At 70 years old, I envisioned that I would be sailing through my retirement years comfortable with my world. Enjoying my family, watching my country continue to flourish, seeing the United States and its reputation be strong in the world, as my husband and I continued to travel and enjoy visiting new places.
This is a far distant vison than the one my great grandmother faced 82 years ago, when in April 1943, she was murdered by the Germans at age 70 in Poland. It was the Thursday before Easter, and after her husband and four children had been murdered and her farm and property had been confiscated by the Germans.
My great grandmother is a bit different than the many unknown who were murdered during the Shoah, as there is a record of her last day taken during the trial held after the war for her murder. I know what she did, what she said, and who killed her. (See blog below.)
For fifty years I had been on a quest to find out what happened to my grandfather’s family. A quest that started after I spent my sophomore of college in Jerusalem. A year when I met many members of my family who survived the Shoah and ended up living in Eretz Israel, the land of Israel.
When I returned home, I was the child who said, I need to know. I sat with all of my grandparents to hear their stories. I wrote everything down. In the 1970s there was no internet, no easy way to discovered what happened. But I kept my papers and over the years when I met other members of my family I wrote down what they said. And slowly, slowly the stories came out.
In some instances, I found out history that perhaps I did not want to know. I learned about my father’s family who came to the USA in the 1870s. I learned of both tragedies and joys.
I learned about a great uncle who ended up in a mental institution, a great aunt who died from the Spanish flu, multiple children who died in their infancies; family menbers who did not speak to each other and a child who was raised by an aunt and did not know till she got engaged.
For my mother’s family, both of her parents came to the USA in the early 1920s, I learned about the hundreds of cousins, siblings, parents, all many of relatives that were murdered in the Shoah, as well as ones who had been saved.
I learned about relatives who were on Schindler’s List. Those who were saved by the Kinder Transport and ended up in England. A cousin who survived the Kelce Pogrom. Others who hid in the forests near their home town and formed a group like the one in the movie, “Defiance,” but these were my family.
I learned about a relative who converted to Catholicism before the war, but during the war she tried to save her sibling and her children. She was not successful. Their bodies were found buried in a field when construction was being done about three years ago. The driver of the vehicle was the grandson of the relative who converted, so Catholic himself. He had dug up the bodies of his own dead Jewish great aunt and her family. Can you imagine the irony of this?
I learned that owning property or having money does not save you. What might save you is luck, fortitude, or relatives who might have a chance to get your out. But you also had to make your own luck. You had to want to survive.
My great grandmother finally gave up. Everyone was dead, she had been hiding in the forest with others for a while. But then she was done. It was too much sorrow. Too much loss.
In this world with the chaos and uncertainty surrounding the economy; the round up of immigrants, even those with legal residences; the job losses; the attacks on education; the attacks on the rights of LGBTQ communities; the rise in anti-Semitism and hatred toward Israels and Jews, I have had to re-evaluate.
Could our property be confiscated? Could our savings be stolen? Could people in the USA be forced to hide in the woods to stay safe? Will people just give up?
Am I really so different from my great grandmother whom I am named after? Should I consider my own exit strategy? Believe me my mind often mulls over the options.
But it is the Tuesday before Pesach and Easter. It is two days before the 82nd anniversary of my great grandmother’s murder by the German mayor of Czermin, Jukub Hesler.
So I am pondering and considering and hoping that our Constitution is strong enough. That our courts are strong enough. That our elected politicians remember who they vow allegiance to: The CONSTITUTION of the United States of America. And who they serve, the people of their states and districts.
I wish everyone a Zissel Pesach, a happy Pesach. And I wish all who celebrate Easter a happy Easter. And I wish to everyone throughout the countries of the Earth a peaceful and joyful 2025.
zicharonot 
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