The train that took Bubba’s family to Bergen Belsen made a stop before its destination. Children were separated from the adults and forced on a vicious march. Bubba, together with my great-uncles Yanki and Brudy, had to march to Bergen Belsen. However, Brudy was sick – he had the mumps and a high fever. Zaida told Bubba and her brothers to be very careful and carry Brudy all the time and not to drop him. As a result, for three miles Bubba and her brother Yanki carried Brudy until with Hashem’s help they were reunited with Zaida and Mamma in Bergen Belsen.
Horrendous sights awaited Bubba and the family there. Dead people everywhere, and in the barracks there were no regular beds to sleep, on just planks of woods. There were six people on each of those planks. The bathrooms were holes in the ground filled with rodents. The food served was a piece of dry bread and some horrible liquid – a soup made of mud.
Zaida asked Bubba if she would like to do a big mitzvah. “What mitzvah could I possibly do here?” Bubba asked.
“Try to smile,” Zaida responded. “If people see a little girl smile it will strengthen them.”
“How can I smile?” asked Bubba. “I’m so hungry. I’m so cold. I’m so afraid.”
“Try, try!” said Zaida.
Bubba tried – and smiled.
Years later Bubba was speaking at Oxford University in England and a young woman, one of the students, came over and said, “Rebbetzin, I read your books and I know how much you suffered, how much you went through during the Holocaust, and yet you are always smiling. I would like to know, where does your smile start? In your heart or on your lips?”
“What a powerful question,” said Bubba. “I guess it starts on my lips because in my heart I have so many worries. But if I place that smile on my lips, from my lips it goes to someone else’s lips and from their lips it travels back to my heart.”
Throughout the long nightmare Zaida and Mamma would do everything to keep the light of Torah shinning in the hearts of their kinderlach. Every day Zaida would count the days with reference to Shabbos. Zaida would eat his piece of dry bread just to that he could make a berachah on it and then he would try to hide the rest in order to give it to Bubba and her brothers on Shabbos. He would gather the family and say, “Kinderlach, it is Shabbos!” And he would sing Shalom Aleichem in his melodious sweet voice.
“Close your eyes,” Zaida would say in Yiddish. “We are at home; Mamma just baked delicious challah and it is still warm.”
One Shabbos Bubba’s brother Brudy started to cry and said, “Tatty, Tatty. Where are the melochim? I don’t see any angels of Shabbos here.” Zaida started to cry and replied, “You my precious little ones – you are the angels of Shabbos.”
That teaching never left Bubba. Every time after that when it was time for roll call and the Nazis would scream “You Jewish pigs!” Bubba would say to herself, “No, I’m an angel of Shabbos!”
(To be continued)