Survivors' Chronicle, April 1999

^ SURVIVORS' CHRONICLE- o ) , ? Published by the Holocaust Survivors Group of Southern Nevada a program of The Jewish Community Center Volume 2, Issue 1 |3909 S. Maryland Pkwy Las Vegas, NV 89119 | April 1999 THIS EDITION IS DEDICATED TO YOM HASHOAH The dictionary defines the word Holocaust as total consumption by fire. This was the tool the Nazis used to destroy an entire people. First came the burning of books of Jewish writers and poets. Second was the burning of the Holy Scriptures and Synagogues and finally the burning of Human Beings. Now the question is asked many times. Who is a Survivor? There are many types, such as Jews, Gypsies, Non- Jews, political activists, homosexuals, the mentally deficient and all those who were forced to leave their homes because their lives were at stake at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Miraculously we have 200 Survivors living here in Las Vegas. Many worked as slave laborers for the Germans. After liberation many Survivors did not fare well. Upon returning to their places of birth, looking for family members and relatives, these Survivors had to flee because their lives were in danger. In many cases Survivors again became victims of new pogroms in their native countries. Those that wanted to emigrate to Palistine to start a new life were interned and put into camps by the British in Cyprus. Othes drowned trying to reach the Jewish Homeland in unfit vessels. Many others would not talk about their horrible experiences. Others are still suffering the aftereffects. We the Survivors living in the United States and Israel have become productive citizens and are proud of who we are. Henjy m d A n i t a Schuster DAYS OF WAR by Harold Blitzer I will never forget the 6th of February 1940. My father, mother and sister Lili took me to the station in Berlin . I was going to Denmark all by myself. 1 was 13 years old and for the first time on my own. We said good bye. My mother cried and I tried not to cry but 1 was sad and 1 had the feeling we would not see each other again. The whistle blew, and the train started to move. 1 looked back one more time, and then 1 realized that I was all alone. I only knew one other boy. Henry. We sat together not saying anything We had no idea what awaited us in Denmark. We were 12 boys and 2 girls. It was our first stop on the way to Palestine. We were going to learn to become farmers, and then go on to Israel. I was a big Zionist as a kid. We arrived in Swinemunde in the afternoon, and after clearing German pass control we embarked on a Danish ferry A couple of hours later we reached Danish soil. We boarded a train, and shortly arrived in Copenhagen, the city of lights. In Berlin at the beginning of the war everything was dark and very gloomy, especially if you were Jewish. We stayed in a pension on Westerbro Gade one of the main street in Copenhagen. We were assigned to different farmers and I went to a nursery. I did not realize how lucky I was. I complained because I was not assigned to a farm. 1 was promised a place as soon as it was available. We loved Copenhagen. The people were so friendly. After a few days in Copenhagen we were told that we had to go to an island called Fuen. The name of the city was Nyborg. That year was the coldest winter in Europe in 50 years. All the islands were frozen and I took my first airplane ride on a single engine S.A.S. plane. The experience was great. We arrived in Nyborg in the afternoon and met our future families. I had the best deal. I was assigned to a nursery in the outskirt of Nyborg. My other friends were assigned to a farmer miles away from the city. I became upset with my new job, not realizing what a deal I had. The first days were tough long hours. We worked outside in the cold weather and we were not used working so hard. After all I was only 13. I was treated like the hired help. We had classes once a week, and a teacher was assigned to us. The school did not last too long. The teacher's visa for the United States came through and he left us - I will never forget April 9th 1940. Nyborg was the port of Fyn, and days before, a number of German freighters were in the port and were loaded with German soldiers. Many planes were flying overhead, and many soldiers were disembarking from the ships in port. Within hours Denmark was occupied with only the loss of 7 Danish soldiers. In the meantime my job as farmer had started, and I did not like it at all. I wished 1 was back at the nursery. We had to work 7 days a week. We milked cows, cleaned the stable, fed the chickens, and we did all this before breakfast. But I was way out in the country, and hardly ever saw a German soldier. But they were there. Every night we listened to the BBC in Danish to get some news. But the news was bad. The Germans were winning. Within a few months they had most of Europe. My mother and sister were still in Berlin. They both worked for the giant electrical company, Siemens, helping with the German war effort. We did not hear too much about the killing of Jews. The BBC never mentioned it. In 1941 Hitler attacked Russia and again it seemed he could not lose. The Germans overran Russia in weeks and took millions of prisoners, and were only a few miles from Moscow. In 1943 my mail