hashkacha pratis stories needed

Does anyone not have ??

Yes – as I’m sure many others do as well.

My mother was in Auchwitz with her sister and her sister’s 2 young children; really babies, standing on the ‘selectia’ line.

My mother, a single girl, was sent by her parents to help her sister that lived in a different town.

As thjey stood on the line, my mother holding 1 baby and her sister holding another, a Polish guard walking up and down the line to keep order, came over to my mother, took the baby away from her and gave the baby to her sister, then walked away. My mother quickly tookthe baby back, to help her sister. They continued to proceed down the line and again this guard came over to my mother, took the baby away from her and gave the baby to her sister and walked away. Once again my mother took the baby back from her sister. They were just about to get to the head of the line, where Mengele stood (Yimach Shimo V’zichro) when the guard came back to my mother once again, took the baby away from her and gave the baby back to her sister. Just then the reached the front of the line – my mother was sent to the left and her sister and babies were sent to the gas chambers.

My Dad O”H was in the army intelligence corps. He had been recruited for this because he spoke many languages fluently and with the exact pronunciation of various dialects within the community (think of speaking Cockney English versus the King’s English). So he was able to gather intel in Germany, both by posing as the common man on the street or as an intellectual higher-echelon type.

He gathered information that a certain Nazi criminal, who was connected with Kristallnacht, was hiding out in his private chateau, and he brought several men under his leadership, to help him capture the Nazi, which they did. While interrogating the man, my father noticed artwork on the wall, pastoral paintings of the man and his wife. One of his men, an Irish Sergeant, was trying to smash one of the paintings (he had a personal animosity towards the Nazis, and wanted to give this one a taste of his own Kristallnacht), but while the glass shattered, the painting remained intact.

Curious about this, my dad went over to take a look at the painting, turned it over and discovered to his horror that it was painted on a Klaf of a Sefer Torah! When he further examined the Klaf and could make out the words, which had been smeared over, he realized he was looking at his own Bar-Mitzvah Parsha, P’ Shemini. He was able to rescue that Klaf and a couple of others, all taken from different Sifrei Torah, and until he died, he went around to Shuls and Yeshivos, telling over what had happened and what he had found.

He also had his own personal miracle when he and several of hi men were riding in a jeep, when the driver inadvertently drove directly over a mine. The explosion killed all the men in that jeep, except for my father, who landed some distance away, without any injury. To this day, we describe it as if he had been plucked out of the jeep at the very last moment, by a malach. We cannot explain his surviving such an explosion, any other way.

TO: oomis1105 and others…

Regarding your story about paintings on pieces of destroyed Sifrei Torah.

If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I probably would doubt the veracity of this story, but I DID see it with my own eyes…

Many years ago the Rav of the shul where I davened at that time, got up to give his weekly drasha on the parsha. He began talking about the Holocaust and held up a painting for us to see (it was approximately 16 inches by 18 inches as I recall it). It was a portrait of a nazi officer that he’d had painted of himself. Then the Rav turned it over – it was painted on the back of Torah klaf. Very upsetting and horrifying of course, but what was the connection to that week’s parsha? – It was painted on the back of the parsha of Amalek!