May 2019 | Nisan-Iyar 5779 | Volume 66 Number 4
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May 2019 | Nisan-Iyar 5779 | Volume 66 Number 4 Bearing WitnessON YOM HASHOAH How Two Beth El Families Preserve Their Holocaust Stories Photo Credit Judi Snyder perished at the Auschwitz death camp, and Abraham and Ernö met their fate at Buchenwald. Julius and Anna survived. “Before the war broke out, there was a quota that determined how many Jews were allowed to emigrate from a Nazi-occupied Bearing country,” Ms. Mandel said. “My father and aunt were included in the Austrian quota, which was much larger than the Hungarian quota, and in 1939, they went to England. Eventually, my father Witness boarded the Aquitania - a ship in the Cunard Line - and went to HOW BETH EL FAMILIES New York.” PRESERVE HOLOCAUST Ms. Mandel’s mother, Tony Weil Mandel, lived in an affluent HISTORY ON YOM HASHOAH community of Freiburg, a town located in the Black Forest By: Brandon Chiat, Digital Media Manager of Germany, with her parents Hilde and Theo Weil and twin sisters Lisa and Erna. Ms. Mandel’s grandfather was a successful “The Jewish people have all too often faced terrible businessman who manufactured the stoves and ovens used to persecution and tragedy,” Rabbi Steve Schwartz said. heat homes. “The Jewish people survive because we maintain faith in the possibility of a better future. There is something However, their idyllic life would not last. very Jewish about maintaining hope even in the “My mother came home one day and saw the local synagogues darkest times.“ burning. The next day, the police came and took my grandfather Honoring Jewish resilience is why the Israeli Knesset to jail,” Ms. Mandel said. “My mother went to the jail with some designated the 27th of Nisan as Yom Hashoah ve- checks and told the guards her father needed to sign, or his non- Hagevurah (the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust Jewish employees wouldn’t get paid.” and the Heroism), a Holocaust remembrance day for In actuality, that money allowed Ms. Mandel’s mother and aunts Israeli citizens and the Jewish diaspora. to leave Germany in 1940 and eventually, helped her parents “The Israeli government felt a strong responsibility escape a French concentration camp. to the Holocaust survivors since many settled in the “My mom and her sisters went to land that would, in 1948, become the modern State England where they spent their of Israel,” said Dr. Eyal Bor, Director of Education and remaining money to forge passports the Rabbi Mark G. Loeb Center for Lifelong Learning. which her family then used to get “Israel, its citizens and its army remain strong and vital out of the internment camp in Gurs, because we remember that our people were almost France,” Ms. Mandel said. “The wiped out in the Shoah.” Nazis seized my grandparents' house and sent them to the camps. However, remembering the Shoah has become Back row left to right: Erna increasingly difficult. However, before that happened, they Weil Leiser, Herbert Leiser, were able to pack up a number of Lisa Weil, Julius Mandel, Tony There are fewer living Holocaust survivors with each their belongings into large storage Weil Mandel. Front row: Hilde passing year. The Conference on Jewish Material containers which they shipped to Weil, Brenda Weil Mandel, Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, England, where my mother and her Theo Weil estimates there are less than 100,000 Jews who were two sisters had settled.” in camps, ghettos and in hiding under Nazi occupation still alive today. Eventually, the Weil sisters and their containers set out for New York, but due to a workers’ strike in the New York harbor, they Therefore, the responsibility falls to the children and arrived in Baltimore. Along the way, one of the shipping containers grandchildren of survivors to honor their memory and was irretrievably lost, but the two containers that did reach articulate their experience. Baltimore brought valuable links to the Mandel family’s past. “Jewish tradition teaches us that we must do the work “We deeply cherish our family’s surviving heirlooms,” Ms. Mandel ourselves,” Rabbi Schwartz explained. said. “These pieces of my family’s history are tangible evidence of “The second and third generations are stepping up the Holocaust.” to speak about their parents and grandparents,” Dr. Bor said. “Many survivors did not talk about their THE GRILLIS experiences, so their families have begun researching Mr. Grilli’s mother, Olga Gabanyiova and preserving their parents' experiences.” (née Bergmann), was born in Two longtime Beth El members - Brenda Mandel and Chotebor, Czechoslovakia, a small Richard Grilli - have assumed that responsibility. Here town about 60 kilometers southeast are their stories. of Prague. On March 15, 1939, the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia THE MANDELS and Olga’s life changed forever. Mr. Ms. Mandel’s father, Julius Mandel, grew up in Grilli’s grandmother acted quickly