to Berlin was returned to me stamped "Address Unknown". I was worried and did not know what to do. We had no connection with the Jewish Community. Our teacher left sometime in 1941 for 4 America and we had no replacement for him. We were completely cut off. The farmers prospered from doing business with the Germans. We worked hard without pay, and felt that nothing was going to happen to us, but things changed fast. Please Keep It Safe For Us by Herman Grant My first memory of our family Bible goes back to 1916, when 1 was a boy. It lay on a special table in the apartment house my family owned in the Russian port of Riga. The rabbi who prepared me for my bar mitzvah set it before me with a thud. It weighed 35 pounds, was four inches thick and its creamy parchment pages were bound by rich red leather. As the rabbi expounded on the great book's contents my gaze alternated between his scholarly bearded face and the fine etchings of biblical figures. My father had presented the Bible to my mother on their wedding day in 1901. Mother penned in their names and the date of the wedding on a page at the front. Other entries commemorated various family events, including the births of my sister and myself. But when my father died, my mother didn't have the heart to record the date. Instead she picked flowers from the bouquets at his grave and pressed them between the great Bible's pages. When I missed my father, I read from the Bible, then looked at the page with Mother's handwriting and traced the names and dates with my finger. When Hitler's army invaded and then occupied Riga in 1941 I prayed for our family over the Bible and exclaimed, "Thank God you are not alive. Papa, to see these terrible times." Soldiers posted edicts on the street. Each day there were more humiliations and cruelties: "Jews shall not ride on public transportation." "Jews must walk in the gutter not on the sidewalks," "Non-Jews are forbidden to work for Jews. To disobey this law will result in death. One day the edict was, "All Jews are evicted from Riga." I raced back to the apartment with the news and my mother, sister and I frantically packed what belongings we could. Soon we were notified that we must go to a 5 ghetto in Latvia. ''Herman, if the Nazis find our Bible they will destroy it," Mother said. "Take it to the Sochinskis and ask them to please keep it safe until we return." The Sochinskis, who were not Jewish, were the tenants living above us. I hurried up the stairs and when Mrs. Sochiniski answered my knock I thrust the huge book into her hands. "Please keep our family Bible while we are away," I begged. I caught a glimpse of the Sochinskis 12-year-old daughter, Wanda. She always smiled and curtsied when she saw me. But that day her eyes were wide with terror. She probably knew that holding Jewish property for safekeeping, especially a Bible, could get them killed. After Mrs. Sochinske nodded solemnly. I fled. After traveling nearly two hours we passed through the barbed-wire fencing around the ghetto. Frantic people with their belongings tried to find somewhere to stay amid the chaos. Fortunately, we were able to find two rooms with a kitchen. By nightfall eight people had moved in with us. More rules were posted. The first was, "Stay within the ghetto area or be shot." We had no heat, little food and dwindling hope. Pitifully thin children begged for scraps to eat. One day I was put on a work detail and sent to a barracks in another part of the ghetto. From there we were trucked to work sites in other locations. Days went by when I did not see my family. One afternoon the wife of one of our plumbing crew suddenly appeared where we were working. Shaking she told us that the Nazis had forced her and hundreds of other Jews out of the apartments in the section where my mother and sister lived. "They herded us into the forest,"she said, "and forced us the women to take off their dresses." As the first shots rang out the women managed to burrow undetected under the pile of discarded clothes, and waited until nightfall to crawl out. At first it seemed too incredible to believe, but when I looked into her eyes I knew it was true. My mother and sister were dead. I was too numb to cry. Then came the day my work detail was returned to Riga and ordered to destroy all the headstones in the Jewish cemetery where my father was buried. Not wanting a stranger to demolish my father's stone, I went to 6 his grave first. 1 raised the sledgehammer for the first blow. The stone fell apart with a sickening thud. My father's face swam before my eyes. "Papa, forgive me," I cried. "I have no choice." I had obliterated the last trace of my family. Only God knew them now. I was a stranger to all but God. But that thought gave me the strength to go on. In April of 1945. on another work detail in Magdeburg. Germany, I was able to slip away in the city streets. Until the war was over I was sheltered by a brave, good-hearted man. Eventually I found my way to New York City and made my living as a jeweler. Trying to find meaning in war's aftermath, 1 faithfully went to shul. I could never forget how much evil had befallen my family and the Jews at the me. 1 married and eventually retired. One day in the fall of 1995, 50 years after I had escaped from the Nazis, I received