our family genealogy in general. In frenetic fashion, Izzy assumes the identity of an impassioned world class detective, gripped with the unyielding determination to shed light on the questions we never dared ask.
- What were Daddy's formative years like?
- Where did the family come from?
- What were they known for?
- Where were they before and during the war?
- How many were killed?
- Who else, if any, survived?
- How?
- Did Daddy begin a family before the war?
- What happened to them?
- What horrors did he witness?
- How did he stay alive?
- …and where did he go in July of 1964?
Izzy traveled…to Poland, to Israel…and he asked questions. He read. He surfed. He called. He wrote. He wondered. He dreamed. He interviewed. He cried. He uncovered. He discovered. He was stymied, exhausted, confused, elated, obstructed, and jubilant. Sometimes all at the same time. But most of all, he was driven. Driven by a passion to know, to understand, and to connect.
And he found answers -- at least some of them -- that help to fill part of the void we grappled with for so many years. The "research" is ongoing and more answers may be forthcoming. Some questions will never be answered and perhaps that is how it should be, but the mystery of 1964 is no longer. A short time ago he received a correspondence from the Provincial Court of Bochum, Germany. In it was a transcript dated July 21, 1964. It was Daddy's verbatim testimony at a trial for Nazi War Criminals.
"In April of 1942 I was arrested by the Jewish police. I had heard that the Gestapo ordered the Jewish police to arrest young, strong, able-bodied boys and men. The police had a list of about 100 names, and I was one of them."
Daddy then identified Nazis, unfamiliar to most: Johann, Labitzke, Rouenhoff, Bornhold, Brock. It seems that all of them must have been on trial. I trembled as I read on. I can hear his gentle voice speaking.
"The prison cell was so overcrowded that we had no room to stretch out at night.
Before shipping out we were assembled in the prison courtyard and had to line up in three rows. I stood in the middle row. About 8 to 10 Jews stepped forward and declared themselves sick. One Jew, for example, had bloody feet."
It was incredible to read the words my father had said, describing events that I never could have heard him say directly. It was a glimpse into a corridor that had been closed off to all of us as long as he lived. His next words merged the unspeakable with staggering historical irony.
"A second Jew dropped his pants and showed his hernia. These sick people were told to step aside. Hamann pointed to the wall, and they went there.
I saw these SS people from Puskow approach the sick Jews and stand near them. Then I heard Hamann calling out "fire," and the SS men fired. The 8 to 10 sick Jews were shot to death."
My face dropped. Reading the eyewitness account of my very own, tender, loving father bearing witness to watching Jews being shot to death is an experience that defies description. But learning that the Nazi in charge of this particular bloodbath was Heinrich Hamann, the namesake of the villainous protagonist of the Purim story, whose intent was to exterminate masses of Jews, was truly mind-boggling.
"I am the only survivor of those sent to the Puskow Labor Camp."
And with that, Daddy's testimony ended.
My understanding is that these Gestapo thugs all received sentences of life imprisonment. Whether they actually served them full term is unknown to me.
Daddy, I have spent many adult years wondering what really happened to you before 1947. I believe it is something that all children of survivors would do well to look into. But looking back now, and knowing that I am now privy to but a speck of the terror you lived through, I say thank you. Thank you for making me President of Club Inconspicuous. Your loving shield was a blanket of normalcy for two little boys who love you now, even more than we ever did.
Life was good, I recall.
You made it that way.
(56) Diana Bailey, December 8, 2014 6:01 AM
As a gentile, I have never been in the situation so many Jewish people have fond themselves after the 2nd World War. I read stories like this in awe, recognising the awesome way the Lord works. May He bless these beautiful people who tried so hard to protect their children from the unimaginable horrors they themselves experienced. May none of us ever forget.
(55) Jane, July 4, 2013 7:45 PM
Thank you for sharing this. Wow! How very moving! Your father must have been a very special person to endure so much, and yet live a life of dignity and respect!
(54) chaya weisberg, July 4, 2013 7:16 PM
touching
Thank you for such a touching article, being a G3 I'm always wondering and imagining what life was like for my grandparents OBM, and as I raise my family I become more and more in awe that they acomplished all that they did.
(53) Anonymous, July 1, 2013 9:11 PM
Humility
No matter how often I read or hear or watch film footage of that unspeakable reign of terror I can never imagine surviving it. The strength and courage of those who did overwhelm me. My family came to Canada during the Russian revolution and so their stories, although mind numbing pale in comparison. Thank you for sharing a most personal intimate family history with all of us. You do it with a tenderness and love that is as fragile as life itself.
(52) jgarbuz, July 1, 2013 8:41 PM
None of us children of survivors had grandparents...
