My view of her was bias, since she was the proverbial mother in law who
called my mother every morning at 6:30 am, to make sure that my father had ample
food provisions for the day at the knitting factory she ran.
My grandmother
could even unnerve the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who she knew before anyone did, since
she was BFFs with his mom. When my father had his tonsils out, the Rebbe was
just on the cusp of becoming THE Rebbe and called the house to see how my father
was feeling. He simply said this is “Mendel Schneerson”.
You see the previous
Rebbe had sent her husband all over the world and she was left to raise the kids
all by herself. Essentially, she was a single mother. She was tough, resilient
and a handful. As she used to say about herself, “I’m trootful”.
To be brutally
honest, I never got a hug or an acknowledgement of “love” from her. I struggled
to understand that, but on a day like today, I understand.
MAN, DO I. This woman
lost a mother and two brothers in the Vilna Ghetto. People were being massacred
and murdered. If they weren’t running from Stalin, they ran from Hitler.
Everyone wanted to kill Jews and they did. My grandfather was in and out of
prison, just for being a pious Jew.
She gave birth to her eldest alone and sent
a messenger with the name of her firstborn “Frieda”, which is Yiddish for “Joy”.
I can’t wrap my limited brain around how a woman who is suffering can still
hope.
When pain and trauma is so embedded in the recesses of your soul, you MUST
detach or it kills you. She needed to be there for her family, so she toughened
up. This, I can relate to. A bit too much.
She traveled through Russia, deep
into Asia to save her family. All the while she had to earn money.
Since she was
“on the lam”, there wasn’t much employment to be had, so she became a bartender
to support her family. She procured false papers and after the war, she met my
grandfather in Paris.
She had smuggled her four children with her and
miraculously was reunited with my great grandfather and he moved in
with her until he passed away in the 1970’s.
I was named “Shaina” after his wife
who had been murdered by the Nazis.
But, you see. The Phoenix does rise out of
the ashes.
I lost many of my relatives in the Holocaust. When I was younger, NO
ONE would talk about it. The branded numbers from the concentration camps were
on many arms of the people I knew and loved. It was everywhere and a “normal”
part of my childhood.
I thought that I had more of a chance of seeing a unicorn
on Eastern Parkway, than see people murdered and attacked for being Jewish.
And
those murders being celebrated.
The blood of my ancestors cries out to me. My
grandmother, Chaya Sara does too. #NeverAgain #October7Massacre"