an unexpected letter. "I don't know if you will remember me, my correspondent began, ''but my name used to be Wanda Sochinski. I believe my family once lived in your apartment building in Riga." I stared at the letter in disbelief. Did I remember her? I could still see her fearful eyes as I thrust our family Bible into her mother's hands. After the war Wanda had married a U.S. Army officer and moved to the United States. She lives in North Carolina, but has returned several times to visit family in Riga. The miracle of this story is that on a visit to her hometown of Riga, the former Wanda Sochinski discovered the Bible entrusted to her family. She brought this sacred book to her home in North Carolina. She searched many years for me and she finally found me to returnold family Bible. Yes, miracles do happen. This article is reprinted from Guideposts of January 1998. The editor found this story in the doctor's office and thought it was appropriate for this issue. 7 THE BRIDGE by Gina Klonoff A cold drizzle was proliferating puddles around my feet, while I made my way homefrom the Seattle Public Library that afternoon in December 1940, soon after my arrival in the United States. Under my coat I was protecting a copy of "Anne of Green Gables." which I had just checked out for the third time. Despite my still inadequate English, I was determined to discover how the heroine met her challenge, which at that time seemed to mirror my own: adjusting to an unfamiliar environment and to a new life - in my case, to America. The dim and gloomy street reflected my own bleak mood, as I trudged along, skirting the puddles. Already Christmas trees were visible behind many of the windows I passed They reminded me that I was also Chanukah time - that in fact, tonight was the first night of Chanukah. 1 stopped and leaned against a wet lamp post, while images of past Chanukahs family began to hurl themselves like pin pricks on my consciousness. 1 was back in our pleasant Vienna apartment with my parents. Grandfather, Mendel, with his dignified beard. Grandmother Tova in her blue silk dress and pearl necklace, and Cousin Bertha, her straight hair pulled back into a raven bun; all of us gathered around our silver Chanukah menorah. It had been forged by my silversmith great great grandfather in Poland for the wedding of his oldest daughter. In every generation since then, it had lit up our family's Chanukahs. It symbolized for us not only the victory of the Maccabees, but also the blazing spirit of Judaism, and the continuity of our family. Now, leaning against the Seattle lamp post over a hundred years later, and 6000 miles away, I could still delight in its rich silver patina, the loveliness of the rosebuds, the exquisite 8 leaves and stems engraved on its nine branches. A dump truck pulled up alongside me, splashed me from the feet up. and shattered my image. Still under its spell. 1 mumbled to myself, "Where did everything go?" But in reality I knew where everything had gone. 1 knew that Grandfather had been arrested on Kristallnight and taken to Dachau where he was killed. I knew that Grandmother had died of a heart attack a week after they took grandfather, looted her apartment, and destroyed their small stationery store. I knew that Bertha, trying to escape on an illegal boat sailing to Palestine, had been arrested by the British, and then interned on the island of Cyprus. But the menorah0 It was forbidden to take any precious artifacts out of the country, and its fate was a mystery to my parents and me. By the time I arrived home, it was dark. My father w as already back from the synagogue, and my mother was peeling potatoes. She laid aside one large potato, and then began to grind the others into a bowl. I knew she was making the traditional Chanukah fare, latkes (potato pancakes.) 1 pointed to one large potato she had set aside. "What's that one for?" I asked. "That one will be our Chanukah menorah," she answered. I shook my head in sorrowful incredulity. With so many familiar practices, people and things now vanished from my life, was our Chanukah heirloom to be replaced by a potato? Was that to be another new custom? Mother hollowed out two shallow grooves on opposite ends of the potato, and pressed a small candle into one groove. Father took a second candle, and was about to light it, when he was interrupted by a knock on the front door. WTien he opened it, a mailman thrust a brown package into his hand. "Special Delivery," he said. "Please sign here." The package was all covered with foreign looking stamps. Upon closer inspection, they proved to be Palestinian stamps, but there was no return name or address anywhere on the front or back. We were dumbfounded. Who could have sent us that package? With unsteady hands we tore the paper away 9 from the box inside. The first thing we saw was a sealed envelope addressed to my parents. Father opened it. It was written in German. He read it aloud to Mother and me. "Dear Cantor and Mrs. Schiffman, When your niece, Bertha, and I came to Haifa, on the ship she gave me this package. She said it was important. She said if the British catch one of us, the other must mail it to the address inside. I was lucky. Me and a few others escaped after we landed. We were helped by the Haganah. I had plenty of trouble in the beginning. 