I grew up in Brooklyn, and went to yeshiva with a number of other children of survivors born in the DP camps after the war. None of us had known a living grandparent, and we didn't even think of that as being unusual. We didn't realize how traumatized our parents were. I know my mother's tragic story, but nothing about my father's lost family. Fathers don't cry. While we were all affected, we were young and therefore oblivious of just how they were suffering inside. Now that I am a senior myself, I understand, but really could not get the full import of it all when I was young and dumb as all of us are until we experience personal tragedies later in life. Nature protects us from reality for as long as possible, or we would all be insane and incapable of functioning at all.
(51) Anonymous, July 1, 2013 2:08 AM
A very moving story; thank you for sharing it.
(50) Anonymous, June 30, 2013 9:48 PM
Courage.....
I too am a child of Holocaust survivors. The older I get the more I appreciate the love and sense of normalcy my parents endowed us with. We lived in a community of survivors and things were not hidden from us. We knew that our uncle is still looking for his wife and child. We knew that another uncle lost his wife and 6 childern......... We knew our neighbors were old but this was their second marriage (they lost their first families) and we knew during the Eichman trials that he was an evil man as evil as Haman. Our parents did not hide anything from us but they did not let a black pall cloud our lives. If we asked they answered in age appropriate manner. They did not forget or ignore but they put aside their pain to build a new Jewish home, have Jewish children, love each other and take joy in the second chances they were given. I admire them more and more each day.
Every survivor is a hero. If they took the chance and try to rebuild life ...... they are most courageous.
With those that are still alive - let us cherish them, and for those that are gone... may they be melitzei yosher for us.
(49) Chaya, June 30, 2013 5:32 PM
THANK YOU
Dear Rabbi Salomon,
Your father's story not only brought tears to my eyes but helped me remember my mother''s story. Growing up, I always knew something awful had happened to my mother during the war. She never spoke of it, but we all knew something awful had happened to her during the war. During the Eichmann trial in Israel, she couldn't be pried away from the TV. We saw the terrible sadness in her eyes. I once asked her why she was always sad. She would always make light of it & act as if life was wonderful. It was not until she passed away, that my father (who was verbiose in his wartime experience) told us about her wartime experiences--she had seen practically her whole family "selected" and sent to the gas chamber.
Yes, life was good. She (& my father) made it that way.
(48) Hinda, June 30, 2013 3:55 PM
I was very moved by your story. I too am a daughter of a holocaust survivor and not only was I sheltered from the pain and loss of my father's childhood, I felt such a tremendous feeling of unconditional love and caring from him. I think that added dose that exceeded even the most loving of parents, came from such an appreciation of us children after all that he endured. Our parent's generation was one of "alas fer the kinde" so I am one with you in saying thank you to them!
(47) zlate1, June 30, 2013 3:37 PM
I too am a child of Holocaust Survivors
I had a totally different experience. I was born in Hungary and was aware of the Holocaust from a very young age. Our parents took us to the yearly memorial service. When we came to the U.S. when I was 11 part of Friday night Shabbat Dinner was atime to reminisce about my fathers experiences of doing forced labor for four years. I knew how my mother survived, how my maternal grandmother was killed. There were no secrets.
I think it made a difference how survivors handled their experiences based on where the y lived after the war. Those who came to America and sttarted anew life here tended to be much more secretive.
O
(46) Beverly Kurtin, June 30, 2013 10:33 AM
We were isolated
Every day mom would get a paper. We were too young to know that she was looking for news of my uncles, her brothers. All 5 of her brothers were in the war. Baruch Hashem all survived. They were never the same after being first hand witness to the inhumanity they saw at the camps.
To this day when anyone is foolish enough to yelp me Shoah didn't happen, I show them some pictures an uncle gave me of what they witnessed (they gave me the pictures when I was older). I say nothing, I just show them the pictures, then I walk away. Our family was blessed in that we lost"only" 47 relatives. My dad was to old to be drafted, so he became a welder at the Electric Boat Company, helping to build submarines. Oddly enough, I also worked there in nuclear quality control.
(45) sonia, September 8, 2007 3:30 PM
I cried at my own story
Looking through my URL cache I found by Rabbi Yaakov Salomon story "The Mystery of 1964 about his wonderful father".
Reading the comments I came across one by a friend and then my own post. I cried over my story.
However, it is very very important to be transcendent of story. Not submerged and disappear over what I had no control over as a child.
My path of learning, of connection to myself, to others is a process Hashem has allowed me to pursue.
And learning the importance of self-realization aided by the goodness and kindness of friends is important to self-reclaimation.
Such as Israel is about reclaimation - so is that for Jews who survived the Shoah!
L'Shana Tova
Courage, strength, capacity for vision and love for our people while holding strict to all required of Israel to prevail!
