בכל דור ודור (b'chol dor vador), in every generation, we tell our stories. And in each generation, we listen to the stories of those who came before. The stories of our family, so we might find empathy with past generations, and extend that empathy to the present. We learn who we are and where we come from.
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A story is not an unchiseled stone. A story is a set of tablets, etched with sacred words of commandment, commitment, and obligation. A story is not ambivalent about its circumstances and it is not ambivalent toward those who receive it. A story demands.And there is a long story that leads up to this picture being taken. A story that I am only recently piecing together. A story that still has, and likely will continue to have, many gaps. A story that is compelling. But I don’t just mean compelling as interesting, it is a story that compels, that has a commanding power on my life and the life I hope to live.
I came across this photo in the summer of 2016. My grandfather, who had passed away three years prior, had been living in Fort Lauderdale and I went to collect a few boxes of papers, photos, and artifacts from his house. In my mind’s eye, he had always looked like…a grandpa. This was the first time I saw a young photo of him, looking dapper in his army uniform. And as my family started going through all of these artifacts, we started learning new things about him.
Most shocking to everyone in my family is that his name wasn’t Pierre at all. It was Klaus. Klaus Peter. The story I was always told was that his name was Pierre at birth, because, as a Jew born in Berlin in 1933, his parents didn’t want him to seem German, so they gave a French first name to throw off the authorities. Thinking back on it, that story doesn’t make much sense, but I accepted it, because, what else did I have?
But, when we came across all of these papers: immigration documents, journals, government papers written in German and French, I was both in awe and wracked with guilt. I knew bits and pieces of my grandfather’s story of surviving the Holocaust, but I knew that I only held a sliver of that story. I had asked questions as a child, but the answers I received and the way I could comprehend those answers, was at the level of a 10 year old.
But there was more than that. While I was celebrating all of these new bits of family history, I knew that back home, a DVD had been sitting on a shelf for two years. It’s an interview of my grandfather from 1996, as part of Steven Spielberg and The Institute for Visual History and Education’s effort to record interviews with survivors of and witnesses to the Holocaust.
I wanted to know his story, I had the materials needed to learn that story, but, for some reason I resisted. For sure, in part, who would choose to cozy up on the couch on a Saturday night to watch a Holocaust testimony? There was more, and, having taken the time to reflect on it, I think I have a better sense of why.
I was afraid. Afraid of the story. Afraid to know, beyond the platitudes and broad sweeping arcs of the narrative, the terror and pain my grandfather went through. Afraid how hearing it would make me feel. Afraid of the responsibility I would incur by hearing that story. And, having identified the fear, I told myself that Elul was a time to be brave. So, this summer, we loaded up the video. Took a deep breath, and hit play.
I felt a tug on my heart as my grandfather talked about people in the family who, like my brother, my dad, and me, loved singing. I noticed mannerisms he shares with my dad. Mannerisms he and I share. I felt connected when he spoke about the importance of relationships and community. I noticed the generational commitment to service. And a legacy of adapting and hustling to make sure that the family is taken care of.
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| Birth Certificate with official German seal |
Eventually, they were able to get forged papers and went to Troyes, France. There they lived a life pretending to be Christians. They said they were from Alsace-Lorraine, a border region, explaining their German accents, and the combination of French and German names.
My grandfather said that his first memory was going to the synagogue in Troyes with his father before they had to hide their Judaism. Troyes, in the 11th Century, a thousand years ago, was home to the great sage of our tradition, Rashi. A thriving, intellectual Jewish community. And in the 1930s, Troyes was home, in part, to the Fenster family. Stateless, afraid, and on the verge of concealing their Judaism in order to survive.
Eventually, they decided that Troyes was no longer safe, so they ventured south, toward Lyon, traveling by any means available.They survived bombings and shellings, and on multiple occasions, friends, righteous gentiles, warned them that the Gestapo was sweeping the neighborhood, and they were able to sneak out the back of their apartment just in the nick of time to avoid being caught.
I found myself waiting to hear the stories that I recalled from conversations with my grandfather. But those stories never came. I only knew the cliff notes, and, now, I got the whole story.
I had no real sense of his childhood. I had a vague recollection that he had been hidden in a monastery, but, in truth my grandfather lived as a local, pretending to be Christian. He went to catechism with the rest of the children in the town as if it was a natural part of family life. He even got roped into being a choir boy. And as battles were waged near Lyon, his parents, multiple times, had to choose between keeping the family together and making choices to keep him safe. So they sent him to children’s homes in the country so he would be further from the gunfire. Impossible choices that I can barely even begin to understand.