1 am sorry to say I forgot about the package. Yesterday I found it in an old box. Please excuse me for this long wait. Respectfully yours, Bertha's Chavorah" Together the three of us pried open the stiff dented cardboard box. Inside, along with our address on a slip of paper, and wrapped up in torn tissue paper, lay a black and white horsehair cushion. Mother lifted it out of the box, and I'm sure we all had the same thought: "WTiat is so 'important' about this cushion that Bertha wished to ensure its safety so badly?" Father examined it from all angles, even sniffed it, and and pressed his hands harder into the bristly cloth. Then he stopped abruptly. "Quick. Marta," he exclaimed to mother. "Get me some scissors." Mother found her sewing basket, and handed him the small scissors. Carefully he began to snip open the stitches along one side of the cushion. A mass of straw escaped, and littered the floor. Then father reached in deeply, and in an instant he pulled out the still shining, so familiar silver Chanukah menorah of our past life. I could barely contain my joy and surprise. Our beautiful menorah had been returned to us just in time for the first night of Chanukah in our new home. We were stunned for a moment, and then we all started talking at the same time. How did the menorah get out of Austria? WTio would have taken such a chance to smuggle it out of the country? What was Bertha's part in it? We finally concluded that Bertha had concealed it in the cushion, smuggled it on the train across the border, and brought it aboard the boat. Then, in the event she could not carry out her purpose, she had tried to make sure that someone else would. Father put the silver menorah on the kitchen table. He transferred the 10 candle from the potato into the new arrival's far right branch. Then he lit a second candle (the shammes), which he held up high, while we watched him recite the traditional Chanukah blessing. But when he began the special benediction reserved for joyous "firsts" mother and 1 joined in with fervor, "She-he-che-yanu, V'kee-mahnu, V'higi- yahnu Lazman He-Zeh." Praised be Thou, 0 Lord our God. Ruler of the world, Who has permitted us to celebrate this joyous occasion. For me that night, the blessing applied to more than just the first night of Chanukah. It was also a rejoicing in the bridge, which had arisen so vvondrously to reconnect me with my roots. 1 felt an upsurge of new hope and optimism. For the first time in my new land, things did not look so bleak and forbidding to me. Something had come back to me - something precious from my previous world. The fact that it had arrived so magically for the first night of our first Chanukah in America, made it a special omen. Today the silver menorah stands on the sideboard in the dining room of our older son. David. His daughter, Anna, knows that one day it will stand in her home, and later in her children's and grandchildren's, and down the generations. At least that is the hope of my husband, Jerry, and me. Then its flickering candles each Chanukah will symbolize truly not only the continuity of our family, but also the inextinguishable flame of Judaism. 11 FRIENDLY FIRE by Josef Krauze M.D. Munich, July 1944 Sadelheimer Jail On the fourteenth of July the weather was beautiful. About 2:00 PM the sirens announced the air attack and I heard the deep sound of the bomber engines. There must have been close to 1000 bombers. The jailers did not take us to the air raid shelters, but they themselves went into the bunkers. I, as usual, was locked alone in my cell, sitting on a small bench attached to the wall. The bombardment was very heavy. Despite the sunny weather it turned dark from the dust. I heard the bombers flying lower and lower. That was the last thing I remember. When I regained consciousness, I found myself under the metal bed. How I got there I do not know. But I knew that had I been sitting on that cell bench I would have been dead because the thick heavy cell door flew across the room and landed below the window. There was complete darkness from the dust. I got up and moved through the doorway to the corridor. There were a few other prisoners there. We went in the direction of the stairs, but there were no stairs-only a big pile of rubble. I crawled over the pile into open space. At least, there I would not be crushed by tons of concrete. It was no picnic either in the open space. The bombardment was still in progress. Every few minutes another bomber came and released its load of bombs. As this occurred I lay flat on the lawn as the soil under me was rolling and shaking. Pieces of flat iron, lumber and masonry flew over me. After a few-minutes it was all over. Multiple incendiary bombs burned on the lawn. It looked like hell. I ran to the main building of the jail. It was in flames. On the first floor were many young German women helping to recover 12 property. At that moment I looked in the mirror. Mv face and hands were j covered in blood. I was a terrible sight. I saw one girl pulling a big laundry basket. I ran to help her. She looked at me and asked 'Are you a prisoner"? "Of course," 1 answered. She looked hesitantly at me. but gratefully accepted my help. It began to get dark, so I started to go in the direction of my jail. On the lawn there were nine mattresses stretched out. On every one was a dead prisoner. Two of them were from my neighboring cells. One was from the left and one was from the right of my cell. 1 was wounded but alive.'The Death March" from Auschwitz to Wodzislaw Slaski was already behind me. The terrible trip Wodzislaw Slaski to Gross Rozen Concentration Camp in an open railroad coal car without food and water for three days in January in freezing weather was already behind me. The two weeks of inhuman conditions (even for concentration camp standards) in Gross Rozen were behind me too. Now I am signing up for another evacuation. