Followers

April 12, 2013

A HARD WEEK

‏יום שישי ב' אייר תשע"ג      

This last week was difficult. It is this time of year between Passover and Day of Independence when emotions are saturated with pain and the whole nation feels the tension. 

The counting of the Omer starts right after Passover, and until Pentecost (also known as: Feast of the Weeks; Shavuot) the days are counted as days of mourning.  Only on the 33 day of the Omer count,  weddings will be allowed. This year it will fall on April 28th

But while the counting of the Omer shows mostly in the occasional non-shaved man, the pain of the memories is heavy on everyone.  Last Sunday was the Holocaust Memorial Day; Memorial for the fallen of IDF and the war of independence is next week on April 15th.  The tension build up during the week prior to the memorials and it did not come down as of yet. People were crying, at unexpected time and place, and many participated in memorial services. With 6 million deaths during the Holocaust, most everyone in this country is feeling the loss. 

For us, my husband and me, memories came from a different direction. Some of my family died in Russia during the Holocaust.  They were my maternal grandparents’ siblings and I heard only some of the stories. Others had suffered in Italy, on my  parental grandparents’ side. Again, I  heard only some of the tales of heroic escapes from Mussolini.  My strongest feelings of sorrow this week were related to my husband’s side of the war accounts .

Willie is the first born of a Canadian Veteran and a Dutch lady.  When Ernest entered Holland with the allied armies, and brought with him units of tanks and trucks after a few days of no-sleep and going through fields full of mud and death, he somehow managed to meet Johanna, his future wife.  Only a year or so ago, on his 90th birthday,  did he tell us his story of pain and horrors.  His experiences in the war were similar to many others in the Canadian army who freed Europe.  Like them, he too kept them secretive. It was too painful and horrible to live through the war again by telling the story. So he kept quiet.

Johanna, Willie’s mother, was 15 years old when the war started. Being a relative to the Dutch queen, she was in training as a chef to the palace.  During the war she replaced her spatula with a bicycle and the palace kitchen with the outdoors.  Jo became a go- between the partisans and the Dutch resistance delivering messages on her bicycles right under the Nazis noses.  For a little girl (5 feet nothing) of 15 year of age this was a great fit! She was very brave.  She learned to fight for truth and righteousness from her father.  Grandpa hid Jews and resistance fighters in his barn.  He moved during the war to a farm and continue to hide partisans and Jews alike under bales of hay and in cellars.  For 5 years Jo rode her bike, and grandpa hid people until the war was over.

She never told her war stories to her family.  When I arrived on the scene, Jo gingerly asked if I want to hear some of her accounts. Her children, she said, did not. She thought it might have scared them, so she told the stories to me. To my charging, I listened, but I did not record them.  When we arrived in Israel, I tried to repeat these war accounts at the Holocaust Archives but without proper identification of the ones who were saved they were not able to include her  or the family in our Holy People from the Nations memorial.  The Dutch cousins do not have documentation either, and the older generations have all passed on.

This Holocaust  Memorial Day I cried for my mother-in-law and for Willie’s family who saved people from my nation without a pay back and without a reward. They saved them because the love of God was in their hearts and they knew what is the righteous thing to do. I cried because my wonderful mother in law died at 77 years of age and although it was years ago, I still miss her gentleness and her love.

Willie’s dad, the veteran who freed Europe is alive at almost 91 years of age in Eastern Canada. Willie’s mother is buried in a nearby cemetery in Sussex NB Canada, where she  had arrived as the very first war bride.  May God keep them in our people hearts and memories as the “good guys” they were.

Living among my people
ORITH

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was so interested to read about Willie’s parents...you had told me a little, but I don’t think I knew about the messages on the bicycle...a brave thing to do...when I read things about the war or when I remember things from my own experience or what my parents told me, the most amazing thing to me was always all the courageous, life-threatening things that various people did just because it was the right thing to do...those stories should be kept alive and never forgotten. All the little people who just did what they could where they were, at the risk of their own lives, should always have a voice. What she did was very impressive. H.