Auschwitz - a letter of love

Last week I went to Auschwitz with the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Archbishop of Canterbury and leaders from seven other faiths as guests of the Holocaust Education Trust. It was my second visit, and prompted this reflection.

Among the most moving of all were two of the documents published in the trust's programme for the day. The first is a letter from a mother to a daughter. The mother is about to be sent to a death camp, where she knows she will die. She has no choice, if her daughter Mirele is to live, to give her up to a grocer who might be able to save her. Mirele did survive, and the letter was found sewn inside her clothing. The second document is her reflection on this, as an adult.

Mama writes:

Dear Mirele,

I can’t believe I have one night to stuff a lifetime of love into this letter.

Tomorrow morning – if 4.00 am can be called morning, I am giving you up.

I am taking you, Mirele, to the back entrance of dear, brave Hermann’s grocery and the child rescuers will be waiting there for you and the thirty-two other children under the age of three.

They’ll inject you with a sedative so you won’t cry and then they’ll slip off in the predawn with you – my life, my love, out of this barbaric country to safety.

We pushed it off, Mirele. We didn’t want to believe we would have to give up our child, probably never to see her again. But this is the last child rescue. After this there will be none left to rescue, because tomorrow, our informers tell us, is the last big round up.

Tomorrow they come for men, women and children. And I have been convinced by these words, spoken by our trusted informer, Hermann, the brave gentile doctor, “Any child they take away either dies immediately or dies on the way to the death camp”. The word death three times in one sentence!

We were the last ones to be convinced to be giving up our child. He said finally, with the deepest sadness in every exhausted wrinkle in his face, “I cannot force you. But if you keep her with you, she will be dead in a month. They have no use for babies, she cannot work for them. If you want to give her to us, bring her to the back entrance of my grocery at 4.00 am. No belongings, whatever food you have. Goodbye”.

Mirele, do you see why I have to give you up? He said no belongings, but I will beg, I will plead that this letter be allowed to go, sewn into your undershirt. And then, I will pray to G-d that the letter stays with you until you are old enough to read it. You must know that we love you. You must know why you are alone, without parents. Not because they didn’t love you…but because they did!

It’s eerie to think that by the time you read this I will probably be dead. That’s what Hermann says is going on. People either die immediately or on the way or after a week or two of forced labour and no food. But I won’t have lived in vain, Mirele, if I know that I brought you into the world and you will live and survive and grow big and strong and you will be happy. You can be happy, Mirele, because we loved you.

What makes the differences in the lives of adults, it seems, is if they had secure childhoods. Secure with lots of love and acceptance and needs fulfilled and predictable routine and the like. You’ve had that up to this minute. You’ll have it up till 4.00 am. But then you won’t. Who knows who will end up taking care of you? Some family who will take you in for the money Hermann will pay them? They will surely be kinder to their own than to you.

Here is where pain mixes with rage! I rage at the animals who are making it possible for you to cry and I won’t be there to comfort you. But you will have this letter, and this letter will make you feel secure, if G-d answers my prayers. You have us, Mirele, even though you don’t see us, we’re with you. We’re watching you and praying for you. Every time you have troubles we are pounding on the door to G-d’s very throne room, insisting on an audience and demanding mercy for our Mirele down on earth, alone, without her parents. And G-d will listen to us. We won’t leave Him alone until he agrees that you deserve health, love and happiness.

Mirele, you’ll wonder what your first two years were like. You’ll wish you could remember. Let me remember for you right now, tenderly, on this piece of paper. You like hot cereal in the morning, with lots of milk and sugar. Except that there is no milk and sugar now, none in the whole city. But I make you cereal anyway and you eat it with big smiles between every bite. Then you come ready for your nap, so I rock you, after putting the rocker where the sunlight will fall on it. I rock you until you fall asleep and then I put you in my bed. You sleep well there, you like my smell.

