What Will Become Of All The Memories?

can we sort of make this the holocaust memorial thread-like everyine say stories they know-yartzeits of ppl that went through it.famous days that things happened-anyone want to start with a holocaust story?

I’ve heard that song a few times, and every time I can’t help but cry. It’s sooo sad.

I had no relatives who lived through the Holocaust, but when I think like that, I always tell myself yes, I did. I may have not known them and I never will, but I feel for them as if they were my cousins, and they were…Hashem Yinkom Damam.

I remember that my parents had guests for Shabbat, on old man and his daughter, and they both had numbers on their arms…I was a little girl then, maybe eleven years old, and I kept thinking who knows what these people have seen and lived through. How much pain could a person tolerate and still survive? The people who had lived through the Holocaust are dying out now, and what will become of all their memories?

The same thing that has become of all the other memories of Jewish suffering throughout the diaspora…

“The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal and illustrious acts of Divine Providence…and what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner as none other nation upon earth hath been preserved. Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation….We see that the great empires, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God, are all come to ruin…And if such hath been the fatal end of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, let it serve as a warning to all those, who at any time or upon any occasion are for raising a clamor and persecution against them.”

Thomas Newton

Feif Un-

Great idea.

Just last night many of the things you said occurred to me, and I was thinking of starting a similar thread.

In his shmoozin my rosh yeshiva would mention one of the worst things that could happen to a person is to be forgotten – ????? ?? ??? ??? ????- as if he never existed and never was created.

Topics about which questions that can be asked are:

– cheder

– summers

– relatives

– how parents met

– businesses

– funny stories

– immigration

– how and why some decisions were made (where to live, businesses)

There are many websites that have useful suggestions.

Your kids will probably enjoy hearing stories about yourselves, your parents, oterh relatives, and especially the people they are named after.

Feif un, unbelievable! What hashgacha! So smart of you for asking your grandfather about his experiences. Just imagine. No one would’ve known these stories!

Every survivor has a story or stories about how or why they endured the war. If your parents or grandparents remained alive after those years then you are part of their survival too. It’s also amazing when you realize that most survivors would not have met and married each other if not for the holocaust. And we, the children and grandchildren, would also not exist.

I have dozens of stories. I’ll share some shortly.

One set of grandparents have stories without end. My grandmother came from a family of 18 siblings- 4 survived. My other set of grandparents hardly ever shared any experiences- they were both niftar. It is a heart-wrenching thought that a part of my family’s history is lost forever…

To those that don’t feel the connection to the Holocaust- I wonder, do you read a book about the Spanish inquisition and not feel anything? The blood libels and pogroms and Cossacks… these atrocities don’t touch you?

Kol v’chomer the Holocaust- it’s so recent and tangible. We still read about Nazi hunters- still today. There are more than a handful of Holocaust museums all around the world. We see with our own eyes what’s left of most of the survivors- wrinkled, toughened people that have sacrificed EVERYTHING for the next generation, and the next generation, and the next… They are unfortunately going, going gone. We ourselves are living breathing testimony- how can this not touch you? I do wonder.

BS”D

Physically my connection to the Churban is very indirect; two great uncles who were deported from Vienna and killed in Chernovtzi which is here in Ukraine.

While I cannot feel it the same way as a child or grandchild of survivors can, I still feel it every day. Most of my friends are indeed close relatives of survivors, if not of the Nazis then of the Communists.

And I live in Eastern Europe, where every day we are rebuilding what the Nazis and Communists tried to destroy but succeeded only in barely putting on hold. If I ever need a reminder, I need only walk to the town square, to a department store turned mall where I occasionally shop.

There, a plaque testifies to the memory of the Yidden who were killed on the adjacent square.

And I just came back from walking along that square as I do every time I go to shul, dressed proudly as a Yid, with full beard and tzitzis flying in the wind. The music in my mp3 player was no different than what was loaded in there when I lived in New York and used it for a brisk walk along Broadway or Kingston Avenue or 13th Avenue – much of it was recorded by sons and grandsons of survivors who sing the praises of our Father in Heaven as their ancestors did in shuls and at chassunes in this very region where I live.

During the war, I would have been shot for that. Afterward, I would have been marked as a subversive, as a member of an organization that was lehavdil regarded as a combination of Al-Qaeda and the Gambino Crime Family by the rotten Communists YMS.

A few old Communists parade down the main street in front of that square every May 1. They may well have been collaborators during the war as well, but they are old, impotent fools now. Indeed, they are laughed at along with the Hara Kishkas, Mormon missionaries, meditation advocates, and other “freaks” who make utter fools of themselves in public here in town.

But where are the Nazis now?

The answer is, they are gone, and their memory is trampled under my feet and the feet of every other Yid who walks proudly on that square, pausing to notice the memorial to those who gave up their lives al kiddush Hashem and are now watching us rebuild from the highest heights of Gan Eden, waiting only for that moment when they will come back and meet us, in Yerushalayim habenuya.

Beautifully written kilobear

If you would have left out that second ‘M’ I wouldn’t kishkes left to hold onto!

….and what will ours look like?

