Greenburgh town supervisor and Woodlands Member Paul Feiner has a unique knack for getting people involved. A few months ago, he told me about this series he had started in which he interviewed the children of Holocaust survivors. He asked me if I’d like to take over. It turned out to be a little bit more work than I thought, but I didn’t know that when I entered the TV studio in Greenburgh Town Hall, I’d be walking into a sanctuary of sorts.
Hearing these survivors’ stories, particularly from the mouths and hearts of their adult children is like a whisper from history, an uttering of a prayer of remembrance with every word. Hearing these stories, and how the next generation has wrestled with them, forces you to reflect on your own spiritual strength. When you engage with these stories, you can not NOT be compelled to live differently and to approach our modern world with a sharpened lens.
Consider for example, Freddy Hagouel. I first became familiar with Freddy’s story when I officiated at his funeral in 2019. He left behind a beautiful family - close and joyful. Over the years, I’ve heard more about his story from his daughter, our member Bette. Bette even came to speak to our 7th graders this year.
For me, the most moving part of Freddy’s story takes place in the years 1945 and 1950. Here’s why:
At liberation, Freddy and his fellow survivors had to figure out how to be human again. He traveled through Brussels to Athens. They were stateless and penniless. Haganah, the pre-Israel Jewish militia in then-Palestine, brought Freddy and his comrades on a dangerous illegal trip to Israel which was still off-limits for immigration. Through a series of illegal passports and the kindness of his last remaining family member, he was sponsored and brought to the US where Freddy soon met his wife and started over. This picture is from New Year’s eve 1951, only 5 and half years after liberation from Auschwitz.
Every time I look at this picture, my heart fills with emotion. How could it be that in just 5 years this man went from living in the mud, sleeping among the maggots, feces, and disease of a concentration camp to sitting on a plush couch, a beautiful girl in his arms, wearing a frilly, glittering paper New Years’ party hat upon his head?
It can only be through the pure determination of spirit, a resilience I could only pray to have a drop of in my blood.
And it is not only Freddy. Whether it was the courage to stow away on a train to the border, or lying to an SS officer about a skill in order to get a better job, in every story of every survivor there is a will to live etched into their bones. These folks all heeded the ancient dictum of Deuteronomy: I put before you life and death, choose life so that you and your children may live. Never has anyone fulfilled this law more than these survivors who had to choose each day to not only live, but to thrive. We honor that tonight.
This is one theme that dominated our interviews. And as I continued to conduct them, I noticed some others emerged. Some heartening, some chilling.
I'll start with the chilling: if you watch the videos, you’ll notice that in every interview we inadvertently stumbled into the modern day. These interviews were not meant to be political, of course, but we couldn’t help it. So often the interviewee would utter words that resonated - and we would both feel it. Things like: “One day, his friend just disappeared…,” or “they were told they were making too big of a deal out of it, to just keep their heads down,” or “she lost her job because of her political affiliation…”, or “he couldn’t get the right papers…”.
One would think that these interviews and this Yom HaShoah commemoration should be memorials of an increasingly distant past, an effort to create archival memory. And yet recently in the US, executive orders were ordered to increase domestic military use. A muzzle slowly tightens around the free press. Lawful residents of our country are being abducted off of the street and denied due process. People with disabilities are being dehumanized and targeted. There is public shaming, propaganda and lies being spread about minority groups, particularly the trans community. Immigrants are scared to leave their homes.
Let’s be clear: systematically curbing individual rights, targeting specific groups, limiting access to education and health care, consolidating power and instilling fear that leads to compliance, is what every single Holocaust memorial, museum and survivor will describe as the beginning of a tragedy - moral or otherwise.
HIAS issued a statement recently that put it perfectly: “Much of the Holocaust was made possible through a series of legal acts that lost any grounding in a foundation of human dignity. We do not invoke that history lightly in this context, nor are we declaring that Holocaust-like events are the inevitable end of what we are witnessing today. But we know that the Holocaust did not happen overnight — it took place after years of manipulation, injustice and discrimination. And it was not just the slow erosion of norms and laws that made it possible, but their intentional manipulation.”
I could continue to preach to you of wannabe despots here and around the world who are baring their teeth. I could continue to talk about the inhumanity and the trampling of democracy and how we Jews are almost predictably being scapegoated as part of this plan…but upon reflection, I believe what I really need to preach about is “kindness.”
Or it was the work contacts who hid Michelle Griffenberg’s father in Frankfurt until he could get one of the last passages out of Germany.
Or in the case of Eliz, Steve Schwartz’s mother, who was assigned camp patrol. Her ability to move around the concentration camp gave her broad contact with other prisoners. They’d ask her to look for their mother or sister or other loved one. If she had information, she’d pass it on, helping to comfort and sustain their spirits. The kitchen workers would steal one or two potatoes, and give them to Eliz saying, “Give this to my mother, and I’ll give you one.” When Eliz got one of these raw potatoes, she would slice it up and share it with the six women who had become her camp “family.”
These stories of kindness - acts big and small - go on and on.
Earlier tonight we heard about the town of Chambon, the people who took in their Jewish neighbors despite great risk. The greatest kindness, it seems to me, is when, like the people of Chambon, we open our hearts and our doors and our borders to those who are most vulnerable.
Because ultimately, it was the kindness of the places that took in the Holocaust refugees - people with no money, no possessions, and tenuous health - that saved their lives and gave birth to the generations; gave birth to our neighbors and friends who now tell the story.
The ability to “get out” or to “be welcomed in” was the determination of life or death, not just of the survivors themselves, but of the Jewish people. This is also Yom HaShoah’s lesson. I’m sure we can all find a way to apply it personally, nationally, globally.
Tonight, let us take these stories not only as history, but as instruction. The lives of the survivors - and the lessons, love and resilience passed down through their children - are not relics to be admired from afar. They are urgent calls to live with courage, to resist with conscience, and above all, to practice kindness.
This is the legacy we all inherit: to choose life for ourselves, our neighbors, our country, and all the world. May we heed the call and find strength in its ability to sustain the generations of the past and, God-willing, those of the future. Amen.