(44) Anonymous, August 5, 2007 2:32 AM
Same face, years later
Just a personal observation to Rabbi Salomon, which, after reading him for many years on Aish.com, and purchasing his books, I feel comfortable to say. His face on both pictures above, as a young boy with his brother wearing a baseball cap and holding a baseball glove, and as an adult, baruch hashem, has not changed one bit. Same beautiful smile!
(43) jorge aaron romano, August 2, 2007 7:21 PM
Dear R.Salomon.The story of you father-z'l"- is very inspiring and confirms once again the strong will of our people and the promise made by Hashem that the Jewish people will endure until the end of times against all odds,as your dear father did during the big nightmare.May Hashem bless you and your family!
(42) Joey, August 1, 2007 7:11 AM
May God bless the late Mr. Saloman, both for knowing how to be quiet for the sanity of his family, but also for having the courage to speak out in the name of justice.
(41) Beverly Kurtin, Ph.D., July 31, 2007 11:41 PM
They kept quiet: Some now deny.
It tears me apart that so many of our families kept quiet about what they went through in Europe. It is perfectly understandable why they kept quiet; they were either trying to shield us or they were trying not to lose their minds by revisiting the horrors they witnessed.
My grandparents, may they be blessed for eternity, had the foresight to get out of Russia and Poland well before the Holocaust. They sent money to their loved ones telling them to come here; for some unknown reason they spent the money and wound up being caught up in the Nazi's nets, were enslaved, and then murdered. Forty-seven of my great aunts, great uncles and second cousins went to their deaths because they could not see what was coming.
My parents kept two things from my brother and I: Who they were and Yiddish. We have no idea of who died and who didn't. And they misused Yiddish as a secret language so that neither my brother nor I could learn.
Why they did that is still a mystery to me as they are gone now. I guess there are some reasons for what they did, but…
Holocaust deniers ignite a white-hot anger in me. I've said this before and I'll say it again, when some dolt denies the Holocaust I slap them across the face. When they ask me why, I ask what they mean. When they say I slapped them I deny it. If they can deny something that happened in my lifetime, I can deny that I slapped them. Some get the message. Some don't.
Just how ANYONE can deny what happened is beyond my comprehension. I do know that, we cannot let them forget for ONE INSTANT that it was real and if we have to scream from the rooftops that it happened, then that is what we have to do.
Always, ALWAYS remember: Shema Yisroel, Yisroel Echod!
(40) Anonymous, July 30, 2007 1:29 AM
Beautiful article - right attitude
A Israeli chassid of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum OBM, asked him to whom he should turn for a blessing once the rabbi leaves Israel. The Rabbi told him: "Go to the synagogue and look for a Jew with numbers on his arm (that show when putting on Tefilin) - doesn't matter whether he has a beard or not - he is worthy to give blessings."
(39) Sue Rubinstein, July 29, 2007 11:53 PM
May we Never Forget Them and Honor their Memories
I was in tears reading this. I thank G-d that my two grandfathers left Poland in the 1920's (one left in 1909 and went back and forth from nyc until he brought his family (my mom as a young child) over from Warsaw. If my grandfathers did not move when they did, I nor my son would exist today. My mother's cousin was a Survivor and lived out her life in Israel. She lived to an old age but had to remember seeing her parents killed in Poland by the nazi's. Poland was the worse place for a jew from the 1930's on through the Holocaust, as we all know. G-d bless all of the survivors and their decendants and G-d bless the souls of our people who were murdered by the most inhumane of mankind. I will always remember them forever!
(38) Joyce, July 29, 2007 8:55 PM
Thank You Rabbi Salomon
Thank You Rabbi Salomon for the article your wrote about your father! Your story was inspirationall for me and I appreciated your perspective!I only met my father 8 months before he died. Our time together was much too short but I'm so glad God gave you many happy years with yours. God Bless You!!
(37) Anonymous, July 29, 2007 5:44 PM
Very moving article
Very moving article
(36) Anonymous, July 29, 2007 5:32 PM
This article brought tears to my eyes....
Just today, my 11 year old grandson came to visit us. He was sitting playing with his gameboy, wearing his kippah, his tzitzis hanging out.
I was shepping nachas watching him growing into a lovely Jewish young man. I felt so proud.
All of a sudden a thought occurred to me...little boys and girls like him were thrown into ovens over 60 years ago. Can you imagine that...how could something like that be done in this current civilization and no one knew about this in other parts of the world. At least, they didn't speak about it.
We must stay aware about this...teach our children about this event...even though we want to shield them..because they must teach this to their children and so on an so on.
We should be so happy to be living in the USA and that we have a land of Israel, which I hope is not given away by our Israeli politicians.
Maybe we should send these stories to Olmart and friends...I don't know what to say...just hope it never happens again.
