The Chariotte Jewish News - May 2000 - Page 19
Yajfa EHach (center) with Tammy Menaker (left)
and Holly Levinson (right) last year in Charlotte.
Beyond Survival
How A Jewish Day School Education Honors the Memories of
the Victims, the Dreams of the Survivors
Shtetl
(Continued from previous page)
Our excitement grew as the bus
approached Eishishok, about 35
miles south of Vilnius, the capital
of Lithuania. What did we expect
to find? We knew there would be
no family members left to greet us
(or any living Jews, for that mat
ter), but my brother and I hoped to
get a feeling for the place that had
shaped our father’s early years.
Yaffa had said that when she
visited about ten years ago, our
family home was still standing.
Beyond that, we expected to look
for gravestones in the ancient
cemetery; after all, if our family
was named for the local river, we
thought, we must go back a long
way.
How naive we were. The bus
stopped first at the spot where the
900-year-old Jewish cemetery had
been. Now on the site, despite
acres and acres of adjacent vacant
land, stood a large school that the
Soviets had deliberately built
there to wipe out centuries of
Jewish history in Eishishok; they
had paved the streets with the
ground-up headstones. We walked
angrily past the school through the
fields; children were playing soc
cer upon the graves of our ances
tors.
After a short walk across a cow
pasture, we entered an enclosed
area with one large commemora
tive stone, erected after the col
lapse of Soviet control. Carved
into the black granite was an
inscription: “In this place, 25-26,
9, 1941, the Nazi assassins and
their local collaborators murdered
ferociously about 1500 Jews from
Eishishkes and its environs.” We
listened as Zvi Michaeli, the sole
survivor of this massacre,
described what had happened here
and how he — a boy of sixteen —
had lived. Sobbing, he told how
the Nazis marched the village
men, row after row, to the edge of
a trench and shot them. Zvi count
ed the seconds between the regular
volleys of fire and jumped into the
trench two seconds before the vol
ley that would have killed him.
The bodies of his father, brother,
teachers and all the men he knew
fell in on top of him; at night,
bloody and n^ed, he crawled out
of the mass grave. Now, 56 years
later, he is standing before a PBS
camera, telling his story. We recite
the Kaddish.
From here we travel across
town to the site of the women’s
and children’s massacrre. Here,
the marker indicates that 2500 are
buried. But this time we have no
eyewitness; no women crawled
out of this grave. Again, we recite
the Kaddish.
Followed by curious local chil
dren, we somberly wander the
town. Arguments erupt among the
survivors: Is this the Goodman
house? One says “yes,” one says
“no.” Aren’t these the original
paving stones in the marketplace?
Isn’t this where the summer house
of the synagc^ue was?
We stand in the square that once
housed a famed yeshiva and syna
gogue; these historic buildings
have been replaced by uninspired.
Soviet-styk structures. An elderly
local woman appears
and presents Yaffa with
a pretty needlepoint
picture of a village cot
tage; she says she
found the piece unfin
ished in a Jewish home
during the war. She has
finished it.
As we stand in the
deserted market square,
Yaffa describes the for
mer thriving local
economy. People
would travel for miles
on Thursdays to trade
at the bustling Eishishok market,
known for its abundant, quality
goods and full selection. Looking
at the broken windows and lifeless
stalls lining the square and the
dusty deserted streets, we find the
scene she describes hard to imag
ine.
Yaffa delivers the disappointing
news to my brother and me: The
Soltz house is no longer standing.
We look at each other soberly, but
at this point, we are not surprised.
There is no longer a cemetery,
there is no longer a marketplace,
there is no longer a synagogue or
yeshiva. Our heritage in this town
seemed more real in the museum,
where our family’s photos hang.
Nothing is left of us here but the
river. >>
This article is adapted from a
recent speech Sherry Wilzig hak
delivered at her children's Day
School dinner in New Jersey. The
article originally appeared in this
form in The New Jersey Jewish
Standard and The Jewish Parent
Connection.
As the child of a survivor, I felt
helpless in responding to the past.
As an adult and a mother I feel an
obligation to shape the future - by
educating my children. And in a
sense, the growth and continuity
of Judaism, which comes from
educating all of our children, was
what survival was really all about,
not just remaining physically alive
- as incredible as that was in itself
— but remaining alive in spirit
and planting seeds for generations
to come.
It is now, in my role as a moth
er, that my role as a daughter of a
survivor comes to the forefront.
For now, I too, must pass the
responsibility of bearing witness
from generation to generation.
Being the child of a survivor is
at times a burden. You grow up
with the weight of six million vic
tims on your shoulders and a
responsibility to carry on literally
in their name. Sure, I could listen
to my father’s stories, but how do
you deal with hearing that the par
ent who keeps you warm went on
three death marches through ice
and snow; how the parent who
feeds you starved and ate nothing
but dandelions for days to stay
alive; how the parent who protects
you from pain received a brutal
beating from a sadistic guard.
When your parents are your
whole world, how can you hear of
them seeing their loved ones mur
dered in front of them? And how
do I explain the inner panic I feel
when I try to remember all the
names, the dates, and the places —
knowing I can’t. But if I don’t who
will?
Yes, it’s not always easy being
the child of a survivor. But being a
child of a survivor is also a gift
that gives you a pride, a strength,
and a family bond that is inde
scribable.
We don’t honor our survivors
for “merely” surviving, as miracu
lous as that was — we honor them
for how they survived. We honor
them because within their frail
bodies, their humanity and decen
cy remained strong. Yes, that their
hearts remained beating was
incredible - but that their hearts
remained full of charity and com
passion was even more incredible.
And the miracles did not stop
there. Our survivors had children.
And still raised them as Jews, with
a sense of identity and a connec
tion with the Jewish people so
strong that their children are our
students today.
I worry that I cannot possibly
convey to the third generation all
of what’s been passed on to me. In
fact, when my younger son asked
me just last year, “Mommy, why
did the Nazis kill grandpa’s par
ents?” I have to admit, with all my
learning, I was at a loss to answer
him. And I realized how glad I am
that his Jewish Day School is there
to help me. Especially, because
while this school will pass on the
tales of Jewish deaths, it will also
pass on the beauty of Jewish life.
For every story it teaches about
(Continued on page 28)
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