I recently took a look back at my Jewish upbringing and asked myself, “Who did you grow up around?”
When I took the time to reflect, I recognized that so many of my teachers and fellow members of my father’s synagogue were Holocaust survivors. When I write their names, I can see their faces…..Mrs. Szafran, my first grade Hebrew teacher, Mr. Leo Neuman, the tailor, Mr. and Mrs. Vera and Herbert Arnsdorf, Dr. Jakubowski from the Warsaw ghetto. The list goes on and on.
These were regular people who survived humanity’s worst evil, and yet they provided a Jewish life for me that led me to be a Jewish communal leader of the next generation.
On Sunday, we will once again light six yellow candles to begin our Yom HaShoah ceremony. As the years go by, we notice that those lighting the candles are now the children and grandchildren of survivors.
Every Jewish holy day and commemoration has a ritual, prayers, and a script to follow. Yom HaShoah is different. What do we say?
For my entire lifetime, a script was unnecessary as we listened to first-hand testimony of survivors; what it was like to walk into the gates of hell at Auschwitz. We could see the tattooed numbers on the arms; we could hear their accented English; we could see the suffering in their eyes.
In 2004, the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem published a Megilat Hashoah, a scroll to be read on Yom HaShoah. Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes, “we must all view ourselves as if we had personally experienced the Shoah. The emphasis here is on the words ‘as if,’ since no one who was not there can possibly understand what it was like, though we can identify with them and their suffering.”
Just as we read the Haggadah, and said those same ancient words that our ancestors said as they left Egypt, so too we must now perpetuate the memory of the survivors that we all know.
In 1947, David Ben Gurion appeared before the UN Commission. This was one year before the establishment of the State of Israel. He explained that 300 years before, the Mayflower set sail to America. While it was an important event, there are not many who can say when that ship set sail and what type of bread they ate on that ship. But 3300 years after the Exodus, we still know the date of the 15th of Nisan, and we know the taste of the bread they ate.
As we commemorate Yom HaShoah, it is our turn to tell their stories. For a moment, learn the story of a Holocaust survivor from a grandchild of a survivor. IF YOU HEARD WHAT I HEARD is a new organization dedicated to this cause. Let us be part of “as if…” and know that 3300 years from know, their stories will be told.
May the memories of the 6 million be a blessing for all time.