(35) Gizella Elbaz, July 29, 2007 2:58 PM
child of holocaust survivors
I appreciate your article about your father's experience. It seems most of us have the need to talk about our parents' experiences and our own upbringing. I am part of a new group dedicated to discussing our experience as children of holocaust survivors. There are so many questions we had left unasked. My father was a prisoner of war in Siberia till 1947. His whole family (wife, 3 children, 3 brothers and their families and mother) were all murdered. He said that by 1945 he was notified by the Red Cross that only he survived. It is amazing that he had the will to go on.
We are truly the children of real heroes and it is our duty to perpetuate their memories. We have a lot to live up to.
(34) hillel mandel, July 29, 2007 2:05 PM
A touching and sensitive article for the rest of the members of that club
You wrote, eloquently, what we children of survivors all feel. Thank you!
Hillel Mandel
(33) Ralph, July 29, 2007 1:28 PM
I wrote this article in 1992 about my mother...
I have written extensively (Hope you will read my missive about my mother which will follow.) about my parents experiences in Europe during the Holocaust, their love for the Jewish state and that of America. Many of our people cannot grasp the horrors Holocaust survivors had to endure. I am so shocked 60 years later how many have forgotten, even to claim it can never happen again. They are so wrong. In Europe and around the world there are those who work day and night to ensure the final solution... To my horror, some are Hasidic scholars others in the likes of George Soros funnel millions of dollars into think tank organs whose main ideology is toward the destruction of Israel and the United States. I'm Second Generation, the pain in my heart knowing it may very well happen again. We have a unique opportunity to gather, to politically speak up... Why do Holocausts happen and why we as Jews are the classic sheeple.If it was not for the principles of America and the freedoms outlined in 3 precious documents, non of us would be here today to bear witness. I love my people, our history and our battle to survive an eternity. Rabbi, make me proud, let us join together so it will never be again. One strong voice, we have an obligation in the memory of 6 million voices.
Shalom
A Mothers Day Message
by Ralph J. Rubinek
On Mothers Day, we honor our Mothers for all the good, love and wisdom that they have given us in life.
On this day, I honor my Mother by sharing with my fellow citizens some of her wisdom, gained through hard experience.
My Mother, just like most other Mothers, taught me how to live right. But she did much more. She was a Holocaust survivor who learned from her hard experiences. Se was victimized by the Nazis, a tyranny led by a madman. Adolf Hitler. Gun-toting Nazis dragged her family to their deaths. Unarmed she was unable to resist.
Sent to Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp, she was chosen by "Doctor" Mengele for "experiments" which were simply medical torture. Of the women in this program, most who were lucky were systematically executed.
Mother was a source of strength and inspiration to other prisoners. She told them of a land where individuals are judged on their own merits, not condemned as a group. She spoke of land, America, where the people control the government, as opposed to Europe, where governments for centuries enslaved people.
Finally - when liberated by Allied forces - she emigrated to America, the land of her dreams.
I am her only son. She raised me with the only family legacies she had - her memories. She taught me that there are few things more destructive than a government gone bad.
She instilled in me an abiding love of the United States Constitution, which she studied closely in order to become a citizen. Swearing loyalty to the Unites States was one of her proudest moments. Mother died in August, 1974 after many beautiful years in America, but never free from her painful memories. She left this message, one well worth sharing with every son and daughter in the land:
"You must fight for your freedom every day of your life... even if as a last resort, you must take up arms to defend your freedom do so! Freedom is your G-d given right -- along with all other rights under the constitution. Protect it."
(32) Volvi Goldberger, July 29, 2007 1:09 PM
I found my own tombstone as it were
My name is Volvi Goldberger. My late father Moritz Goldberger from Kecskemet Hungary, a holocaust survivor, he was sent off to "Munka Tabor" (forced labour camp) by the Hungarians during the war and survived it. But not his family they were shipped off to Auschwitz around May 1944.
You could say I grew up with the Holocaust. Picture the scene if you will. We were an orthodox family living in Stamford Hill London. So every Shabbos we would have "Shalesh
Shidess" (Seudah Shlishit - 3rd meal). We would sit by the table nibbling on challah and "Koconyas" fish. Darkness of the evening approaching. The only light streaming in from the kitchen into the dining room, as we left only the kitchen light on all Shabbos,there were no Shabbos clocks those days. My father singing the "Zmiross" that he used to sing by his fathers table .... Mizmor L'Doovid Adoni Roi Lo Echsor.... My father would enter into an almost a trance like state, eyes shut and singing. But we the children knew what was coming. We had seen it before on many occasions. By the time he finished the song, his eyes had swelled up with tears only to flow when he opened them. And slowly he would go back to those horrible years of the holocaust and tell his tale. He would talk about his parents, brothers and sisters from before the war and how life was. They had it good then. At least until the Nyilosh Hungarian Facist party came into power siding with the Germans. My father and his
brothers were sent to labour camps. His brothers didnt survive their ordeal. He learned later when he returned home after war that his parents and a married sister with her husband and two children were sent to
Auschwitz around May 1944. Laci Mozes (his nephew) the only survivor of the group aged 15 because he appeared older and could work. Not so fortunate was his younger brother sent to the gas chamber with his parents and grandparents.