BS”D

And keep in mind that the “Society for Kishka Consciousness” which is the official title of the Hara Kishka, is as much Hinduism as the Kabbalah Center is Judaism. Followers of each of them can explain themselves away from here till tomorrow, but they are cults plain and simple. Kishka here preys on idealistic, confused students and has them standing out in cold weather, wearing shmattes and handing out or selling books that are avoida zoro even for bnei Noach. In my town, the Jewish community is BH strong enough to rescue any Jew who falls into that filth but in other places I am sure they have entrapped pure Jewish neshomos.

Anyway, last time I checked, Ukraine is not a misspelling of Uttar Pradesh and is therefore not a province of India. Kishka, and the meditation freaks who I believe claim to be Fallen Wrong, are alien cults which ruin lives.

Indeed, the Nazis are in Gehennom, and the worst torture they undergo is that they see every day how we have rebuilt ourselves after the Churban.

dd- please spear us, especially in THIS thread, and quit defending other “cultures” and “beliefs”

“However, in the same post that you proudly proclaim that you walk through the town square with your beard and tzitzis (which is wonderful), you denigrate others who dress in the way of their religion and culture as “freaks” who are making fools of themselves.”

what is wrong with that? doesnt fit in with modern western liberal ideals? all men are equal? everyone has a right to his own opinions?

there is Hashem and His Torah and His People.

then, LEHAVDIL, there is avodah zarah, atheism, paganism, and the “religions” that are nothing but a distorted, crooked, degenerate attempt to vaguely imitate the Am Yisroel. they are on opposite sides of the universe. it is permitted, even a Mitzvah to use letzonos when referring to that which stands k’neged the Torah (see Mesillas Yesharim)

BS”D

The flip side of living in a multicultural democracy is that we can forget who we are and think we are another multi culture which is how the average non-Jew indeed does see us.

While there is no need to denigrate others unless they are disturbing us or threaten the bodies or neshomos of Yidden (all of the groups I mention are missionary groups that have suckered Yidden into their klipadige avoido zoro and even the notzrus here is far from innocent especially when it comes to individual galochim promoting anti-Semitism) we must remember who we are and that we are am levadoi tishkoin.

Regardless of the origin of any object of Jewish dress worn today, they are part of loi shinu es levusham and are now dovor shebekedusha. (The problem comes when we deride fellow Jews or exclude them on basis of particular dress). And we can never for one moment think that our performing any mitzvah in public is on the same level as chas vesholom an ethnic parade or a display of the dominant ‘religion’ wherever we live. We may be protected by the same laws which allow those parades and displays and we are thankful for laws that punish those who would disturb us when we exercise our rights under those laws, but that is only because we have elevated those value neutral laws of multiculturalism to allow us to protect kedusha.

feivel has a gift for putting things in perspective succinctly and without show. This is why his commentary is undoubtedly from the most valued commentary on this site.

Feif Un: that was an unbelievable story! wow! thanks for sharing it with us!

one side of my grandparents went through the Holocaust! they really never spoke about it to us grandchildren! they both were niftar some years back! when my father was young, he said they spoke about it a bit, it was extremely pain for them when they did speak about it! he says that when they even spoke about it, which was extremely rarely, that they has terrible nightmares his parents! he remembers them waking up screaming in middle of the night after talking about the Holocaust! so the topic of the Holocaust was really off limits to ask our grandparents about!

my family has an elderly lady that is a widow that comes by a lot for shobbos, that is always sharing her stories of the Holocaust! so i’ve heard some amazing stories of how she & her friends in the camps survived the war!

Ames, always remember there is a difference between respecting someone’s RIGHT to do something and respecting WHAT they are doing.

In America, where we have freedom of religion (and all sorts of other freedoms), you should respect someone’s right to dress as they see fit. That includes wearing garments that we think are ridiculous. It doesn’t mean you have to respect what they are doing though.

Feif Un: that’s how i end every sentence of mine in the CR! tiz my signature the ”!”

Feif un,

Excellent thread idea. Thank you.

Squeak and Feivel,

I’m with Squeak re Feivel.

feifun please tell us the rest of the story i am soooo curious.

My grandfather was saved with the mitzva of kibud av. my grandfather and his father were standing in line waiting to be told to go right or left. his father was told to go on one side and my grandfather on the other. My greatgrandfather was not feeling so well and my zeidy didnt want to leave his father alone so he ran to his father and the guard shoved him back. This happened a few times and then the guard yelled at him -you want to die then go and let him go to his father. Everyone on the other side nebech died and my grandfather and his father survived. ( his father died a few days before liberation from an infection)

Go on, feif!

Feif Un: wow! that is some amazing miracle story! it really is great that you got your grandfather to tell you his stories. i’m some what jealous, like i had said before, my grandparents never spoke about what they went through in the Holocaust to us grand kids.

My father a”h was an officer in the American army in WW2.

He received two Purple Hearts for being wounded (twice) in combat.

He arrived at Dachau just a few days after it was liberated.

Even for a combat soldier, what he saw there was so traumatic, even with it being a few days after the actual liberation, that he would never talk to me about it.

I think that in itself says a lot about the incomprehensible horrors our people went through.