REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST

A Story For The Entire Family

In 1991, my husband was in Cracow, Poland. He was one of the founders of “The March of the Living.” He had some free moments so he went to visit his friend, the manager of the “Antiquarium,” an “antique” gift shop in the basement of the rebuilt Jewish Community Center. They had met 3 years earlier.

The man was excited to see my husband, and asked him to wait. He wanted to show him something. He went into the back of the store and brought out a dirty wooden box. He told my husband the following story: The week before a Polish woman, about 45 years old, entered the store. She was carrying the wooden box. Her mother had just died, and on her death bed had told her daughter to go into the back yard and dig up the box. It had been left for safe keeping by her mother’s Jewish neighbors. When the war (WWII) had ended, the Jewish family had never returned and by the time her mother had discovered they had been murdered in Auschwitz, the communists had taken over, and it was not safe to talk about Jews.

So the mother had waited until her final moments on earth to tell her daughter to dig up the box and bring it to “somebody Jewish” in Cracow. Hence, the box showed up and was given to the store manager.

The manager opened the box and inside were some papers, old and yellowed, a copper Hanukkah Menorah and a silver kiddush cup, bent and aged. Long story made short: the manager gave these items to my husband and made him promise that he would honor their memory. Especially the kiddush cup, which the manager explained “…should not be placed in a museum – it should be used…”.

The papers were given to Yad VaShem, the National Museum of the Holocaust in Israel.

The Hanukkah Menorah was given to a survivor from Cracow, who lived in South Florida.

The kiddush cup is used at our Sabbath and Holiday table for the past 33 years, always with the story attached.

You too can add on to this story and make it your own.

Tell the above story. That’s what Jews do – we always tell the story. Then tell your family that your own precious Jewish heirlooms will be used every week, in memory of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, 1 ½ million of them children. Tell your children that when they get married, you will make sure that they also have Jewish heirlooms to live with, and to pass on to their next generation, and so on, and so on.