The darkness now in and were all sitting there in the dark with bit of challah, fish and the holocaust. This is how we grew up together with my brothers Chaim and Nussi.
On my last visit to Kecskemet Hungary, I took my son for a heritage tour to pass on our legacy and story. And I took him to the places my parents took me when I was younger. To the homes they came from. The shops they owned. And to the Shull (Synagogue) my father attended, where his father Chaim Goldberger was the Chazan (Cantor). The Shull still exists but now its a Photo Museum. But alongside its wall outside there is a large memorial to all the congregants who never returned from the war. Approaching the wall I see the names of my fathers family. With tears in my eyes I read their names;- Haim Goldberger, Regina (nee) Rosner my grandparents, Nussi (Ignaz) Goldberger and then with some shock I see the name Volvi (Vilmos) Goldberger my uncle and then I burst into uncontrolable tears. Like looking at my own tombstone.... Yehi Zichram Baruch.
(31) Anonymous, July 29, 2007 1:04 PM
the liberating soldiers suffered also
My father was only 20 when he was in a group of liberating soldiers of a concentration camp. Surprisingly enough, as a young man, although he grew up in the Bronx, he was not aware of what was really being doneto the Jews. Many years later, he volunteered about this episode. He was completely shocked. As a medic, he was trained to render aid but they knew that to feed was to kill. He said that the people there were so starved and abused that he couldn't tell at first whether he was confronting women or men. He suffered what would now be called post-truamatic syndrome disorder. On one of my parents' trips to Israel he was able to locate the camp that he was at - and he was shocked again at how many there were. He was in the forefront o raising funds to help the Ethiopain Jews come to Israel. He said that we had to make sure that no Jews would be targeted again.
(30) Anonymous, July 29, 2007 12:17 PM
you are wonderful.
You are such a wonderful man. Your father raised you well (understatement).
Sue
(29) rf, July 29, 2007 12:10 PM
overhearing unspeakable secrets
My father was the only survivor we know about from his family, since he ran away with his yeshiva. For years he did not know definitely about his relatives left behind in Lithuania. Then one evening, one of his "special friends" who would come & talk in whispers, came to tell him that he had some information. This was about 10 yrs after the war, I was very little but somehow I overheard: the Jews of their shtetl had been hiding in the forest until almost the end of the war, until the gentile who had always been so "good" succumbed and sold their whereabouts to the Naziz y's FOR A KILO OF SUGAR. I'll never forget the horror & hysteria of what went on in my home that evening --that "good neighbor"!?!?!? Since I was not supposed to have heard, I never got to discuss it with my father .... and now it's too late....Even worse, since my mother had never been "there," she was encouraged by well-meaning advisors of those confused times to encourage my father to "forget" everything from the old world and live his new life without looking back. She herself had been a child during the war, surrounded by people in denial about the rumors and the news. Now she sorely regrets this policy -- but too late for my father. We know hardly anything about his youth, family, background. We were lucky because he was less traumatized than camp survivors, but nonetheless he was scarred. It is no wonder that 2nd & 3rd generation to survivors suffer from many issues.
(28) Sura, July 29, 2007 12:02 PM
Your father was s hero to us all
We all like mysteries and I am so glad you solved yours. By doing so, you gave us all another glimpse into the life of a hero who just so happens to also be your saintly father A"H". How hard his neshama must have toiled to overcome the trauma he went through and still realize there is a God and that everything God does has a reason and is ultimately for the good.
I too have parents that were Polish but escaped to Siberia. They lost many relatives, including their own parents. I grew up without any grandparents and that alone made me realize I was different from other Americans. All of our parnets had post traumatic stress syndrome ( your father's manifested as nightmares). They lived with these fears and memories and yet shielded their children in whatever way they felt was best to do so - some by openly taliking about it to warn the children , and others by tucking the memories in a secret compartment where the ugliness of them would not cause teh children to recoil with horror. However they managed to be parents, they were doing what they could.
They are all heroes and martyrs, not because they suffered, but because they overcame their extreme hardships and lived extraordinarily good lives, anyway.
My own mother A"H" was niftar (90)last year and also left children and granchildren and greatgrandchldren ( some already bearing her name). What a remarkable woman she was! All the more so becaue she died in dignity with all her family surrounding her and is buried in Jerusalem. The nazis, on the other hand will always be known as viscious murderers, thanks to the testimony of your father and other heroes like him.
