It was some time after my mother-in-law remarried in her 70s that we discovered that not only had her new husband, Shimon, lost all his family in the Holocaust, but he had no idea what had happened to them or when they were murdered.
He didn’t even have the “comfort” of knowing when their yahrzeits were.
I asked him if he had ever been to the Hall of Remembrance in Yad Vashem, the International Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and filled out a form with all his family members’ details. Through this amazing database many people have discovered information about loved ones who have perished that had been submitted, unbeknownst to them, by other surviving members of the family. It is Yad Vashem’s aim to have a “page of testimony” for every one of the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust so their names should never be forgotten.
Shimon said he had never heard anything about this and would definitely be interested in checking it out. When we visited Yad Vashem, survivors, with the help of clerks, were still handwriting the pages. It appeared that no one had registered the names of Shimon’s family so we spent some time filling out page after page with as much information as Shimon could think of, despite the fact that the task was not easy and brought back very distressing memories to him.
The clerk looked at the details and saw that the date of death was missing on each one. “Would you like to know more about what happened to them?” he asked gently. I’m sure many people find it difficult to even think about such details and the clerk was sensitive to this and understood that Shimon may not be able to face any more information after the ordeal of filling in the forms.
But Shimon did want to find out.
“As your family came from France, it is likely that they were transported to Auschwitz and murdered there,” he told us. “We have a room where we keep all the files of the French deportations and Beate and Serge Klarsfeld have been working very hard on organizing these lists of deportations. If you have some idea of the year or month your family was taken away, you may be able to find a record.”
The Klarsfelds, Beate, a German non-Jew and Serge, a French Jew, are a famous couple. Since the end of the war, they have devoted their lives to tracking down Nazis and bringing them to justice one way or another. They have many successful arrests to their credit. Serge also founded an organization called Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France. Part of his work had been organizing the deportation records so that survivors could find out what happened to their families.
Once inside the long room, the walls of which were lined with black box files, we hadn’t a clue as to where to start. We looked at each other wondering if we should just leave when suddenly, a man who appeared to be in his late 20s approached us.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” He had a strong German accent.
We told him our story and what we were looking for. He told us that he had been working in Yad Vashem in the summer for several years as a volunteer. Nothing could erase or make up for what his country had done to the Jewish people, he knew, but he felt that working for Yad Vashem helped him feel he was doing something, even if it was something small, to make up for his country’s past.
This year he was working on the files of French Jews deported to Auschwitz. Obviously knowing his way around the files, he quickly brought out a few volumes and spread them out on the large table. Within a few moments, his swiftly moving fingers stopped. Silently, he passed the volume over to us and pointed to the names of Shimon’s relatives.
He turned away and said almost silently, “If the members of your family were elderly, women or children, then the day of their arrival at Auschwitz was almost certainly their yahrzeit. Young men might have survived longer.”
I moved away feeling like somewhat of an intruder and left my mother-in-law and her husband to contemplate the fate of Shimon’s family.
Shimon took out a pen and paper and started to list names and dates. At least now he had the comfort of knowing their yahrzeit and had a particular day to say Kaddish instead of just on Asora beTeves as he had done until now.
I thanked Hashem for sending us here on a day when “expert” help enabled us to learn what we needed to know.