Survivor Superheroes

 

“Can I get their autograph?”

This was the question some Ramaz 3^rd and 4^th graders were asking on Wednesday in advance of a very special program that brought them together with seniors from our community and Holocaust survivors from Brooklyn.  It was part of an annual program in which the KJ Senior Lunch & Learn Program, in conjunction with UJA-Federation, invites Holocaust survivors to come to KJ for a delicious lunch, a student musical performance, and some outstanding Jewish intellectual stimulation.  (Guess who spoke at yesterday’s program?)  This year’s attendees are participants in the programming of The Blue Card, an organization that assists Holocaust survivors.

The students, members of the Lower School Chorus, were told they would be singing in front of a very special audience and have an opportunity to meet with the seniors after they sang.  They were also encouraged to ask them questions about their lives after the performance.  I guess these instructions and the mention of a “special” audience got the kids thinking about asking for autographs.

It is a cute story, but it is absolutely right on the mark.  As my colleague, Andrew Leibowitz, noted while we watched the program, “We are in the presence of greatness.”

Yom HaShoah is a time to remember.  We recount the events, sing the songs, and watch the films that strengthen our commitment to remember and never forget.  This is part of what Emil Fackenheim called our “614^th Commandment” of not giving Hitler a posthumous victory.

It is also a time to stand in awe of the survivors.  Just imagining the horrors of the Shoah gives me the chills.  To read about, see, hear, meet, and interact with people who survived such a hellish experience is just incredible.  Not only did they survive, they have lived!  With the memories of their experiences, they persevered.  They had jobs, created families, and they wake up each day and continue to live on!

They are superheroes.

For me, recognizing this is at the core of Yom HaShoah. We need to seek out more survivor stories and opportunities to interact with these heroes.

Each year, Israel’s official Yom Hashoah commemoration involves the lighting of 6 torches by 6 survivors.  Please read their stories.  They gave me the chills – as should the stories of each and every survivor.

The other night, I was flipping through the TV channels and came across the documentary entitled “Treblinka’s Last Witness,” which tells the story of Samuel Willenberg.  It is sad, of course, but it is also the story of our people.  From Poland to Israel to Jewish revival.  Willenberg passed away just two and a half months ago on February 19.

Let’s not forget the world’s oldest man, Israeli Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal.  112 years old!  Talk about survival!

When I encounter the Holocaust, I am often filled with questions and some anger.  “How could this have happened?!?”  When I encounter survivors, I am filled with hope and confidence. 

92 year-old Hilda Weiss was one of the participants in the KJ program.  In heavily accented English, she shared her thoughts on her visit to KJ with KJ Executive Director Leonard Silverman:

Y’know what for me was the best thing today?  The Yiddisher Kindelach, they were better than the lunch!  Such beautiful Yiddisher Kindelach.  Such strong voices.  They tried to kill all of the Yiddisher Kindelach, but you see that they failed.  I lost so much, but we won, you see.  We won.  Of my whole family – we were from Hungary – I am the only one.  Everyone gone.  In Auschwitz.  Before my eyes.  When we got there, the nice girls from Poland who had been there for some time tried to warn us.  They said:  “You see that smoke and you smell that cooking smell?  It’s crazy to understand, but that’s your parents.  Accept it, and try to live in this hell.”  I didn’t want to believe, but then I saw with my own eyes . . . [faraway gaze] . . . and now I am here listening to sweetness from Yiddisher Kindelach who were not killed by that monster, Hitler.  Tanks a lot.  You did a good thing having everyone come today.

This morning in shul, I sat next to an elderly man who was there for the brit of his first great-grandchild.  He said, “Hitler tried to take everything from me, and here I am celebrating the 4^th generation.”  I can think of no better commemoration of Yom HaShoah than that.

The number of survivors is dwindling, and I shudder when I think that, at some point, students will not get the chance to sing for survivors and ask them questions. For now, let us soak up their stories, their presence and their example, and commit ourselves to living our lives as heroically as we can.

That will be more valuable than any autograph.