Holocaust Memorial Day 2020

Teenage Bubi in Essen early 1930's

Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in the Shoah. Millions of others also suffered and died. These numbers are so large that it is hard to get your head around them. The Paper Clips project was a brilliant way to try and make 6,000,000 tangible. Still, it is overwhelming.

Tomorrow is the annual observance of Holocaust Memorial Day. This year also marks 100 years since the birth of my grandmother's baby brother Herman Albert, known as Bubi, who was one of the victims of the Nazis. There is a Jewish teaching that the death of one person is equivalent to the death of a whole world. Thus this year I begin my observance in memory of my great uncle Bubi.

The story that I was told by my grandmother was that there was a window of opportunity to buy people out of Germany. It cost £50, I think, per person. Omi worked hard to earn the money as a maid. First she was able to save her fiancé, then her sister Ilona. The window was closing, and Omi knew that she didn't have enough time to earn another £50, so she made the rounds of Jewish charities to see if she could borrow the money. Unfortunately, nobody would help. Some did not believe that there was really such imminent danger. Others told her that it was hard enough to have established themselves in the community, and they didn't want any newbie immigrants around to give the Jews a bad name! The window closed, and Bubi remained in Essen.

The situation in Germany deteriorated, and Bubi decided he would have to run away. He was still a teenager. He managed to get across the border to Switzerland. However, the Swiss said that he was a German citizen, and sent him back to Germany. He fled to Hungary, where he had cousins, but in 1944 the Hungarian Jews were also deported, and he was murdered in the concentration camp called Buchenwald.

The Central Database of Victims' Names at Yad Vashem has the following testimony:

Name:  Loewy, Herman Albert

Date of birth:  11.09.1920

Place of birth:  Essen, Germany

Citizenship:  Germany

First name of victim's father:  Simon

First name of victim's mother:  Itta

Permanent residence:  Essen, Germany

Deported from Hungary to KZ Sachsenhausen. Hanged in Buchenwald.

Residence during the war:  Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary

Place of death:  KZ Buchenwald

I think Omi never got over her guilt for not having managed to bring her brother to London. 

As for Holocaust Memorial Day, the randomness of fate meant that my grandmother made it out of Germany. She gave birth to my mother, and my mother to me. And it is my job to make sure that evil such as this does not happen again. Not just to my family. Not just to Jewish people. To anyone. So this is a day to remind each other to stand up against hate. To stand up for tolerance. We don't all have to love each other. But we have to treat each other with respect. It seems so simple, but apparently it is difficult for a lot of people. I hope that these words of mine aren't just hot air. I hope that every student I teach, every person I encounter experiences me walking this walk. And when I fall down, as all humans do, I hope I am brave enough and strong enough to correct my mis-steps and continue walking.

In the name of all whose names are remembered tomorrow, and for all who have nobody to remember them, I remember Herman Albert Loewy.

Photo of the Week: Looking at a Leica

In the 1930's, when Nazi laws limited the amount of money Jews were allowed to take out of Germany, Aunt Judith invested in a couple of Leica cameras. She was allowed to take them out of the country, and she held on to them just in case.  She bequeathed them to Auntie Dorrit, who also held onto them just in case. When Aunt ravaj became a photographer, she was given the cameras, but held onto them just in case. The case is now here, and our Leica friend came over today to assess the situation. It looks promising, and we shall see!

Love Your Neighbour As Yourself

“The late Rabbi Albert Friedlander impressed upon me the importance of the biblical commandment “Love your neighbour as yourself.” I had always concentrated on the first part of that injunction, but Albert taught me that if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love other people either. He had grown up in Nazi Germany and as a child was bewildered and distressed by the vicious anti-Semitic propaganda that assailed him on all sides. One night, when he was almost eight years old, he deliberately lay awake and made a list of all his good qualities. He told himself firmly that he was not what the Nazi’s said; that he had talents and special gifts of heart and mind, which he enumerated to himself one by one. Finally he vowed that if he survived, he would use those qualities to build a better world. This was an extraordinary insight for a child in such circumstances. Albert was one of the kindest people I have ever met; he was almost pathologically gentle, and must have brought help and counsel to thousands. But he always said that he could have done no good at all unless he had learned, at that terrible moment of history to love himself.”

From “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” by Karen Armstrong