Wednesday Reflections

We had a session yesterday Wednesday afternoon on the antecedents of Holocaust writing. He raised the question of “What’s the point in studying literature?” There were some beautiful answers, and I’ll list them below, but it sounds like a therapeutic Thursday discussion for the 2015-16 AP class to me…….. ;)

Literature enables you to live an existence that’s not really yours.
It brings creativity, innovation and productivity.
Students/people see themselves reflected in literature.
It gives history a face and a name.
If history deals with the masses, literature’s forte is the individual.
Counterpoint to previous: History and literature are irreparably connected.

He also made the following statement, a statement that I find to be so powerful I think I’ll hang it in my classroom: Literature gives a conduit for a vibrant experience for those who have previously felt ostracized and alienated.

Wednesday morning, we toured the historical museum. It was a uniquely personal and emotional experience and, while I am going to sit on most of the factual type stuff I wrote down (which I will be adding to my curriculum), I want to share some of the specific stories Ephraim told us as we toured the facility.

We had an architecture and history lecture from Ephraim as we all sat on little camping stools outside in the courtyard. In discussing what normal life is like in Israel, he told a story about his time in the military. He had a very close friend who was killed during the Yom Kippur War. Ephraim was the one who had to take his buddy’s personal effects to his family. He said he sat in the living room with the parents and that the dad comforted HIM instead of the other way around. The friend’s father was a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire first family in the Holocaust. He married another woman after liberation, they moved to Israel, and started an orphanage for refugee children.

The book burnings of the Nazi era are pretty widely known. And most people are (appropriately) bothered by it, while we bibliophiles are even horrified by it. On Wednesday, though, I heard something that put the book burnings into perspective for anyone, no matter your level of affinity for books. Between the years of 1900 and 1933, 44 Germans won a Nobel Prize. FORTY-FOUR. A NOBEL PRIZE. As Ephraim stated, when a country like that is burning books, something is dramatically wrong.

The story below is one of the sweetest I have ever heard. It's copied and pasted here from a document they sent us after telling us the story.
THE STORY OF CHERUB

The parents - Hanna and Yehuda Hohenstein lived in Berlin with their 7 children. In 1943 the Nazis decided to make Berlin Judenrein-and the Jews were sent to different camps. The Hohenstein's were sent to Terezin- this was a transit camp for many Jews that were deported from Germany and Austria- before they were sent to the death camps.

In Sept. 1943 the father and their 7 children were all sent to the east- to Auschwitz. Hana remained in Terezin-not knowing that she was pregnant with number #8.

In 1944 she was sent to a concentration camp in Germany- Buchenwald.

In April 1944 she gave birth in this camp to a baby boy. She desperately wanted him to survive and she convinced one of the guards to take him out of the camp and place her little baby on a pile of dead bodies- hoping that maybe someone would pass by- hear the cries of a little baby and pick him up and save him. She wrapped up her little son in rags and tied a small piece of cloth around his little wrist with her number inscribed on it. This was his only identification.

A priest walked by and heard the cries of a small baby- he picked him up and took him back to the monastery. They named this little boy- CHERUB- a little Angel-

There he grew up for the next 5 years.

Meanwhile both Hana and Yehuda had survived the Holocaust- together with 2 of their 7 children that were sent to Auschwitz.

Hana was ill and in a hospital in Switzerland- she begged her husband to return to Germany and to Buchenwald and to the villages and monasteries in that area.

He listened to his wife.

He returned to the area of Buchenwald and searched for his son- he finally happened onto one monastery- there the Priest told him that they had sheltered 3 Jewish children- 2 had come with identification- and one- they found as a little baby- they knew nothing about him.

The only identification they had was a small piece of rag with a number inscribed on it that was wrapped around his wrist.

He asked to see the rag with the number- .......................it was his wife's number from Buchenwald!!!!

He reunited with his son- they reunited with his wife and settled in back in Germany in 1950.

The parents gave him a new name- Joshua- Yehoshua- in Hebrew.

In 1962- when Joshua turned 18 years old- they decided to send him to Israel in order that he should meet a Jewish partner - marry and create a family in the Jewish state.

He lives today in Givatiym- outside of Tel Aviv- is married and has children.

This is one Holocaust story with a semi-happy ending.