#(z''l)

Today is the 27th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar; Yom HaShoah. This is the day we remember the victims (as well as heroes and heroines of the Shoah when six million Jews were murdered by the forces of fascism. Few Ashkenazic families, my own included, didn't lose relatives. Maybe you too are remembering them at this time like myself, Z''L.

I grew up with a Bundist, (as opposed to a Zionist) mother. She raised me on stories which had been told to her as a girl. She was adamant, bless her, that I would not grow up with a 'lambs to the slaughter' account of the Shoah!

The 27th of Nisan was chosen to remember The Shoah because that was the date of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. It was Erev Pesach that year, the eve of Passover. When I say 'heroic', this was no ordinary heroism. This was the bravery of men and women who knew that they would almost certainly die in the attempt to resist the Nazis. Only a few escaped to carry on fighting elsewhere. Marek Edelman, the last Commander of the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa - (Jewish Combat Organization)) remembered in his 2009 obituary by the UK's Daily Telegraph said:

"We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning. We fought simply not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. We knew we were going to die. Just like all the others who were sent to Treblinka.... Their death was far more heroic. We didn't know when we would take a bullet. They had to deal with certain death, stripped naked in a gas chamber or standing at the edge of a mass grave waiting for a bullet in the back of the head.... It was easier to die fighting than in a gas chamber."

The uprising was cruelly and brutally crushed by the Nazis but it took 7 and half weeks of hard fighting and numerous Nazi casualties before it was overcome. In the initial wave, the German forces admitted that 16 of their number had been killed and a further 39 injured though it is likely to have been far higher; the resistance estimate was around 300 Nazi deaths. No matter how you process it, this was an event which runs counter to the prevailing conception that there was little pushback from the Jewish community itself as tragic events unfolded.

On this day I remember my own relatives; Naftali and Aranka Salz, murdered on their arrival in Sobibor Concentration camp on the 9th of Iyyar 5703 (14th of May 1943). Zichronam Livracha - May their memory forever be for a blessing.

Chana bat Shoshana (Jane)

זִכְרוֹנוֹ לִבְרָכָה

a close friend of mine died last month, brutally and tragically. I was able to get a chance to say goodbye – he said what he wanted to say to me, I got to say (some of) what I wanted to say to him.

what I have been thinking about almost constantly these past weeks is the fact that there is nothing he said to me that he hadn't said already. every time he admired something about me, every time he was impressed by or appreciated something I did, he made sure I knew. he told me often. he told me repeatedly.

may his memory inspire us to tell the people we love – often and repeatedly – the things we love and appreciate about them, and the ways they impress us every single day.