(27) Jennifer, July 29, 2007 10:57 AM
Sage father
Rabbi Salomon, your father sounds like the father we all wish we had. You are truly blessed. May your father be of blessed memory.
(26) Sonia, July 29, 2007 10:31 AM
Thank you
I am grateful for your father being saved and bringing a beautiful family with the help of HaShem into the world.
The story of your father sparing you and your brother in not burdening you with his holocaust history seems totally appropriate to me. And absolutely moral. I am grateful there was a community of other holocaust survivors, his friends, to talk with. Therapy indeed.
I must say, however, my own survivor mother not only would not speak of her experiences of the Shoah years - how she and my father escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, nor particulars of where she and my father hid. In fact I am deprived of information I believe I should have been given as my birth right. My father died when I was 3 months old. My mother would not speak about him, nor give me information about his family, names of my paternal grandparents. Did my father may he rest in peace have sisters and brothers? What were their names? Do I look like them? What about who was present when I was born? Who helped my mother deliver me? How did she take care of a little baby? What was used as diapers? Were there other babies?
I met someone in a one time hidden children's group older than me who remembered Poland as a small child. She had thoughts on where I was born. However, I was most uncomfortable hearing her. It seems what I had learned no matter how little from my mother - including what I did not know - I needed to protect. What I know and what I don't know makes up who I am. And the particulars of the relationship of my mother and me. Who can possibly understand my mindset in regards to resisting the thoughts another person's answers to the very questions I have harbored? How indeed does such experience and perceptional reality inform the way I see myself, even today, now? In context of the wider world?
Nothing ever was told to me. I learned from books.
I recall as a child in Paterson, NJ, overhearing some women survivors talking, my mother not so much saying but gestering, she didn't show. Only later could I surmise my mother was likely asked how she managed to be pregnant while in hiding? She must have responded she didn't show. My mother did tell me I was beautiful from birth, born fair and white (as opposed to red as is more usual?). And when angry at me for not eating, that I didn't want to eat even right after I was born. (Me not eating was always an issue for her and battles when I was a child.)
To my knowledge my mother and I were all that survived from the Nissenbaum families.
Am Yisroel Chai
(25) Robert Feuerzeig, July 29, 2007 8:41 AM
Unbelivable
I feel proud to be a JEW...
WE make the world a much better place to live..Thank God
(24) Roz Lipsitt, October 22, 2005 12:00 AM
Engaging and touching.
I totally identify with the rabbi and his story. My parents were not prisoners, but suffered the challenges of having to leave everything loved and familiar in order to save their lives. My mother, her brother and my grandmother, left Poland in 1939 or thereabouts and went to Havana, Cuba. My father was from Lithuania, went AWOL from the Lithuanian army and escaped to Havana, where 2 of his siblings already had settled. It was their goal to earn enough money to bring over their remaining siblings. But it was not to be. My dad's 2 sisters and his mother died, as my father used to say "in the war". I didn't find out what happened to them til I was in my 40's and a first cousin of mine told me that when the Nazis marched into Lithuania, they stormed my grandmother's house, and shot her right there and then. Her 2 daughters, in their late teens fled into the woods behind the house and no one knows for certain, their fate. But I imagine they were captured. I couldn't believe that my dad never told me these things, because he did like to talk about the war years, but, I think, the story about his mom and sisters was just too much to bear...and not something you want to tell "the kinder", even if the "kinder" are in their forties! There's no doubt that my brother and I, as well as other children of survivors or refugees are somehow different having grown up under the hovering cloud of an unspeakable historical tragedy. May the memories of love and strength of that generation be a blessing and inspiration to us all.
(23) David Grunberger, May 18, 2004 12:00 AM
comments on story about R' Yaacov Salomon
Dear Ira,
Thank you for sharing this story with me. It is scary that a new generation is now born which lacks the live human testimony of eyewitness survivors of the shoah.
I am afraid that without the story being told over from mouth to ear, as gruesome, hideous, disgusting, and unbelievable as these stories may be, my fright is that children hearing these stories in 10 - 15 years from now not from survivors, but only from the children of survivors, there perception of this heinous acts towards the Jews of Europe, will be as foreign to them as Cossack pogroms, and the Spanish inquisition. It is now while eyewitnesses are still with us, albeit very few of them, that there experiences and stories must be chronicled on live video, and shown in every Jewish high school in the world. So that kids will be able to perceive that the unbelievable is in fact believable.
