My friend Lindsay's grandmother died in an electrical fire last week.
I don't get to see Lindsay's family very often, but she is one of my closest friends, more like a sister.
Lindsay is one of the hardest-working, most disciplined people I know. It runs in the family - her dad is famously hard-working, too. I never gave it much thought until I found out her dad's mom had died unexpectedly and she forwarded me the eulogy he gave for his mother.
Everyone has a story to tell about their life, and some are better than others, but this one warmed my tiny, cold heart in a way that I had not expected.
Thanks for reading.
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On Tuesday morning I started my day with my daily phone call to my brother. We discussed business issues, our calendars for the day, and our families. Little did either one of realize that morning, that hours later, our worlds would change forever. There was no warning, there were no long term illnesses, there were no goodbyes. All that remained now were our memories of our wonderful and incredible mother who died so tragically.
Over the last day or two, I’ve agonized on what to say today and in the end, I decided that I could best honor the memory of my mother by telling the story of her remarkable life.
Her life was not easy. In the lives we lead today, we truly cannot fathom what my mother’s life was like or what she endured. Very few of us, with the exception of other Holocaust survivors and survivors of the brutalities of war, can even begin to understand the toughness and the spirit that my mother possessed. My mother never spoke with my brother Robert or myself of the horrors she lived through and the pain and suffering she endured during the Holocaust. She lived her life with a great spirit and tremendous desire to succeed and to see her family prosper and her family was everything to her. I never once heard her ask “why me” or have an ounce of self pity.
This is a small part of her story; a story filled with dignity and courage.
The war broke out in Poland when my mother was only 12 years old. One day she was asked by her parents to watch her 2 younger sisters. The German army came into the Jewish ghetto of the small town she was living in with fixed bayonets. My mother and her sisters saw this and ran. In the end, my mothers survived, and her 2 sisters who could not run fast enough were never to seen again and presumed dead. Months later, my mother and her 8 year old brother Carl, were given refuge in a Polish home her parents had bribed to take their children in and offer them safety. A few days later, the owner of the house instructed my Mother and her brother to look out the window. They both stood helplessly, this 12 year old child and her 8 year old brother, as they watched their parents being taken by horse and wagon to be executed for the crime of being Jewish. At the age of only 12, my mother had already witnessed 4 members of her immediate family killed. In our world today, we don’t even let 12 year olds go to the grocery store by themselves let alone witness 4 members being murdered. My mother now knew, that she was in the middle of a world gone mad, a world that was creating the Holocaust.
My mother and her brother were now on their own with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had no money, no food and no sanctuary. They were weary and tired. It was starting to snow and they had no cold weather clothing. A 12 years old and an 8 year old trudging through the woods whose only goal was to hide from the Germans and not be killed. They came to a fork in the path and my mother just lay down in the snow not knowing which way to take her little brother. For a moment she gave up and just wanted to lay there and die. Imagine, a 12 year old with nothing to live for except pain and suffering. Moments later she picked herself up and trudged on in the snow, securing safety for the moment for her brother Carl and herself.
Weeks later, my Mother and her brother happened by chance on a relative that created a shelter in the form of a hole in the ground. For the next 3 long years, my mother and her brother lived and hid in a hole in the ground eluding the German army and polish militia. They lived there with just the clothes on their back, never bathing, never receiving medical attention and foraging for food. They never left the hole in daylight and only left when there was total darkness in order to avoid capture and sure death. This existence was not 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months, it was for 3 years. The shear thought of this existence for a young 12 year old girl and an 8 year old boy is truly beyond my comprehension. They survived on an innate desire to survive and vision for life after the hell they were living in.
As the news that the war was ending arrived, my mother and her brother Carl were euphoric. They had survived! They had eluded the German Army and Polish militia for 3 long years of hiding. They were elated and overjoyed. My mother and Carl found some distant relatives and were asked stay overnight in their house that they had taken back. My mother was now a young woman of 16 and Carl was now around 12 years old. That evening my mother slept in the only bed in the house with her aunt and Carl slept on the floor. The rest of the relatives slept in the kitchen and other living areas of the small house. They all were happy, there was peace. That night the polish militia stormed the house as they heard that Jews had settled there again and one by one, execution style gunned down each person in the house killing everyone with the exception of my Mother and Carl. During the attack, my Mother hid underneath her aunt and made believe she was dead. She was soaked with the blood of her aunt, lying motionless as the Polish militia ransacked the house looking for valuables. Her brother, Carl,was shot point blank in the back resulting in three major wounds. How utterly incredible was this, the war was over but the death and destruction continued to follow my mother and her brother. How dishearting this must have been to have survived the war and only to see your remaining family killed. I truly don’t know how you could move past this event and still have hope but they did.
Shortly after the attack, my mother met and married my Father Murray. They traveled around Europe trying to find a safe place to call home. They eventually came the United States. Neither my father or my mother had any formal education as a result of the war, did not know the language and were virtually penniless. However, my mother and father both had an insatiable desire to succeed not for themselves, but for their family. Time and hard work meant nothing to my mother, the desire to succeed for her family was paramount.
For years and years my mother and father worked long hard hours. 15,16,18 hour days were the norm. Rarely a vacation. When people ask Robert and myself about our work ethic, we only have to point to our parents for our inspiration. My parents did it - they achieved the American Dream. After years of hard work, they owned their own business and they were prospering because of their efforts. It seemed Life was finally rewarding them for their many years of pain and suffering that they had endured.
Then on a cold Thursday night in January 1991, my mother and my brother were working at the fish market. A gunman in a robbery attempt, shot my brother Robert and left my mother crying and pleading with the gunman to take the cash register and leave Robert alone. Robert was taken to hospital in serious condition and rushed into the operating room. My mother was distraught and in a state of shock at this horrific event. My mother loved Robert with all her heart and would have sacrificed herself for him totally. My mother never went to the hospital that night and the next morning, she got up a 2 am and went to the store and washed Roberts blood off the floor and went on to work 18 hours. To have gone through the Holocaust, watch your parents taken to their death, survived an attack after the war was over, come to a new country for a new beginning and to have had this horrible thing happen to your son is more misery and pain then any one life should be able to handle. Yet she went on. She never gave up.
This was my Mother’s life. It was not easy, but through all the hardship, my mother always lived in hope. My father, Robert and I always held her on a pedestal and She truly deserved that spot in our hearts. She was the epitome of what a Jewish mother was supposed to be -she worked, sacrificed and loved her family.
My mother loved and was devoted to my father for over 50 years. She loved her sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She took great pride in her whole families accomplishments and was quick to let you know when you didn’t measure up to her high standards.
The last time I spoke to my Mother was last Friday. It was the day after she attended the opening of the new U or R Medical Center Ambulatory Care building that my brother and his partners had just built. Over the phone I could tell how much she was beaming with pride that her son was responsible for such a beautiful building that was filled with such marvelous technology. The happiness in her voice reflected her spirit for life.
This is how I will always remember this remarkable woman who lived such an incredible life. Her life will serve as an inspiration to her sons, grand children and great grandchildren in what can be accomplished with hard work and a never give up spirit. I will never dwell on how she died, but how she passionately she lived her life. My brother Robert and I were truly blessed to be able to call her our Mother.
