The grandmother of Rabbi Elisha Friedman of the Young Israel of Forest Hills was the keynote speaker at the Yom HaShoah commemoration on Sunday, May 5.
Esia Friedman spoke of growing up and surviving the Holocaust in Vilnius, Lithuania, to more than 70 attendees at the Young Israel of Forest Hills.
Napoleon called Vilnius, “The Jerusalem of the East,” when passing through the city in 1812. Vilnius had 150 synagogues, five newspapers, two magazines, clubs, “the greatest writers, and chazanim. The Koussevitzky brothers, great chazanim and musicians, and the Vilna Gaon were from there, said Esia Friedman.
Esia’s grandfather was a well-known rabbi. “So much of the things that were happening in Jewish life” happened in her grandfather’s house. The vote for representing the Jews in then-Palestine happened in her grandfather’s house.
Poland occupied Lithuania from 1919 to 1939. “We were hated. We know that. The pogroms always continued.”
“A righteous Christian, President Herbert Hoover,” told the Polish government, “if they didn’t stop the pogroms, he will cut off aid.” As opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt who said at the Yalta Conference, “What are we going to do with them (the Jews)?” said Esia Friedman,
The Soviet Union invaded Lithuania in 1939. Then the Germans invaded in 1941. The Jews in Vilnius were put to work clearing out forests. After completion, the Jews were put into ghettos. The Nazis “liquidated” the Vilnius ghetto twice with the help of Ukrainians, Poles, and Lithuanians. Estonians helped the Nazis during the second Vilnius ghetto liquidation, when the Nazis didn’t have enough people.
Esia’s father was an administrator at a military hospital who befriended Polish police and priests. A righteous Christian family, who knew Esia’s father, hid Esia in the cellar inside a garbage bin. Her father’s friend was the janitor at the home.
Esia hid under a bed whenever Nazis and Fascist sympathizers came. The janitor built a trap door in the cellar so Esia could escape if the Nazis came. They put pepper around Esia’s hiding spot so dogs wouldn’t pick up a human scent. Esia also went into the forests if needed.
Esia’s mother eventually hid there, too. Esia credits her mother for surviving by always thinking ahead. Esia’s brother was the leader of the Young Beitar movement in Vilnius. He survived by eventually becoming a Soviet officer.
“Many years later, my father found us,” said Esia. Rabbi Friedman said in an email interview that Esia’s father got to Russia, where he worked in a military hospital. “They didn’t know what happened to him until, years later, they found him in America.”
“They say to me, forget it,” said Esia Friedman, “and I said, ‘No, we can’t forget it.’ We must say, and re-say, and retell the story.”
“The pain has never eased. The memories are vivid, so vivid as if they happened today. As Elie Wiesel said, ‘For the living and the dead, we the survivors must give testimony.”
Germany invaded 21 countries during World War II. Only four countries refused to hand over their Jews to the Nazis: Albania, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Finland ensuring their survival. The other 17 countries did not help Jews “because of their teaching, their hatred that they had been teaching for 2,000 years,” said Esia Friedman.
Before his grandmother spoke, Rabbi Elisha Friedman said that Jews don’t currently need reminders why remembering the Holocaust is so important. “You can just watch the news, and what’s going on all around us and it becomes why it was important.” “All sorts of anti-Semitism just recently sort of broken through, and in a very frightening way.”
The next generation needs to know “of these great cities, these great communities, that were just a few decades ago powerhouses of Jewish communities, and now they are totally gone from the world,” said Rabbi Friedman.
Rabbi David Algaze of Congregation Havurat Yisrael then said the kinah (a lamentation), the Elegy on the Churban (Destruction), written by Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah.
Rabbi Judah Kerbel of the Queens Jewish Center said the prayers for the hostages and the Israel Defense Forces.
After Esia Friedman spoke, the second and third generations of Holocaust survivors lit the six Holocaust memorial lights in the back of the shul.
Rabbi Joseph Mergui of Congregation Machazikei Hadas in Paris, France, read T’hilim 130. He is the father of Rabbi Zalman Mergui of the Tifferet Shalom congregation at the Young Israel of Forest Hills.
Rabbi Yossi Mendelson said the Keil Malei Rachamim (G-d Full of Mercy). A group Kaddish followed. “Ani Mamin” – I believe (in the coming of Mashiach) – closed out the program.
Refreshments were sponsored by Sara and Saul Schwartz in honor of Saul’s parents. Saul’s father was a Jewish partisan who fought in the woods of Poland for more than three years. Saul’s mother survived hiding with a Christian family in Berlin. Saul’s parents met on the breadline at a Displaced Persons camp in Berlin. They came to the United States from Berlin in 1952.
By David Schneier
