Super R Illustrations

I'm not really talking about the gestures of narrowing and widening the dancing circle, the swinging arms, or clapping.

I mean how all people, young and old, new to the community or regulars, all are welcome. All hold hands and dance and sing together, no matter what.

Have you ever stood around the perimeter of a dance circle at a Jewish event? I can say with near absolute confidence it didn't last long. Soon enough, the circle would break, two people, maybe familiar or maybe strangers, grab your hands and pull you in.

If you've never joined before, you may feel awkward, tripping over your feet and running into the people next to you, twisting your shoulders every which way.

But nonetheless, no matter how experienced or inexperienced you are, you end up dancing with everyone else.

Salomon and Rosalie Löwenstein with their granddaughter, Herta, c. 1920

Salomon and Rosalie were both born in the early 1870s near Meimbressen, Germany. Their eldest daughter, Blanka, died of leukemia at 14 years old

In 1938, the couple and several of their five surviving children and other relatives fled Germany for the Netherlands. In 1942, Salomon and Rosalie were imprisoned at Westerbork before being deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Nazis murdered 73-year old Salomon, his 71-year-old wife Rosalie, their 44-year-old daughter Viola and her husband Hugo, their 40-year-old son Harry and his wife Erna, and their 9-year-old grandson Gert at Auschwitz in mid-1944.

Salomon’s 22-year-old grandson Helmuth, Viola and Hugo’s son, survived his family’s massacre at Auschwitz but died at Dachau on May 4, 1945, days after the camp’s liberation. Salomon’s 67-year-old brother Isaack was killed at Auschwitz in 1942 or 1943. Salomon’s 65-year-old brother Jacob was forcibly euthanized by Nazis at the Hartheim killing facility in 1942 (his wife Dina killed at Auschwitz in 1943). Salomon’s baby brother and last surviving sibling, 55-year-old Joseph, was killed by Nazis at Auschwitz in 1944.

Three of Salomon and Rosalie’s children survived the Holocaust. Their granddaughter pictured above, Herta, was the only survivor of her immediate family and emigrated to the U.S. in 1947.

May their memories be a blessing