Each of us has a name given by the sea and given by our death

[sovay]

Despite everything, I am glad I went to the City of Cambridge Annual Holocaust Commemoration at the Tremont Street Shul, because I was surrounded by people who think it is important to remember and said so. Frieda Grayzel spoke of her experience as a child survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz; Margareta Matache read the testimony of Cârjobanu Lucreția, a child survivor of the Roma concentration camp at Covalevca in Transnistria. I had encountered Irena Klepfisz's "Bashert" before, but not Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky's "Each of Us Has a Name." I haven't been to services for more than ten years, but it seems it will take longer than that for me to forget how to say Kaddish. A Besere Velt sang "Yugnt himn," "Hulyet, hulyet, beyze vintn," and "Zog nit keyn mol." I said my great-grandfather's sisters' names.

Comments

[selkie]

Thank you for drawing on your reserves to do this. It was a very strange Holocaust Remembrance Day to get through because it feels, right now, so immediate. For the first time, I put together some materials I'd be willing to show Child. Because as much as one want to eschew phrases like they killed us, they're killing us, and Child is a savvy child who knows the difference between right and legal.

[sovay]

Thank you for drawing on your reserves to do this.

I saw the survivor singing "Yugnt-himn" and "Zog nit keyn mol" with us. I was glad to do that.

(There was also a woman who had come out through the Kindertransport. She led the saying of names.)

It was a very strange Holocaust Remembrance Day to get through because it feels, right now, so immediate.

That was part of what was so awful on the day, the immediacy. It was useful to be around people who didn't shy from it. "Let us pray that our memories keep us human," the rabbi said.

For the first time, I put together some materials I'd be willing to show Child.

What are they? I'm going to have to teach my niece someday.

*hugs*