The red clay mixed with brown earth makes a somber noise as it is shoveled onto the plain pine casket. It contains the body of my second cousin Friedel. Her brother, Semi, her two children, Marcia and Steve, and her four grandchildren take turns picking up the shovel and piling more and more earth into the grave until the lid of the coffin is no longer visible. The gravediggers stand by as they watch these mourners perform the task that they themselves usually do. Perhaps they know that it is the custom of Orthodox Jews to bury their dead this way. I take my turn with the shovel and the earth and say goodbye to her. It is heartbreaking to see her gone.
Friedel was nine months younger than I and was born in my town of Bad Kreuznach, Germany. She lived about ten blocks from where I was born. Our fathers were first cousins and had come from Kołomyja, Poland, to make new lives for themselves when they were young men. They played chess together every Saturday. I suppose our mothers talked to each other about raising babies and other things. They both had three children about the same age. When Friedel and I were young schoolchildren, we attended the same classroom at the one-room Jewish school because the Jewish children in our town were no longer allowed to go to the public schools. I remember Friedel as always kind, quiet, and reserved. She was thin, her legs were long, and her skin was very fair. Her lovely straight brown hair ended at her shoulders, and she parted it on one side and held the other heavier side back with a barrette that always matched what she wore. Her front teeth protruded slightly, but did not keep her from looking endearing. After Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938, both my parents and Friedel’s made the same decision—to send us to France, where they thought we would be safe from the Nazis. Friedel left Germany a few weeks before I did in 1939, and we were not together again until 1940. In June of 1940 many of the Jewish children that had fled Germany were in the northern part of France when the Nazis conquered and occupied that area. To help keep these children safe, charitable organizations helped them flee to the southern unoccupied zone of France. Friedel and I found each other in the Château des Morelles in Broût-Vernet near Vichy. The Children’s Aid Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants or OSE) was using this ancient castle as a refuge for about 100 children whose parents were not with them. All the children talked and dreamed about being reunited with their parents all the time.
The rabbi at Friedel’s gravesite asks if anyone wants to say a few words. Some people volunteer and talk about her life as an adult, emphasizing what a good wife and mother she was. The rabbi mentions that she is a survivor of the Holocaust. I feel the need to tell them more so that she will also be remembered by her children and grandchildren for that part of her life. Therefore, I tell them about the times when we were in the Château des Morelles—and how Friedel helped instigate birthday rituals to make those occasions more festive and alleviate the pain of children separated from their parents. Days before a child’s birthday, we would all begin saving our desserts, hiding them in the attic. Then on the morning of the birthday, we would borrow a tray from the cafeteria and decorate it with wildflowers, some doilies, and all the collected cakes. We would put the tray near the sleeping birthday child and wait for them to wake up. Then, with great enthusiasm, we would sing and present the tray. It was always the most memorable moment. The idea of this presentation came mainly from Friedel. She was such a considerate young girl.
We are asked to move away from the open grave so that the relatives can pass by us in a procession. Friedel’s daughter, Marcia, puts her arms around me and tells me she is so glad that I told that intimate story about her mom. Marcia and Steve, whom I cradled in my arms when they were babies, are now in their fifties. They tell me that when they were children, their mother, on their birthdays, would wake them up in the morning with presents and a birthday song. They never realized where this custom originated.
I know that Friedel never wanted to talk about her experiences in France. She also never wanted to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum because it was too painful for her. Her grandchildren surround me and ask me to tell them more about their grandmother, and I know that Friedel would not mind because the family is so hungry to hear more. Perhaps Friedel wanted to spare her family the agony of her past. Perhaps she herself had put it so far back in her mind that she wanted to keep it there and never remember.
As Friedel and I led our adult lives, we did not see each other often because we had different paths, but we were always there for each other at weddings, new births, bat/bar mitzvahs, and funerals. We were there for each other because of our deep connection.
I will encourage my children to keep in touch with her children so that they will remember us together.
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