Parshas Bo – Tell the Story

By: Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin

This week’s parsha, Bo, tells us of the mitzva of V’higadeta l’vincha, and you shall tell your son…” (Shemos 13:8). The story of the Exodus. The story of a people that, with HaShem’s strong hand, were miraculously liberated after years of enslavement and oppression. The story that repeats itself time and time again. As we say in the Pesach Haggada, “Bechol dor v’dor, In every generation and generation, omdim oleinu l’chaloseinu, they rise up against us, to annihilate us.”

This past Monday, January 27, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A day that marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. A day to tell the story.

How sad it is that the story of the Holocaust is being forgotten, and even worse, at times denied. An Axios survey reported that 48% of Americans aren’t able to name a single concentration camp. In another survey of 1,000 college students, the majority didn’t know that 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

It is now eighty years later. Sadly, the Holocaust survivors amongst us are dwindling, their numbers diminishing every year, their voices slowly dying out. We can’t allow their stories to die with them.

As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I didn’t need a designated day to remember the Holocaust. Every day was Holocaust Remembrance Day. My mother would share with us children her life experiences during that dark time. There are some stories that no matter how many times I heard them, they touched my neshama. They brought tears to my eyes. Stories that made me feel the pain of our people.

When my granddaughter Miriam completed her seminary year in Israel, she went to Eastern Europe on a Holocaust tour. The group went to Auschwitz. An Auschwitz that is a far cry from the Auschwitz that once was. It has been “cleaned up and sanitized”. Grass and bushes have been planted where there was once cold, hard earth and weeds. A gift shop sells souvenirs and art materials, not far from buildings that once housed gas chambers and crematoria. Even a restaurant, where visitors can indulge on their way out. How sad that for many, this has become just another tourist attraction.

For Miriam’s group, this visit had a far different meaning. “Kol demei achicha tzo’akim eilai, Your brother’s blood is crying out to Me.” (Bereishis 4:10) The understood that the land they were standing on was soaked with the blood of our people. They saw encased piles of hundreds and hundreds of shoes, suitcases, eyeglasses, and even hair, that made it so real.

There were also books on display. Big books filled with the names of those who perished. Page after page – thousands of them – countless names the Nazis systematically and meticulously listed. Amongst them, Miriam was able to locate pages and pages listing Jungreis names. Lives all brought to an end by the Nazi war machine. My family, and so many others. Klal Yisroel’s family. As the navi Yirmiyahu cried out upon seeing the ruins of the Beis HaMikdash,”Al eileh ani bochiya, For these I cry”. V’higadeta. For these neshamos, we must tell the story.

Eli Weisel so eloquently said, “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness to continue the story.” It is us, the children of survivors, who must continue speaking for those who can no longer speak.

My mother spoke of the Nazis invading her home town, shutting down shuls, desecrating sifrei Torah, and torching room after room of seforim. Then came ghettos, more restrictions, and finally deportations. The Jewish community of Szeged, Hungary, was forcefully gathered to the town square. Where they were going to, what was to happen next, no one knew.

My mother, just a little girl then, stood with her family, holding on tightly to her favorite doll. The non-Jewish locals came by to laugh and jeer at their Jewish neighbors. From the corner of her eye, my mother saw Bridgie, the daughter of the super from the building my mother lived in. My grandmother had always gone out of her way to be kind to the super. Surely, Bridgie, who had been her friend, was coming to say goodbye, my mother thought.

But that was not the case. Bridgie stood in front of my mother, and with a quick grab, the doll was hers. “But that’s mine”, my mother protested. “Ha” laughed Bridgies’s father, “where you’re going to, you will have no need for dolls”. And with that, the two walked away.

A little story, but a telling story. A story that tells how hate can be taught from father to child.

My mother and her family were taken to Bergen-Belsen. The Germans would distribute hard, moldy pieces of bread. A far cry from anything tasty. Each day, my zeide would put aside a tiny piece of his ration. Come Shabbos, zeide would place the pieces of bread together for my mother and her brothers. Zeide would gather the children together, saying “My kinderlach, my dear children…close your eyes…we are back home, sitting around the Shabbos table. Mama baked the most delicious challah. The table is covered with a white cloth. The Shabbos candles are burning, the kiddush cup is filled. The Shabbos malochim, the Shabbos angels, are surrounding the table.” Zeide would sweetly sing Shalom Aleichem, welcoming the angels of Shabbos.

One Friday night, my mother’s younger brother, my uncle Brudy z”l, innocently asked, “Tattie, ich zeh nisht kein malochim, I don’t see any angels! Where are the Shabbos angels?”

“You, my lichtege kinderlach, my children full of light, you are the malochim, the angels of Shabbos.”

To tell a child that no matter where life takes you, you can be a malach, an angel.

At the Bris Bein Habesorim, HaShem gave Avraham a glimpse into the future.

Yodea teida… You should know, your children will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will be worked, and they will be oppressed. The story of our nation’s life in Egypt. The story of the Holocaust. Made to feel like strangers in the land. It began by denying Jews access to public transportation, schools, shuttering Jewish businesses. Forced labor. Just think of the “welcome sign” at Auschwitz and Dachau: “Arbeit macht frei, Work makes you free”. And they will be oppressed. People tormented, starved, enduring inhumane conditions.

It’s happening again. Another year of horrifying suffering for the hostages in Gaza. Taken into a land not their own. Forced to live under terrible conditions. Physically tortured, emotionally tormented, denied basic sanitary needs, deprived of nutrition. It is a story we dare not allow the world to forget. It is another chapter in the obligation of V’higadeta.

Let us daven for the day to come very soon when we can tell the closing chapter of our story, the chapter of the coming of Moshiach.

Shabbat Shalom!

Chaya Sora

Chaya Sora can be reached at [email protected]

This article was written L’zecher Nishmas/In Memory Of HaRav Meshulem ben HaRav Osher Anshil HaLevi, zt”l and Rebbetzin Esther bas HaRav Avraham HaLevi, zt”l