What will you smell tomorrow night? Surely nobody will rock you tomorrow, not even in the shade. Oh G-d? I cannot do it! I will do it. For you, Mirele, so you will have at least a hope for life. Mirele, do me a favour, after you’ve grown, after this dirty nightmarish war is over…I know there will be those who underplay the tragedies going on here every day. They will say, “A war is a war. It was just a war”. Mirele, tell them about this agony! Tell them how you felt secure in my arms rocking you to sleep in the sunlight. Tell them how your father ran, one night, a year ago, to get you medicine, past sentries, while breaking the curfew. He risked his life to ease your pain, Mirele. And now the three of us are being torn apart. “Just a war”…?! Tell them, Mirele, that all wars in the world don’t add up to the agony in my heart right now as I write this. G-d it’s 2.00 am already. Only two more hours with my love, my baby, my life, my Mirele. I’m going to hold you now, Mirele, for two hours. Your father and I are going to wake you, feed you and tell you over and over how much we love you. You’re barely two years old, but maybe, if G-d is good, maybe, you’ll remember it and maybe you’ll keep this letter until you’re old enough to read it.

There will be bad times for you, Mirele, I know. But just think about me holding you, rocking you to sleep in the sunlight. Keep that sunlight in your heart always. I love you. Your father loves you. May G-d help us all.

Mama

Mirele writes:

Dear Readers, Miracles happen – my mother’s letter stayed with me, sewn into my undershirt and I am getting old myself and have decided to share it with you.

After almost fifty years of keeping it private, why did I translate it from the Yiddish and decide to share it with you now?

A few reasons… Firstly, one doesn’t hear much about the Holocaust anymore very much these days. There are even those who claim it was made up, not true, a brilliant Jewish ploy for sympathy. My mother asked me to remind you that it wasn’t “just a war”. It was a monstrosity.

Secondly, my mother’s faith in G-d, even at that dreadful hour, never ceases to amaze me. Even though she was almost certain that she would soon die, as indeed she did, she believes firmly in G-d to whom she can turn both before and after her earthly life ends. This strengthens my faith and perhaps it will strengthen yours.

And lastly – I know I’m from a different generation. Nowadays I’m told, all mothers work. But sometimes I look out my window and see little children, just two years old. That’s how old I was when my mother was forced to give me up to strangers. And I look out my window and see these two year olds cry because they want to stay with their mothers, but their mothers are putting them on the bus because they want to be free of them – and sometimes it doesn’t seem right.

You mothers who are lucky enough to have babies – raise them too. Don’t throw them out before they’re ready. Don’t leave them before they’re ready. Go now. Rock them in the sunlight. For my mother. Miriam bas (daughter of) Leiba.

(In my mother’s letter, she didn’t leave her name, but I always think of her as Leiba – “Love”. I’m lucky. Many of the children rescued with me don’t even know their own names.)

Comments

[James F. Warren]

Ruth

A small suggestion. Most of your correspondents write under an assumed name (with one or two honorable exceptions). Might I suggest that if people like "Jenny" want a forum on your blog that you insist that they post their full names so that we all know who we are dealing with.

(rg writes: thank you for the suggestion, but it is a tradition throughout the blogosphere that commenters are allowed to be anonymous or use pseudonyms. we just cannot know of all the reasons why some might wish not to use their real names.)

[The Truth Hurts]

Ruth Gledhill has always been a polite, honest, professional and generous host to many of us who have differing views on this blog.
We have criticised her occasionally but we respect and admire her.
The agressive, exagerated, hate filled posting by Jenny was completly uncalled for and I admire her gracious reply.
In effect, Ruth was called a Nazi facilitator, and that is a grossly obscene insult to fling at a woman with firm principles.

I wonder Ruth, when you return home from work, flop down exhausted on an armchair and chat to your husband, whether you say "The Times doesn't pay me enough to receive all this hate!".

Well done for publishing that posting Ruth.

[Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA]

Kate, thank you so much for this. Would love to meet up some time.

[Richard]

Such a powerful letter - I cried all the way through. As a father who is now seperated from his children and break up everytime they text their love for me, it resonated strongly as I leave them each week, and it made me want to demand that these atrocities should never be allowed again. Thank you, Ruth for your blog, I hope the trip helped your faith rather than hindered it. The tears I cried came from God too. Blessings, Richard. (an evangelical Christian)

[Kate]

Irene: Welcome back. You've been missed.

