The Astor Judaica Library at the Jewish Community Center in La Jolla is treasure trove of Jewish Lore. You can access most of the Jewels of Jewish Heritage within its book shelves. Each month we’ll review and highlight one of these gems. Each is available to you by merely entering the Library, presenting yourself, and smiling.
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I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Interviews with French Children of the Holocaust by Claudine Rozengard Vegh; E. P. Dutton, Inc. New York 1984; Editions Gallimard Paris; 1979; 179 p.
By Randy Fadem
SAN DIEGO — This small, overlooked, gem of a book relates the stories of twenty nine French Jews who survived the Holocaust. Each lost one or both parents, or their entire families. They grew to adulthood, prospered, married, and had families of their own. Inwardly, they paid a different price and lived a different life. The author was one of these children and her story is included.
Thirty years after the Shoah, the author is attending the bar mitzvah of a friend of her daughter’s. The friend, Maurice, is standing at the bimah, reciting his portion. His eyes are riveted upon his mother. She is convulsed with tears and cries throughout the entire service.
A bar mitzvah should have been a time of joy, of celebration. It is a rite of passage for the whole family. Everyone is there: the children who have had theirs, the Star of the Day, the future stars, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, good friends of the family. Praise, laughter, food, frolicking children are all part of the day. On the other hand for Maurice’s mother, the author, and thousands of their peers who lost one or both parents during the Shoah, the day is one of great sadness, numbness, or inconsolable grief.
Rozengard: “That morning I felt I had to unveil the past of those Jewish children who survived, and who have been wondering for thirty years why they are alive and by what miracle….life has been granted to me a second time. And I had to show that I deserved that life, that I was worthy to live it. I was living, in a way by proxy.”(p. 20)
The author interviewed 28 of her peers: each of whom was considered socially and professionally successful. Twenty-five invited her to their home for dinner; in most cases they retired to the bedroom after the meal; they sat side by side, the room barely lit. For up to two hours she sat and listened. No pen, no paper, no recording devices.
As parents, they had one recurring concern: would their children be able to go through life without experiencing another genocide? As children, they had fled, hid, lost loved ones, lost their native language(Yiddish or French), fought to keep their names and identities, re-emerged, and fought tumultuous, violent internal battles to resume life in broken families, unfriendly schools, and in distorted emotional landscapes. They all became socially and professionally successful.
Next month, we review The Last Jews of Kerala by Edna Fernandes. This is the story of the disappearing Jews of India: a community that stretches back in time to the First Temple, 2900 years ago.
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Fadem is a volunteer in the Astor Library of the Lawrence Family JCC