I am a first generation American. I grew up with a grandmother who had a thick

German accent. I always wondered why our family was so small, why I had only a

couple of distant relatives: the brothers who owned a bakery in New Jersey, the

professor on Long Island. My 90 year old Tanta Enshtina who spoke no English and

lived in a four bedroom flat way up on the West Side of Manhattan, with her son

Herbert and his wife Thea, who was twice his size–all with very thick accents (they

never had children, and my mother claimed it was because she slept in the center of

their bed when she first came to the United States as an 8 year old). Tanta was on

the kindertransport, being taken away to a concentration camp with her sister. They

made it to the back of the train, where they were both going to jump to freedom.

Tanta jumped, her sister hesitated, and was shot on the spot. She lived to 100 years

old.

 

I don’t remember how many times in my life I heard that story. I am not even sure if

I remember the story correctly. Tanta Enshtina died many years ago, and Herbert

and Thea are gone as well. Along with stories about family members who lost

everything as they left Germany in a hurry. Others never made it out of Europe, their

names relegated to lists on a wall, their family lines blotted out by the death camps

of the Nazis.

 

My story is not a unique one. So many in my generation have grown up with a

parent or other close relative who was a survivor, or who’s family was displaced and

found their way to America. Over the years, I have had the honor to participate in

memorial services for men and women whose bravery, tenacity, and sheer will

allowed them to survive the horrors of the Holocaust, come to America, raise a

family, build a business, and live a life of freedom as a Jew. I have only respect and

love and gratitude for the generation who lived through the H

olocaust. And I know, by the time my children are grown with children of their own, this generation will have gone. “Never Again” is the phrase that has reverberated in Jewish

communities for over 75 years. According to the Pew report that came out almost a decade ago, the Holocaust was the number one connection that Jews had to their people. Will that still be the case when they are no longer among us? Will we continue to feel inside of us the deep connection to those whose lives were lost merely because they were Jews? Will we make sure that our children have these stories as a part of their heritage? Will we do our best to ensure that it never happens again?

Today, all over the world, Jews are remembering. Today, all over the world, it is

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day.

 

Today we continue to feel it and connect to it.