David Grunberger
(22) Yaacov Taube, May 15, 2004 12:00 AM
touching and disturbing
Dear Rabbi Solomon,
Thanks for the article. Being myself a son of survivors I couldn't help feel the similarity of our situations. But with one great difference. Both my parents, who survived different concentration camps, spoke extensively about their experiences. The important thing is that my parents were able to explain to us and give over to us (I with my brother and sister) what happened without us becoming obsessed with the Shoah. My father, who spent 1 1/2 years in Auschwitz didn't say a word about it for 30 years after the war. For the past 28 years he always talks about it. He is 90 B"H and he explains that as the years go by he becomes only more angry over what happened.
My mother (was in Ravensbruk concentration camp)was much more subtle about explaining to us what happened. She new how to arouse our interest and curiosity in the subject and promote us to constantly ask questions.
As she used to say: Her best vengance is living in Israel and the 20 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren she has. She passed away 15 months ago at the age of 88.
Kibbutz Kfar Etzion
(21) Denise Brown, May 15, 2004 12:00 AM
Heroes
Your father is a hero---it is a privilege to read a portion of his story. Thank you, Rabbi. Blessings to your brother as he continues his "detective" work.
(20) Mendel Nestlebaum, May 14, 2004 12:00 AM
equal but opposite experience
Dear Rabbi Salomon,
Your fascinating story struck a resonant chord. My father and mother survived the hells of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen respectively. They too sought group therapy with friends and relatives who survived. However, we grew up listening to the stories of pre-war Poland, the ghettos, the concentration camps and the post-war period while sitting around the Shabbos table. All of my friends and cousins were children of survivors, but we were unique among our group in that our parents talked about it fairly openly. Not everything was shared with us, but we were treated to a nearly filterless view of their lives.
Though my father,obm, never talked about it, he lost a wife and child to the Nazis in Lodz ghetto. I learned this fact when I was 10 years old in 1964.
It wasn't until recently that I was able to verbalize the fact that I had a half brother, that he was murdered as a baby before our father's eyes and that my father carried this pain with him all his life. I cried in my car all the way home as the thought kept slapping me in the face. I cannot explain why that moment occurred when it did, but I imagine it must have been like that for my father. Painful moments shared with no one but my mother. I am certain this is the case because when I got home I shared my experience with my wife but spared my children.Thank you for your touching story.
(19) Joan Whitehurst, May 12, 2004 12:00 AM
the need to learn history's lessions
Thank-you for writing this, as a Christian, one of my biggest fears for my Jewish friends is that this will happen again. I also remember the old sage saying about how one needs to learn from history in order to keep from repeating that same history, it is sad to see that the current generation seems not to have learned the lesson that your father's generation learned at so great a cost.
(18) Aura, May 12, 2004 12:00 AM
A beautiful acknowledgement of your Dad
Very touching and compelling view of a young boy's take on his "sheltered up-bringing"
Many children of survivors resent the closed door, that their parents erected to either shield the child or themselves from horrific memories of the past. You and your brother Izzy realize the length your parents and especially your Father went through to protect your innocence and spare you the heartache that they experienced.
This article may open the doors of many a misunderstood stand on "shielding the child from unnecessary pain"
(17) Anonymous, May 11, 2004 12:00 AM
Another 2nd generation holocaust survivor responds
Dear Rabbi Salamon,
Have you read the book,"Children of the Holocaust" by Helen Epstein? She mirrors a lot of what many of us have experienced; the feeling that we were normal kids growing up but also very different. I think it is absolutely wonderful that you could go on into the rabbinate and have 8 children and 5 grandchildren! What a statement to the continuation of Jewish survival! My father's 8-10 cluster headaches/day from daily Nazi beatings to the head were 1 of many reasons I felt compelled to go into nursing. I was an ongology nurse for 28 years before I was forced to retire due to leukemia. I am now a 4 year survivor with a 2nd career in library science, working on a masters degree specializing as a medical librarian. Knowledge that I was a product of "special parents" was evident when my parents spoke up in Dayton, Ohio in an interview in the Sunday "Parade" section of the newspaper. My younger sister and I were sitting poised next to our parents holding pictures of their parents and my mother's older brother (my uncle).This was during the Eichman trial, and was my first validation of the horrible nightmare dreams I had; like a "vision" I had been a "witness" to Jews lined against a stone wall and being shot to death. I would wake up "hearing" their screams in my ears. This of course was long before the Shoah had been televised. It was after that time, that I was able to draw out a little bit of my parent's experience. They wanted to protect us and it wasn't really until Steven Spielberg undertook the project of interviewing survirors, that the stories came out. Unfortunately, my father had already died a year before my mother was interviewed but the records remain. Thanks for sharing and allowing others an avenue to comment!
(16) charles brown,MD, May 11, 2004 12:00 AM
The fact that your father chose life and continued to embrace Judaism and our people after such horrors should inspire all of us. What a true mensch!
