One Erev Shabbos about 3 years ago, I called my mother to
wish her my usual "Gut Shabbos". My mother sounded somewhat
distracted and after we ended our conversation, she mumbled
"Gut Shabbos" in an undertone and hung up. I was so busy that
after putting down the phone I didn't give it a second
thought. After about an hour, she called me back and told me
this story in a sobbing voice:
"I wanted to tell you, my dear daughter, something about our
past. After surviving the Holocaust, we arrived in Israel in
1948. Most of Hungarian Jewry had been sent to the death
camps towards the end of the war. Somehow we managed to
survive Auschwitz and after the war we went back to our home
in Leboniher (a small town in Hungary). No one was there to
greet us on our return but after several months I discovered
a third cousin of mine who had survived the war in Budapest.
After many efforts, my father was able to join us in
Leboniher and together we set up house.
"Peace and quiet were very short-lived. Soon after, the
Communists took over Hungary and we decided to leave so that
we could live among our fellow Jews. In those days most of
the Jews were living either in Israel or the U.S. We
hesitated, wondering where Yiddishkeit would be the
strongest. Finally we opted for Israel.
"After 3 years of exile in France, we came to Israel. Here we
lived a very frugal life. Our family was growing and we could
hardly make a living. We lived on food stamps and this added
to the constant worry of `Where will our next piece of bread
come from?' (I went through that in my parents' house, and
even afterwards, in times of plenty, we always kept some
bread hidden in a special place.)
"Then, like thunder on a clear day, we heard the news: An
`enlightened', `pleading', `sorrowful' Germany was going to
pay me, and all of us, the whole family, reparation payments -
direct from Germany, straight to our house! No need to make
an effort - just fill out the form and send it back. Just
fill in the details, please: Whom did they burn? Where were
they burned? How many children from the family did they burn?
Perhaps you can recall the dates? Could you, for everyone's
benefit, tell us who did it (it will help us bring the guilty
ones to justice, re: Demienjiuk).
"The subject caused many pangs of guilt to surface. The
public debated - to take - or not to take. `Why remember all
this! If we take, we'll be assuaging their conscience! Whose
conscience? That cursed nation's conscience!' and so
forth.
"My little sister had had lovely long blond curls the color
of antique gold. Her hair had never been cut, not until she
arrived at Auschwitz, where they shaved her hair before
burning her in the crematorium. Her hair was sent to a
factory in Germany in one of the tightly packed cartons where
it was used for stuffing blankets, padding furniture, or
mattresses.
"Somewhere in Germany a little girl is covering herself with
a blanket from which a single golden hair is peeking out. The
little girl puts out her hand and pulls. Little girl give
me back that golden hair! It's my sister's! My poor baby
sister; now they want to pay me money for you. Yet how can I
know how many German marks your hair is worth?
"Then all sorts of excellent products from Germany flooded
the market. The government bought them and was selling them
cheaply as part of the reparations deal. Here in Israel many
people wouldn't buy these items. It's better to buy food than
a product that you keep in your home and which serves as a
depressing reminder.
"The great dispute entered our home, too, where small
children are playing in a cobbled yard. A towel serves as a
makeshift doll, mother is feeding us slices of bread spread
with a bit of oil and a slice of tomato, and her heart is
heavy. Father returns after a backbreaking day of work for
which he receives a paltry salary. `Let's take... It'll be
easier for us. We're raising a new family and we don't have
parents who can help us. Look how the children are dressed,
you must consider them too. No one really believes that the
money is payment for the lives of our loved ones.'
"Father stubbornly refuses. Our family will not take stolen
money: we won't let them relieve the terrible pain we feel
with every bite of bread."
The years passed, and help came from another source. The
Gelendauer family never received payments from Germany.
"Then in 1991 the German government decided to open a fund
for survivors who had never received payments for the loss of
family. Mother convinced Father to fill out a form in her
name only, not for themselves but for the children dedicating
their lives to Torah. In the meantime, the head of our
family, our dear father, R' Yochanan, passed away and the
matter was forgotten."
That Friday, the postman left a letter in the Gelendauer's
mailbox in Jerusalem. The sender: the Reparations Bureau
through the Central Bank in Munich, Germany. "You were
granted one-time reparation payments. Please contact the Bank
of Israel, Jerusalem, for further details."
Mother started crying. All the memories came flooding back
relentlessly: the small house in her home town, the geese
honking in the yard, the beautiful silver candlesticks which
gleamed so, every Friday night. Light and dark, over and
over, her mother and father, and grandmother, and lovely
Tsirel, big Chani, and the lively little cousins. They
want to give me money for you, and I still don't know how
many German marks all those lives are worth!
Mother never enjoyed that money. She immediately divided it
into five parts - one for each of the children, and told
them: This is my real revenge: to support and strengthen
Torah.
Revenge is one thing. But the pain lingers on. "If only I
could have a single hair of my grandfather's beard, only one
of my father's prayerbooks, a broken wheel from my brother
Hershel's carriage, a mote of dust resting on the windowsill
of my house..."
