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

[gwynnega]

That sounds very worthwhile.

I always loved Irena Klepfisz's work. I just looked her up, and she's still living. I wonder why she hasn't continued to publish.

[wpadmirer]

I'm very glad people do still remember. I fear the day when the last survivors are gone. I hope we never forget them.

[thisbluespirit]

<3

[heliopausa]

Thank you for the poem "Each of us has a name" - very sobering, thought-provoking, moving.

[cmcmck]

Romani and Jewish survivors.

That is more powerful than I can express

[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.

[coraline]

i'm glad it was worthwhile.

[asakiyume]

I'm very glad you made it--it sounds profound and important.