In the interval, I've been busily quoting you here, and elsewhere, on the error of 'literal' readings of the Old Testament in translation!!
Regards, Kate

[Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA]

As someone whose parents were Polish and whose uncle survived Auschwitz,and having taught the Holocaust and translated Holocaust memoirs, may I say that the comparison between the Nazis and present-day British Anglicans such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Ruth Gledhill is inappropriate.

We are all human and we all make mistakes. I have in the past disagreed with the ABC over his stance on Israel, which he has now substantially altered due to intense education and sober thought.

As for Ruth Gledhill, I don't always agree with everything she says, but she is a true friend to the Jewish people and far less critical of Israel, say, than many in the Jewish community.

Every religion has disagreements among itself, but as a member of the Jewish community, I am truly inspired by the way in which the Church of England is trying to cope with the enormous differences of opinion aired by its various members.

This is surely the sign of a healthy organism and I hope that the Church of England goes from strength to strength and that we all manage to deal with the real threats to our existence, i.e. extremist, deadly religion and militant atheism, neither of which is prevalent in the Church of England I know and appreciate.

[j]

Jenny I understand that your faith may mean a lot to you, but I think that you insult the suffering of the dead by making this comparison from a place of relative safety and prosperity.

And you have still never apologised for your post in which you alleged that only christians ever undertake humanitarian or ethical work, or even accepted how wrong it was.

In denying the truth put in front of you, and in refusing to acknowledge your mistake or apologise for your prejudices, you are also akin to the Germans who facilitated Hitler by clinging to their bigoted views of Jewish people in defiance of all evidence to the contrary- and again, worse, as you have had the advantages of education.

[Kate]

Jenny, attempts to disguise your dyspeptic, bullying tendencies - across threads - under the epithets 'liberal' and 'Democrat' are futile.

There something deeply sinister in persistent, vacuous and offensive rebukes to the owner of this blog.

"Ms. Gledhill, you should remember that "journalists" like yourself, helped provide cover for the atrocities, just as you provide cover for the atroities that are being perpetuated now. The harassment, the persecution of the religious, those who refuse to conform to the demands of the PC PTB."

WHAT! Can you READ? We have reached Persecution Index 16!! Perhaps you simply suffer the all-pervasive, comprehension difficulties exhibited by so many self-righteous bigots?

Envy is a self-destructive emotion Jenny. You would do well to examine your obsession with 'persecuting' and defaming our host.

[Robb]

Ruth
Thank you for this. I was 6 yrs oid when WWII ended.

I can not not comprehend this and I probably never will.

[Jenny]

What should be considered is that what happened at Auschwitz, and throughout all the areas that nazi's took hold, came about because of the willingness of others, all across Europe, to look the other way. To ignore the atrocities, some tittering away behind their hands, because after all, it wasn't them being harmed. Of course, they were wrong.

Ms. Gledhill, you should remember that "journalists" like yourself, helped provide cover for the atrocities, just as you provide cover for the atroities that are being perpetuated now. The harassment, the persecution of the religious, those who refuse to conform to the demands of the PC PTB.

When you gave cover for the hateful slanders against the African bishops, by Catherine Roskam, and Gene Robinson, when you give pass to Rowan Williams, not challenging him when he treats death threats against the Archbishop of Rochester, and new converts to Christianity, you are following in the footsteps of those that facilitated Hitler.. and you are even worse than they were, because you have the lesson of their foolishness to have informed you.. yet you callously repeat those same wrongs.

(rg writes: Jenny, other bloggers elsewhere, from the opposite perspective, have compared me to Ann Coulter, an equally inappropriate comparison as your own. Being respectful towrds Cantuar and Gene Robinson is not to be in the same league as Hitler. The more accurate blogger in attempting to summarise my views was the one which described my Anglicanism as the 'cycling to church' variety.)