My father’s friend and neighbor Renia (Regina Laks Gelb), called me soon after Witness For My Father was published last year. “You must get this book into schools, they can read this,” she implored. Renia, also a survivor, founded a lending library with my dad after their families were forced to move to their hometown Starachowice ghetto.
Last month, six senior high school classes in Storrs, Connecticut finished reading Witness For My Father for their Western Civilization and Genocide classes, and the teachers asked to me come and speak at their school. What. An. Honor! Witness is now officially a part of the school’s social studies curriculum.
With all the pressures we’re dealing with in our lives, challenging our resilience to assimilate during the COVID era, and to comprehend our polarized society, I chose to share words from a plaque I gave to my father:
‘We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.’
This message resonated with my father, and with the students. Resilience, and the decisions we make that change our lives, dominated the student discussion. Resilient people are said to put their terrors behind them and look to the future, move forward, and set new goals. After making constant life or death decisions, Holocaust survivors had to figure out how to get past their traumas, their overwhelming losses, and reclaim a belief in the good of humanity. They had to foster a positive identity so they could hope and find their way to envision a future. A new life.
Martin and Renia did that. They are a beacon to me when I’m faced with my own worries and fears.
While serving us elaborate lunches in her NYC Washington Heights home, Renia always morphed the conversation into history lessons. From the moment I met her over a decade ago, I was captivated by her keen intelligence, industrious matter-of-fact nature, and her grasp of local and world history. She helped me explore the details about Wierzbnik/Starachowice, the neighborhood, and religious traditions of our families back in the 1930s and 40s. She insisted that I study WWI before I could grasp the dawning of WWII. Of course, she was right.
Last week, I had the honor to attend Renia’s memorial service via zoom in NYC. Renia insisted that her burial be quick with no frills, just as it should have been for her parents who lost their lives during the Holocaust. Her mother, Pola and my grandmother Sonia, along with my father’s eleven-year-old sister Klara, boarded the train to Treblinka in October of 1942, where they perished. Renia always called October 27th her ‘day of remembrance’, and I adopted that tradition, lighting a yahrzeit candle every year. Renia also asked that her parents’ names be included in her service, because they never had a proper burial. So Pola and Isaac Laks escorted their daughter to reunite with her two sisters. The three sisters had survived the Holocaust together.
Thank you to Renia’s son Harry, for including me in this incredible day of celebrating her life. Renia’s spirited legacy will carry on. If you’re a student who has read my book, or have attended my presentations, you have met Renia as the little girl sitting at the New Year’s eve table with the grown-ups, next to my grandparents.
After macular degeneration stole her ability to read, Harry read Witness For My Father to her after the workday, one chapter at a time. An avid reader all her life, she often called me to correct any nuance, and to share her reactions. I knew I “made it” when she complimented my writing, my style in the telling of the story. I respected Renia, sought out her wisdom, and grew to love her. She made me feel closer to my dad.
“Yours was the last book she read,” said her son Harry.
And yes Renia, I promise to continue to share this story with students. Your vision was clear. Thanks to you and my dad, I will carry the lessons of resilience and hope forward.
Learn from living it, reading it, and experiencing our world’s history … then please, never forget.
Thank you,
Barbara