I waited to hear the story about the Nazi bullet that flew by his head; a story that, when I heard it as a child, I thought was noble and heroic. But, in truth, I learned that in France, when he was seven, a Nazi soldier offered him chocolate, and my grandfather had the presence of mind to pretend he did not speak German so he would not be discovered. At just seven years old. To have that presence, that awareness, that fear. I learned that while on a train, German bombers attacked, knowing the train carried French soldier in retreat. They fled the train and his mother rushed him to a field. They hid under a blanket as bombs fell and bullets flew overhead while he cried and said, "Shema Yisrael, I won’t see my father again."
These were the stories I was afraid to hear. I watch the news, I read histories, I am aware of pain and suffering in the world, but that pain and suffering has always been at an arm’s length. And now, here they are, right in front of me. My family. Trauma that I knew existed, but I had shielded myself from.
I felt regret for not knowing this already, for having not asked enough questions. And as I was overcome by the pressure and the anxiety of this story, at the closing stages of the interview, I heard him say that he, too, struggled with how to share this story. I heard him say that and I was transported back to a Sunday at Applebee’s or Pizza Hut. I could see me and my brother sitting in our grass-stained soccer uniforms, across the booth from my grandparents as they struggled to tell us…something. He didn’t know how to find the right words to make this relatable and meaningful for people who grew up in the comfort of the United States. And I didn’t know how to ask the right questions or how to listen to the answers.
Because telling our stories is hard. Finding the words to convey not just the facts, but the feeling. What happened, what it meant. To us as individuals. To our family. To the world. And the pressure to tell the story correctly can be overwhelming, and was to him. And as I reminisced about that conversation with my grandparents, I heard him answer the question, “if you could tell your grandchildren one thing, what would it be? ...
I cannot help but heed my grandfather’s words. I cannot help but hear my grandfather’s story and see his experiences playing out in the world around us. I cannot help but hear my grandfather’s cries of Shema Yisrael, I won’t see my father again, in the cries of immigrant children torn from their parents’ arms. I cannot help but compare the impossible choices his parents made to keep their family safe to families in Central America and Syria and Yemen and Myanmar... struggling with the same questions. I cannot help but empathize with the fear of people knocking on your door, looking to take you and your family away because your status as a human being is deemed illegitimate.
My grandfather eventually made his way to America because his uncle secured a visa for the family. Family reunification laws allowed my family to come to America. And I cannot help but wonder what would have happened to my family amidst the current debate about so-called chain migration.
And as my grandfather stood in the synagogue in Verdun, wearing an American army uniform, he was not yet a citizen. But through his service to this great nation, this land of freedom and opportunity, a land built and sustained by people of different nationalities, races, religions, and cultures, he was eligible to apply for expedited naturalization. Through tears, he said that at the end of the war, the American soldiers, they were our heroes. And he felt tremendous pride in wearing that uniform. And I cannot help but feel dismay and sadness that the very policies that welcomed my family to the United States are now under threat.Thank God, we are not living in Europe in the 1930s, but I can’t honor my grandfather’s story and memory if I don’t see him and his experiences in what is happening in the world today.
On Passover, the holiday that celebrates our freedom from oppression and degradation, of being set free from bondage, persecution, and attempted genocide, a holiday where my grandfather loved sitting at the head of the table to lead us through a night of ritual, we say, והגדת לבנך (v'higadta l'vincha), and you shall tell your child on that day, it is because of what God did for me, that I stand here today. And your offerings of gratitude and praise are made manifest when you ensure that this does not happen again.
בכל דור ודור (b'chol dor vador), in every generation, we tell our stories. And in each generation, we listen to the stories of those who came before. The stories of our family, so we might find empathy with past generations, and extend that empathy to the present. We learn who we are and where we come from.
This is my story, the story of my family, and the truths it demands that I face and the obligations that I incur. As we sit here, meditating on the new year that lies before us, we are challenged to consider our merit and our obligations.
Who are you? How did you get here? What sacrifices were made so you can live the life that you live? What happened in your story that compels you?
A story is not an unchiseled stone. A story is a set of tablets, etched with sacred words of commandment, commitment, and obligation. A story is not ambivalent about its circumstances and it is not ambivalent toward those who receive it. A story demands.
At the end of this story, there is a photo of a family. And the young boy sitting in the front, on the right, is wearing a necklace. A necklace his grandparents bought him in the Land of Israel, a nation that, at its best, celebrates the survival, the strength, and the solidarity of the Jewish people. The necklace has two Hebrew letters on it, ח (chet) and י (yud) -- חי (chai), life. And that young boy, 22 year later, still wears that necklace. And each morning when he says ברוך אתה יי (Baruch atah Adonai), blessed are you Adonai our God, master of time and space who made me a Jew, he kisses that necklace. And now, having learned the story that allowed his grandparents to give this gift, he will imagine the responsibility he has to that legacy.It is hard to speak, and it is a fearful thing to listen, but l’dor vador from generation to generation, we tell our stories so that we can secure a future worthy of the legacy we inherit. This year, may we be worthy of that legacy.
The videos of my grandfather's testimony can be found on the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester's website.
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