Maier’s sudden passing on March 31, 2020, left an irreplaceable void for the entire family. But I draw solace from the fact that were he here today, I know he would be as proud as I am of our children and grandchildren.
Maybe our arrangement was unconventional for the time, but we made it work. Though I am biased, I believe my children have all grown into mature, responsible, kind and thoughtful adults. I consider them my four miracles, added to my own one of survival. They were born in defiance of Hitler’s plan to exterminate our people and are themselves raising my eight grandchildren to uphold their values and to become stewards of Jewish culture. I am comforted in the knowledge that they will continue telling my story and remember the victims, especially the 1.5 million murdered children whose contributions to the world have been lost forever.
When I walked out of the Gate of Death in 1945, I thought I’d never set eyes on the place again. However, I have returned to Auschwitz on five occasions, always for compelling reasons. It required considerable fortitude to step back in time, but I felt the need to share my experiences with my children. The first time, my elder son, Gadi, flew in from Israel and having him by my side was reassuring.
As I was a former prisoner, the guards allowed us special access and I was able to actually show Gadi where the stories that I have shared in this book took place. It was extremely emotional, but it was imperative to hand down both my family and our people’s history, so it could start its onward journey to lives that hadn’t even started yet.
Once I had overcome my initial hesitancy, it became easier to go back. The second time, I took a group of American Jewish teenagers and acted as their guide. Then I returned to contribute to a documentary for WGVU, a Michigan-based public television station. I brought my daughter Itaya, and we were accompanied by another survivor from Tomaszów Mazowiecki and her son. On this occasion, we visited Tomaszów and saw the ghetto apartment where I hid under the table, and the cellar where my mother and I lived after the liberation of Auschwitz.
The most memorable trip was the one on which I brought four of my grandchildren, two sets of twins, fifteen-year-old Ari and Eitan, and Noah and Aron, both eleven. In Auschwitz, we had an excellent guide who was sensitive to the children as she described the experiments that the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, performed on twins. As I described earlier, Mengele’s laboratory was separated from my barrack block by just a barbed-wire fence. My building was burned to the ground as the Germans liquidated Birkenau to cover up their crimes. All that remained were the foundations. I worked out where I had slept and showed the twins where the brick oven once stood. I showed them where I was tattooed and where I dragged the body of the girl who died of starvation in bed beside me during the night.
A lone, symbolic cattle car sits on the railway track where the platform used to be. There, I helped my grandchildren visualize how I had stood swaying for thirty-six hours propped up by the women around me. We descended the steps to the waiting room of the gas chamber where I had stood naked for hours, waiting to die. I showed them the towering piles of hair and baby shoes so they could understand the enormity of the crimes committed there. We all said Kaddish over ashes and cried. It was hard for them, but they are now my witnesses and will tell the story of our people when my generation is gone.
Accompanied by my daughter-in-law Sarah, my last visit in January 2020, for the seventy-fifth anniversary of liberation, was genuinely uplifting. Hundreds of survivors and their families came together from all over the world. Not to lament or cry or discuss atrocities. They came to celebrate the human spirit and the lives they had lived. Some wore blue-and-white-striped concentration-camp uniforms as a badge of honor. It seemed strange to see those uniforms clean and freshly pressed. Some of us were strong enough to walk unaided. Others, pulling oxygen tanks, on crutches and in wheelchairs, entered slowly through the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei gate, demonstrating the determination that had helped them survive all those years before. The stories we shared over our meals together were of triumphs and endurance, not of past suffering.
Humanity often faces extraordinarily difficult challenges that seem to be never-ending. But I believe we are all born with natural resilience. The ability to overcome is within each and every one of us.
Tova’s Acknowledgments
I am truly indebted to all my family and friends who have been a part of my life and who have, therefore, contributed directly or indirectly to this book.
First, I would like to thank my mother, Reizel, who, at the worst of times, instilled in me self-reliance, inner strength and the will to survive. She imbued me with love, trust and respect for others, enabling me to marry and create my own family.
To my father, who taught me to never be a bystander and to confront evil by any means. He showed me how to find the joy in life through his singing and acting and how to celebrate every Jewish occasion with beauty and love. And to his wife Sonia, who was a wonderful partner and a terrific grandmother to my children.
To Maier, my late husband of sixty years, who was the first person to captivate me when I came from Europe, and who continued teaching me love, trust, loyalty to family and Israel throughout his life. He was a wonderful father, never missed a Shoah presentation and was both my greatest advocate and my greatest critic. Together, we built a life filled with Judaism, family and love. I will miss you forever.
To Maier’s family in Israel and in the US, who took me in as one of their own and became my family with whom we celebrated the joys and sorrows of life. Thank you to the Ben Chorins, the Masseys and the Schneidermans. You gave me the family I never had.
To my four amazing children and my eight wonderful grandchildren.
To my eldest daughter, Risa (Ruth), and to her beautiful girls, Sarah Esther and Dvora Chana Leiba, thank you for continuing the beautiful traditional Hasidic Jewish life for which my grandparents were murdered. Your life is a testament of human strength and resilience over those who tried to destroy us.
To my son Gadi, who was my first child to return to Auschwitz with me and acted as my emotional support. And to his wife, Sarah, who accompanied me to Auschwitz on the seventy-fifth commemoration of the Liberation, as we walked together through Birkenau and the crematorium. As I watch the growth and development of your two children, Avigail and Gil, I feel a great joy and pride, as I see them becoming responsible, kind and loving adults. I know they will not be bystanders, as they already have participated in various social causes. And to Ira and Lucille, thank you for always being there for me.
To my daughter Itaya, who not only kept me sane during the first few months following Maier’s death, but also accompanied me to several child-survivor conferences over the years. Itaya traveled with me to Poland to trace my family’s history with WGVU-TV and participated in several educational documentaries for colleges and high schools. Thank you for all the support with telling my story, and for helping me confront my past. Thank you also for raising and engaging your four amazing children, Eitan, Ari, Aron and Noah, who are all sensitive, intelligent, loving and passionate for Israel. Extra thanks to Aron, for bringing my story to millions of TikTok viewers and for educating many young people who would otherwise not have heard about the Shoah.