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what conditions might be. but 1 did know that after I signed up I could get to eat as much soup as I could in Vi hour's time. That sounds strange and stupid, but every one who is a Holocaust Survivor, will understand this perfectly. In one hour I was in an open railroad car in February with eighty other prisoners. About ten or fifteen died on this trip. After three days with no food or water (only snow) we stopped at a large railroad station. I was able to read its name. "Weimar" Then I knew we were going to Buchenwald. A few moments later, I began to hear the deep sound of heavy American bombers. I looked up and saw approximately 100 planes. I was very happy to see that finally Nazi Germany was beginning to pay for what they did to us and all of Europe. Then one of the bombers released a great many bombs in the area. In a few seconds around our train geysers of smoke and fire sprang in the air. It was clear we were their target. That was enough for me. I swung over the side of the coal car and landed on my behind in the muddy field. I ran away from the railroad tracks.. If this had been the Olympics. I would for sure have gotten the gold medal. In a short time I found 13 myself under a tree close to a small house. I looked at my feet-there were no shoes. As a young boy 1 read about someone who ran so fast that he lost his shoes. I tried to remember this as a joke. Then the bombardment was over. I went back to my railroad car. When I saw the height of it 1 was very surprised that 1 had not broken my bones when I jumped from it. P.S.: 1 found my shoes. Another incident happened in March of 1945. In Buchenwald- Berga-Elster commando, we felt that the end of Nazi Germany was close, but we were not sure that we would survive to see it. Now that we were on a new evacuation, (I lost count of which one it was) we marched through a country road in Saxony- Sudetan. The SS escort cried "American Flyer!", '"Mustang!". Everybody ran from the road, and 1 did too. I found myself in a small junkyard where I saw a large steel pipe. I slipped into it. I could not see the American planes, but I heard the shots. I had only one worry. 1 hoped that the pipe was thick enough and that it would stop the bullets. Then it was all over. I was alive once more. These were the three times that I met with "Friendly Fire." A LIBERATION WITH HORROR by Blanka Schuh I was born into an orthodox Jewish family in Dubrinice, a small village at the foot of the Carpathian mountains in Czechoslovakia. I was one of ten children , five girls and five boys. By the end of World War II, only five of us were left. All of us-our entire family were taken to concentration camps, and both my parents, a married brother, and three married older sisters were killed in Auschwitz. My twenty-one-year old unmarried brother was taken to a work camp run by Hungarians. There a Hungarian soldier, in a mood to kill birds, ordered my brother, and other Jewish prisoners nearby to climb a tree, and after they were all up there, he shot them dead one by one. Seven of the eight children of my murdered brother and sisters were also among the victims. The only one who survived was David, my thirteen-year-old nephew, who now lives in Las Vegas. I realize that many stories have already been written about the horrors of the concentration camps, and 14 extermination places. So I am going to relate the story of m\ going home experience - my liberation. M\ sister and I were prisoners in several concentration camps, and just before the war's end we found ourselves in a camp named Stutthof. about 22 miles cast of Danzig, Poland. The Nazis realized that Germany had lost the war. and they wanted to empty the camp. So they pushed all the inmates out. and marched us for several days and nights until we reached a place called Chino near Danzig. There we were liberated by the Russians. When they liberated us. the war was still going on at several fronts. They told us to get going, never mind where or how. So my sister and I, two cousins, two sisters from Munkacs, and a Mrs. Katz and her daughter, Zsusie, w ho were from Ungvar, kept on walking. We didn't know where to go. We were all very sick, and we looked like walking skeletons. We came upon a horse and wagon, so we all climbed up on it. and took off. None of us knew how to handle a horse, so we crashed into a tree, and landed in a ditch. We did not realize that the tree had a military telephone attached to it. Just then a car driven by a Russian officer pulled up to the tree, and tried to use the phone. When he saw what had happened, he made us get out