-->
“She was a Survivor” I heard the Rabbi say.
It hung in the air as I sat there on the
wooden pew with my family around me - my cousins to my right, their mother,
Mania Feldman in the simple, yet beautiful casket, in front of us.
“A woman of valor” he went on, referencing a passage in the
prayer book. As I sat there with his words surrounding me, I realized that he
wasn’t just telling us about the yesterday of Mania Feldman, mother to Cyl,
Renee and Nancy. He was speaking of my mother, the mothers of my other cousins
in the room, all mothers to the children of holocaust survivors.
These women – “The Aunts” as I called them – these women
sought each other out after concentration camp. Each one with their own story
of horror, of survival, of valor. They found each other, bonded together and
scratched out lives that only excepted today and tomorrow. They survived.
I heard stories of my Aunt Mania that told of her strength,
her love, her unapologetic frankness, and of course her stubbornness. I thought
of that stubbornness for a while. As
each one has passed (only my Aunt Toni is left) we’ve told stories that
embraced their stubbornness. Never ashamed to admit that in the all too many
eulogies, when most offer only glowing praises and kind memories, we speak of
these women of valor and their stubborn streak with pride. Because that is who
they were, and how they were.
When the Germans came to take them away, Mania did not run
or turn away, she went. “Mania went off with them like she was going to a
dance” I can still hear my aunt Toni say with a small laugh. I can’t imagine it any other way.
There are just so many stories to tell, so many I heard on
this day. Each one made me reflect on the mettle that these women were made of
and how my Aunt Mania represented them. Her actions weren’t rude, they were
honest, they spoke of love for us and for life – mostly they spoke of what she
had been through and what she wanted for today.
The day after my oldest brother was born, my mother left him
in the hospital and walked to the next town to be present at Mania and my Uncle
Joe’s wedding. Wide eyed I asked, “You
walked?” thinking how I could barely stand at that same 24 hour interval after
my first child. “You walked”, I
repeated. “Yes, in the snow. I was terrified”. Terrified that they left the
first Jewish baby born at the end of the war in a German hospital. She was not
terrified for herself, because she had been through much worse; she was
frightened for the future that was born less than 24 hours prior.
I asked why she did it. Did my father force her to attend
his sister’s ceremony? She looked at me with sadness and strength
simultaneously and replied, “It wasn’t just your daddy’s sister. It was my
sister.” Then her voice got a stubborn edge to it as she told me “We didn’t
have anyone else but we had each other and we weren’t going to let that go”.
It was their stubbornness that took them from hell, carried
them through life, until their day in heaven. And Mania, was the leader of the pack, as if
she was going off to a dance.