(15) Anonymous, May 11, 2004 12:00 AM
I too am the child of survivors.My parents each chose to deal with their memories in different ways. My father never spoke of his experiences while my mother was very verbal. When she was liberated after the war she was sent to Sweden to recover(She was very close to death at that time),and part of her treatment there consisted of psychotherapy sessions. She's often said that was critical to her being able to lead a successful and wholesome life.Clearly different approaches work for different people. All of the survivors are amazing!
(14) charlene, May 11, 2004 12:00 AM
Unfailing Love
The penning of your father's life and the impact upon you and your brother was as though the Master's hand was there to put it all down on paper. I read it as a father with unfailing love towards his children, putting you and your brother ahead of himself, who thought it not robbery to see that his children experienced joy and Izzy went to learn more, there the story unfolded of the great love that he showed to each of you. Love does conquer all. May the L-rd continue to use you as an instrument of peace. You were not only a gift to your father, you and those like you are a gift to the world. Shalom.
(13) Anonymous, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
Thank-you so much for sharing parts of you and your family's lives - the deepest places - masks off and removed.
i weep, and am profoundly moved - and thank G-d for how He moves to teach us, and to keep/tenderize/soften our hearts - mine is mush.
(12) Anonymous, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
above and beyond courageous
You are right....there really is no way to even imagine the hoorors that many witnesssed/lived thru and died thru in the holocaust.
I am amazed at your father's strength and am proud of him. How much more proud you must be of him. May he rest in peace.
May Hashem avenge the spilled blood of His martyred servents.
(11) Patrick Hurley, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
Bitter-sweet.
Thank you for sharing this part of your life. I cannot imagine the horror your parents lived through. I can recall having loving parents. Again, Thank You. Patrick Hurley
(10) Moses V. Bejar, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
Very heart touching
To read this story about discovering the silent cry of your father made my heart cry too. Let's not forget!
(9) raye, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
To reveal the unspeakable
I have lived among holocaust survivors;I have attended a reunion of holocaust survivors at the Waldorf-Astoria, a number of years ago. Some of them have contributed to society in many ways. Yet some. despite having achieved some distinction, could not go on. One of them, the guest of honor at that reunion, was Jerzy Koscinski, who chose to end his own life.
(8) Jonathan, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
Part of the Club
Your story was vivid and understandable since my father also went through the Holocaust in Poland. The story motivates me to ask more questions and interview him on tape
(7) Nikki, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
Very touching
Such a wonderful expression of the love that parents and children share.
(6) merrileem, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
deeply moving
I have over the years read and heard literally hundreds of holocaust accounts, and every single one leaves me tearful and shaken. This is no exception. I pray that Hashem makes your fathers name great in Israel.
(5) Anonymous, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
What an amazing article!
How you could have woven so much tenderness, drama, love, respect, awe, philosophy and history into one "edge-of-the-seat" tapestry is a credit to you, to Aish.com and to Hashem who infused you with more talent than should be legal.
(4) Annette, May 10, 2004 12:00 AM
I am a different child of survivor
I am about 10 years younger than the author, but I too grew up as a child of a survivor. My father, A"H, did not go through the concentration camps, B"H, but he did go through the Cracow ghettos, witnessed his parents & brother being shot to death, & survived labor camps disgused as a gentile. As you can see, the difference between the author's father & mine is that my father insisted on talking with me about what he went though, so that I should grow up knowing about the Holocaust & coming to appreciate all that H=shem has done for my father by saving him. I cannot imagine how my life would have been like had my father hidden his history.
(3) Denise, May 9, 2004 12:00 AM
What a moving story
It must have required so much courage for your father and others like him to cover up their nightmarish thoughts and give their children normal childhoods. Thank you for sharing this story.
(2) Anonymous, May 9, 2004 12:00 AM
Fascinating and beautiful.
I very much enjoyed reading this article. The Rabbi and I are about the same age, and we both obviously have wondered about the early lives of our parents. My parents are second generation and therefore, can not have the experiences of this Rabbi's father. But just the same, I always wonder about there early years. His account of his father's missing month during the summer of 1964 was fascinating.
(1) Brenda Rossini, May 9, 2004 12:00 AM
my mother's once-in-a-blue moon recollection
My sister and mother and I were sitting around one Thanksgiving in the 80's, stuffed. Out of the blue, our mother said she was just thinking about the little boy she saw clubbed to death by a German soldier in a Polish town. We had never ever heard her say much at all, except that she last saw her father as they put her on a train bound for Germany. This time, it was a first, the recollection. It was something she obviously never forgot, and never ever talked about, the bloody cruelty too overwhelming. And overwhelmed we were. My sister, something of a tough-talking wag, leaned back and said, I told you-- they should have killed all the Germans....and their children.