Szombathely, Hungary with his parents Bluma and to save her daughter from the impending peril. Olga Gabanyiova with her mother Abraham, his brother Ernö and sister Anna. Bluma Marie and her aunt Zdenka 2 The Voice of Beth El Congregation “My mother’s aunt lived in Prague and heard “During Beth El’s 2011 trip to Israel, surrounded by 80 about an Englishman, Sir Nicholas Winton, of our fellow congregants, Dr. Bor, and Rabbi Schwartz, who was organizing Czech Kindertransports we dedicated the terrace - which welcomes visitors to (German for "children's transport") to England,” Yad Vashem - to my family and the many families who Mr. Grilli said. endured this tragedy," Ms. Mandel said. On the eve of World War II, Sir Winton saved “With global antisemitism on the rise, institutions like the lives of 669 children - including Mr. Grilli’s Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Museum mother - by finding them homes and arranging in Washington D.C. have never been more important,” for their safe passage to Britain. Olga’s Olga Gabanyiova Dr. Bor said. “Jews and non-Jews alike must learn transport left on July 31, 1939; it would be the on the day about the Holocaust, not just for posterity, but as a final Kindertransport the Nazis permitted to before she left symbol of unity and coexistence.” leave Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia, July 29, 1939 Ms. Mandel speaks publicly about the Holocaust. The Parents like Mr. Grilli’s grandmother faced an American Society for Yad Vashem honored her at an impossible decision: send their children away to fend for themselves event in Florida at which U.S. Senator Marco Rubio was in a strange country or risk their near-certain death at the hands of the keynote speaker. “We must remain dedicated to the Nazis. continuing the legacy of the Holocaust survivors, by “The train left at midnight from Prague and it was a traumatic ensuring the younger generations never forget their scene,” Mr. Grilli said. “The parents were beside themselves experiences and messages,” she said. with grief as their frightened children cried. It was chaos. Deep Closer to home, Brenda and Lou dedicated the down, most of these parents knew they would never again see breathtaking Holocaust Memorial at Beth El’s their children.” Memorial Park. “I hope that the Holocaust Memorial Such was the case for Olga Gabanyiova and her mother. serves as a tribute to all those Beth El members who are connected in some way to the Holocaust, and “In late 1942 my grandmother and her two sisters - Anna and will inspire future generations of Beth El families to Zdenka Bergmann - were rounded up and sent to the Terezin preserve those memories,” she said. concentration camp,” Mr. Grilli said. “From there, they were deported to Auschwitz in January 1943 where they were gassed Like Brenda Mandel, Richard Grilli diligently works to immediately upon arrival.” preserve his family’s history. Though many Jewish children In 2017, Mr. Grilli commissioned German artist, Gunter escaped death camps thanks Demnig, to lay down stolpersteine in his mother’s to the Kindertransports, they hometown of Chotebor, Czech Republic. A stolperstein nonetheless suffered significantly. - which translated from German means "stumbling stone,” and metaphorically a "stumbling block" - is a “Rationally, my mother concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the understood why her mom sent name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination her away to England. But from an or persecution. Demnig’s stolpersteine project irrational perspective, she never commemorates individuals at precisely the last place of forgave her mother, even though Olga Gabanyiova with other residence or business, which was freely chosen by the doing so saved her life. My mother Kindertransport children at a person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror. sustained psychological trauma reunion in 1990 in England with Sir which she had to live with for the Nicholas Winton Upon hearing of the Grillis’ efforts, a Christian rest of her life,” Mr. Grilli said. “In missionary living in Chotebor told them that the retrospect, my grandmother exhibited great courage to give up Jewish cemetery there was in ruin. The headstones her only child. It was heartbreaking for my grandmother who had had fallen over and weeds overtook the plots. So the no spouse to console her. It took tremendous courage.” Grillis arranged for landscaping, the rededication of the headstones, the construction of a new fence, and HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE: the installation of a plaque commemorating the final A JEWISH BATTLE resting place of his relatives and their community. “There are no Jews left in Chotebor. My mom was the “Jews have a responsibility to preserve the memories of the last Jew born in that village,” Mr. Grilli said. “I realized Holocaust. After all, if we don’t do it, who will?” Rabbi Schwartz that no one else had done this work, but someone asked.