Do You Have a Family Holocaust Story?

As I look back on a year of Holocaust remembrance, including Kristallnacht, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Yom Hashoah, and in speaking with members of our Temple Shaaray Tefila Holocaust Remembrance Committee, I am realizing that a number of our members have family Holocaust stories that deserve to be preserved and made known.

Do you have a family Holocaust story? Is there a story that was handed down to you, as a story to share with your children, and for them to tell theirs? Just this year, several of our B’nai Mitzvah students included their family stories in their speeches, and it struck me that these narratives deserve to be passed through the generations just as we pass the Torah down the line at the service, physically and spiritually.

If you have a family story to share, first of all, write it down for yourself. Show it to your own family so that they know and tell it to others. And please send it to me. We can include it in the Temple archives. We can ask you to read it at one of our upcoming Holocaust commemoration services. And we can send it along to one of the Holocaust museums or archives. But first, write it down, so that it will be there to be read and remembered.

To be sure, the lessons of the Holocaust are many. Yet, before we apply those lessons, we must be sure to preserve a clear and accurate memory of what happened during that dark time. Your story will make a contribution to that remembrance.