Yom Hashoah

[EllaDisenchanted]

The siren for the 2 minutes silence is at 10 Israel (in five minutes). It's pouring here in Israel. Feels like the sky is crying too.

My Bobba escaped Vienna, Austria, after Kristallnacht, as a little girl, and came to London with her family. My great grandfather (different strand of the family), escaped with most of his extended family from Worms, to France, and then to Palestine (pre war of Independence), where he met my Israeli great grandmother. Two of his sisters stayed as they were married, and they and their families perished in the holocaust, with one child surviving from each family.

יהי זכרם ברוך
Never again.

Most (all?) of us have stories in our families. Whether of the Farhud, the Holocaust, or living in Russia behind the Iron curtain etc. This is a thread of remembrance, if anyone wants to post.

Thanks. I’m so sorry for your loss.

My grandfather escaped with his parents in 1939. My great grandfather’s sister and brother died in the Holocaust. Another sibling surprisingly survived the war in the Jewish hospital in Berlin. I’ve done some research and over 40 members of my great grandfather’s family died in the Holocaust. That’s just from his maternal side. I’ve not yet traced his paternal family.

We will remember them

One of my grandfathers was the only survivor of his entire village, purely because he had run away 10y earlier to escape Soviet conscription. Hashomer Hatzair brought him to Eretz Yisrael.

As a child, whenever we visited Israel my dm would take me on rounds of visits to aunts and uncles, survivors from her mothers's side of the family. Elderly people with numbers tattooed on their left forearms.

Dm would chat with them in Yiddish, but neither their nor my Hebrew was good enough for us to hold proper conversations. A few spoke some English.

One couple I particularly remember. He had a massive, nicotine-stained white beard, and whenever he laughed it would be a chuckle into his beard. She was dumpy, with short, wavy hair, which she wore uncovered indoors, but covered outdoors.

They both would greet me with gentle pats on my cheek and my hand, feed me treats, watch me with delight while I ate and then send me out to play. Auntie would come to the window or door from time to time and wave to me.

They had both lost their spouses and all their children during the Holocaust, and had never been able to have children together afterwards. They adored each one of their great-nieces and great-nephews.

יהי זכרם לברכה
May their memories be for a blessing.

My father survived Auschwitz and two other concentration camps. His father was murdered by lethal injection when he became too ill to work. His mother and sister were selected on arrival for the gas chambers. Most of his aunts, uncles and cousins were also murdered.

My mother and my maternal grandparents and uncles escaped the Holocaust by the skin of their teeth but many of my maternal family were killed.

I remember them and the millions of others who were exterminated for nothing more than their religion and/or ethnicity.

May their memories be a blessing.

You remind me of a teacher I had in High School (who taught my Mum as well!), who had numbers on her arm. She was one of the sweetest, warmest, most gentle ladies I have ever met.

@saturnspinkhoop and @mzdemeanour heartbreaking 💔 The loss is staggering.

https://x.com/EylonALevy/status/1787390919546724666

I thought this was very fitting actually

That's so lovely @EllaDisenchanted. Eylon is so articulate.

Thank you for this thread. I believe it is so important for us to remember the Holocaust, and not just on a personal, family level.

My dgf was lucky enough to be a pupil at Landschulheim Herrlingen in Germany. The head teacher was an amazing woman (Anna Essinger, worth a Google if you've never heard of her) who managed to bring the entire school to a village in Kent after the Nazis came to power.

Most of his relatives were not so lucky. They were all German and were ultimately sent to Auschwitz where they did not survive.

Thanks op for this thread.

I've recently spent quite a bit of time doing some family tree research...I discovered on the yad vashem database my grandmothers brother was taken to Auschwitz at 13 years old.

Just the thought of it is absolutely unbearable.

Never forget.

Most of my mother's family came to Liverpool from Odessa in 1901, and my father's went to Mandatory Palestine from Ismir and Salonica in the early 30s. However, a branch of my mother's family somehow got caught passing through France, and were interned at Drancy before transport to Auschwitz. Among the family members were two children - a girl and a boy aged 7 and 9. We named our daughter after the girl, who would have been her great-great Aunt.

My grandparents all left Poland/Germany before the war but lots of their family were killed. (thanks to Polish antisemitism in the 20s and 30s for my existance. :) )

My favourite aunt escaped from Belgium. She got to a boat going to England but the British capitain only let her and her children on, not her husband. He was caught by the Nazis. She never married again. I think she wasn't quite sure what had happened to him so regarded herself as an aguna. She was however, a wonderful, happy person who lived a very long life.