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Yom HaShoah: Remembering the Holocaust

Posted on 27 April 2017 by LeslieM

By Rachel Galvin

At Century Village’s Le Club, members of Temple Beth Israel and Bnai’ Shalom got together to remember the Holocaust on April 23 a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day. The president of Temple B’nai Shalom, Sondra Schmier, welcomed guests, which was followed by the presentation of the colors and everyone joining in to sing the “Star Spangled Banner.” Ted Schneider accompanied with the trumpet. Rabbi Ezring, of Temple Beth Israel, gave the invocation and later recited Psalm 23.

In the group were several Holocaust survivors. Gerda Hollander and Claire Eskind recited the poem “We Do Not Understand,” written by Rabbi Jill Hausman. Rosalie Blady, talked about how her husband, a survivor, would awake from nightmares screaming as he remembered the horrors.

Survivors are reticent to speak; to do so, would be to relive the horrors,” she said, recalling how her husband was reluctant to talk about it with her, but did confide in his brother.

She recited the words to the song, “Where Can I go?” See some of the lyrics of the song featured on this page.

Although some survivors wish not to speak, others cannot speak enough, wanting to make sure people never forget. Morris Dan is one of those people. Even before people were sent to the camps, the horrors began. He recalled a Jewish man who did not do as he was told by a German Nazi soldier and the soldier ordered his own son to hang him for the misdeed. He recalled his trip into Auschwitz, at 17 years old, saying he was standing on the cramped train with 80 people, no washroom, no water and only a pail, heading to the camp that held 20,000 people.

There was a German officer with a stick who said, ‘You go to the right; you go to the left. My mom and my two sisters go [one way]. I go to the [other]. I came into the camp…20,000 people in the camp… I asked a fellow inside, ‘Where is my mom; Where’s my dad?’ They showed me a chimney. I thought it was a mental place. I couldn’t believe him. I ran into someone else. He showed me the same thing. By the third time, I realized. They were gassed and burnt. I worked as a slave near that place. I saw it going on day after day, night after night, 24 hours a day … going into the gas chamber. How can I go on? I didn’t want to believe it was possible … that my mom was not alive, my dad, my family. When I came in, they told me to undress, take a shower and gave me shoes. [They asked me to give them my arm on which they tattooed a number]. From now on this is your name. I had to remember it.”

He was piled into barracks filled with bunks with multiple people in each bed. The beds were made of straw without a cushion and only a blanket.

If you had to turn, everybody had to turn,” he said.

He continued, “I thought if I want to live and tell other people, I have to be strong. I worked. If I didn’t do it fast enough, they would hit us on our heads. A lot of people were sick and they didn’t feel good. They were killed on the job. I was trying to survive to be able to talk.”

He went into the camp in 1942 and was not freed until he was liberated by the Russians in 1945. Today, he shares what he experienced.

I go into schools, churches, private clubs. I have done it for the last 40 years and I will do it until I die. Thanks to God, I did make it.”

From nine kids – seven brothers and two sisters, only he and his brother survived.

Fran Oz also told a tale – of a young baby and a few others who were spared only because a German officer needed a tailor to make him a uniform and boots. That baby, she said, is now 75. That baby is she.

Many other survivors were present and chose not to share their stories, but did come to the front and lit a memorial candle. They were joined by those who lost family members to the Shoah and others who felt the need to light a candle.

Cantor Sherman and the B’nai Shalom Choir sang and the Mourner’s Kaddish was recited before the closing comments.

Rabbi Ezring made a compelling point at the beginning. He shared how people wish to strip away reminders of the Holocaust, and mentioned how many people who were alive then are rapidly dying off or have dementia, as well as how others wish to deny it ever took place. He said it is up to us to remember, to continue to tell the stories of those no longer with us.

He said, “It’s up to us to pick up the torch. If we don’t, the slogan ‘never again’ and the call to ‘never forget’ will go away.”

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CLERGY CORNER: An act of Remembrance

Posted on 16 April 2015 by LeslieM

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, was observed at Temple Beth Israel on April 16, as it was in Synagogues all over the world. During Shabbat services this past Saturday, as I read a long list of members of our congregation who are no longer with us and of their family members as well, I couldn’t help but notice that many people on the list had the same last name.

It could have been just a coincidence, but it wasn’t. Several families had the same last name because they were all from the same family. Someone asked me how hard it must have been on these families to have so many of their kin die in such a short period of time. But the fact of the matter is that their family members who put them on the list to have the memorial prayer recited for them each year are not even sure when their loved one’s died. You see, each of them perished in the camps during the horrors of the Nazi movement.

And so it was that these families picked a date to remember their loved ones and to honor their memory. When someone we love passes away in our day here in America, we take for granted that, not only the date, but the time of day and the cause of death will all be recorded in the medical chart and will be made available to us. But imagine not knowing how or when a loved one died.

Oh, we know the cause; the cause was hatred; the cause was that there were those who wanted to exterminate the Jews; the cause was that there were those who saw the Jews as less than human; the cause was putting such horrific labels and blame on us that we were little more than dirt in other’s eyes and, sadly, to this very day, there are many people throughout the world who feel that way toward us and, if not toward us, then toward another group of “others,” of “outsiders” of those who are “different.”

Each year on Yom HaShoah, survivors are called upon to speak. The odd part is the stories all begin the same way. Each of the survivors can recall a …. you should pardon the expression … “normal, ordinary life.” Each woke up in the morning. Each went to sleep at night. Each ate meals. And each had goals for the future.

And then, the unthinkable happened. And, in what must have seemed like a blink of the eye, all the rumors, all the gossip, all the whispers became a horrific reality.

Jews were barred from schools, from professions. Jews were barred from getting money, their own money out of their bank accounts. Jews were barred from possessing guns. Jews were beaten. Jews were rounded up. Jews were sent away never to be seen or heard from again.

Each year, we have fewer and fewer survivors left to tell the story. Each year, we have more and more people in the world who deny that the Holocaust ever took place. Each year, our enemies who used to complain that we were always bringing up the Holocaust, now use the term “Holocaust” and “Genocide” against us.

And our survivors call out, “Don’t just remember the past; learn from it!” And so, as we recited Kaddish for those who perished in the Shoah, I couldn’t help but remember the words of Elie Wiesel who wrote:

Let us say Kaddish not only for the dead, but also for the living who have forgotten the dead and let the prayer be more than a prayer, more than a lament; let it be outcry, protest and defiance. And above all let it be an act of remembrance. For that is what the victims wanted: to be remembered, at least to be remembered. For just as the killer was determined to erase Jewish memory, so were the dying heroes and fighting martyrs bent on maintaining it alive. They are now being defamed or forgotten – which is like killing them a second time. Let us say Kaddish together and not allow others to betray them posthumously.”

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach (201 S. Military Tr., Deerfield Beach, FL 33442). Regular Shabbat services are open to everyone on Saturday mornings from 9 to 11:30 a.m.

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