of the w agon, aimed his gun at us. and accused us of being spies. One of the girls. Fodor Anne, from Munkacs spoke Russian, and she explained to him that we had just been liberated from Stuthof, and we were trying to go home. Mrs. Katz was still sitting in the wagon. She was too sick to stand up. Thereupon the Russian soldier pulled out a gun. and shot her dead right on the spot. Then he ordered the rest of us to keep on mov ing, and we could not even bury her. We had to leave her there. This brutality put us all into a state of shock. We stumbled on until we reached the next village. There we found an empty house, w ith a large bed in it. So all eight of us climbed in, and huddled together, four to the head, and four to the foot of the bed. We tried to get some sleep. That same night a patrol of three Russians came by. They noticed us women lying in the bed. Among all of us, lying there so haggard and emaciated, only Zsusie looked halfway human. That was because her mother, Mrs. Katz. had worked in the camp kitchen, and had been able to smuggle her some scraps of food. So it was Zsusie who was raped that night, by all three Russian soldiers. After her ordeal. Zsusie stopped talking. We stayed in the house all night long. Eventually, too weak to move and suffering from typhus, we were taken to a hospital, where it took us a long time to recover. Yet all that time Zsusie 15 never uttered a single word to any of us any more. After we regained our health,we had the opportunity to get on a train back to our home (which had in the meantime become a part of Russia.) We begged Zsusie repeatedly to come back with us, but she only shook her head, and would not budge. Back home my sister and I were reunited with our three brothers, but Zsusie stayed in Poland. I stayed only a short time in my former home, I tried to go to Israel (which was then Palestine) and had to spend two years in Italy before I could get there. I finally arrived in 1947, just before the creation of the modern state of Israel. I lived there for eleven years. In 1958 1 moved to the United States - to Los Angeles. There I was again reunited with my sister and brothers. It was in Los Angeles that I learned a little more about the fate of Zsusie. I heard that she was in town visiting a cousin, so I phoned her. She came to see me and my sister, and the three of us were united for the first time since that experience of horror. She remembered nothing about her mother's murder by the Russian soldier. She had screened out that entire last terrible episode with its personal ordeal from her mind, and admitted only to having dreamed about such happenings. She believed that those dreams were simply nightmares, and not memories. We knew that before her concentration camp imprisonment. She had been engaged to a young man in Czechoslovakia. She told us that somehow after the war he learned of her presence in Poland, and came to be reunited with her. They were married and moved to Australia, where they made their permanent home. Soon after that last meeting with us, Zsusie returned to Australia, where she later died. I know that none of us in that group of women will ever forget the tragedy of our liberation. We will never forget Mrs. Katz, or the irony of a woman who managed to hold on, and survive through all the suffering and the concentration camps, only to be murdered in the end by her liberator. 16 YOM HASHOAH by R. Gabriele S. Silten Yom Hashoah has come again, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It wraps itself around me, covering me, tightly, darkly: a cloak over my head, threatening to suffocate me, yet safeguarding me from stranger's stares. Outwardly I smile, seem friendly outgoing; greet fellow congregants, answer questions make conversation, Inwardly I weep salty waterfalls, cutting canyons where they cascade, threatening to drown me, yet keeping me afloat. I attend Yom Hashoah services, light the varzeit candle for six million dead, comfort a fellow survivor, am eased in my turn. 1 join in the prayers, both in silence and out loud, but my thoughts are abstracted: One part is on the prayers, the ritual, beautiful and soothing. One part connects with my phantom siblings, one and a half million children who died so long ago, who are so very present today. One part cries to God: "Why? Why did this happen"7 Why did so many have to die9 You could have intervened-why didn't You? Are You even there? Do You exist? Do You care?" How can I focus on prayers, concentrate on ritual when my thoughts are so disjointed? How can 1 pray with kavanah when 1 must interrogate God again and again and again in the vain hope of being answered? Yet I come to one conclusion only: I feel that God exists, know that God exists, encounter the signs every day. Sometimes, though, it's not enough that 1 can see, feel, hear God's presence. It's not enough to have questions if I don't find answers, therefore they don't end; they continue to torture me today and every day. When the service ends I am drained and empty: as empty as my plate was in the concentration camp; empty of feelings, empty of thoughts, empty even of questions; I am a shell without content, I am partially, limitedly dead. The day wanes-slowly my feelings, my thoughts return as do my questions. My partial,