Hope

My parents, Aron and Gitel, were born in Poland. In the 1930’s Aron was a young shoemaker from the Matuszienski family smitten with the spirited and ambitious Gitel Hershkowicz. During Purim 1940, as World War II began to devastate Europe, they dared to marry in Ksiaz Wielke, a small town not far from Krakow. Throughout the terror, the losses and deprivation, they hid in an underground bunker at the behest of an honorable Polish farmer.

At the end of the war, because Poland was still inhospitable to Jews, they found refuge in Foehrenwald Displaced Persons Camp. My mother was pregnant with me and I became one of the first children born in the DP camp. I was named Hinde Ruchel Matuszienska in memory of my grandmothers. After more than five years of limbo, in 1951 we immigrated to America and became citizens with new American names- Aaron, Gertrude and Helen Rachel Martin.

How do I know this? And so much about their lives? Because unlike most people who lived through the “chorbin” – the word they used when I first started listening to their stories of the Holocaust – my parents shared their experiences with me. I was a very little girl in Foehrenwald when those images and words began to take root.

Struck by their resilience, I probed and still have questions about those who found the strength to move forward and rebuild shattered lives. Hope. Maybe that was one of the keys to their survival.