holocaust memorial day is a big deal in israel. a two minute siren
sounds at 11:00 am, and the entire country comes to a complete standstill. all
the traffic on the freeways stops, and drivers get out and stand beside their
vehicles solemnly. the siren is a constant pitch, differentiating it from the
sinusoidal siren used to warn of incoming rockets. this year some friends and i
went onto the roof of our hospital in advance to watch the normally bustling world
around us pause. it really is quite poignant for an entire nation to stop what
it is doing and remember something which has had such a major impact on its
people; on the world. a foreigner such as myself can’t begin to understand how
important the memory of the holocaust is to the psyche of this country. when
foreign dignitaries visit, their first required official stop is always the
evocative yad vashem, the holocaust museum in jerusalem. while one can assert that current israeli political leaders unfairly use the memory of the
holocaust to attempt to justify their hawkish and intransigent stances, there can be no
debate that israel has served as an oasis and a “coming home” for millions of
jews who understandably wanted self-determination after the holocaust. despite israel’s faults, that is a beautiful thing.
one of my medical school colleagues organized an evening talk with an
english speaking holocaust survivor. her name was chaya, and she was a small
child in poland when world war ii began. her jewish parents realized things
weren’t looking good for her as a jew, so they gave her to another non-jewish couple
to raise her as their own. during the war she had no idea she was jewish. she
told us of witnessing some terrible atrocities including the merciless murder
of children. torward the end of the war suspicion began to mount that she was
indeed jewish, and the nazis came to murder her; she escaped only thanks to her
“chutzpah.” after the war, her mother, the only family member who had survived,
came to reclaim her. her adoptive family didn’t want to give her up, so her
mother had to go to court and pay a large sum to legally regain custody, a cash
cow for the government at the time. apparently there were huge numbers of
jewish children being raised by adoptive parents. it was quite the story. she
then moved to america, and eventually made aliyah (immigrated to israel) as a
senior citizen. it is extra powerful hearing these stories from the very mouth
of someone who lived it. soon this won’t be possible any more, so i felt very privileged
to be able to hear from chaya. may we never forget.
