8 OLAM | JANUARY 13, 2017

BY DEBBIE HIRSCH

F E A T U R E

SURVIVALLeah Kaufman, a child survivor,

survived because of G-d’s miracles. She survived a death march, scavenged for food, looked for shelter, hid out in the forests, and, in homes of anti-Semites where she had to pose as a Christian or-phan, was betrayed by a fellow Jew and sent to Pechora in Transnistria, where very few survived. She witnessed the death of her entire family one by one. And so much more.

In 1948, the Canadian Jewish Con-gress sent 16-year-old Leah to Calgary to be fostered by a Jewish family. The family did not begin to understand the horror she had suffered and told her not to tell macabre stories. Thus, Leah

was silent for the next fifty years. The atrocities that took place during

the Holocaust were so enormous that mere words could not possibly convey the experience. Survivors can’t forget what they lost. Leah was only nine years old when, one Shabbos morning, her family – two parents and seven children – was lined up to be shot and miraculously escaped. Her mother, Bracha, the last of Leah’s chassidish family to die, continually obligated Leah to “Live. Remember. Tell The World” (also the title of her book, ded-icated to her mother’s memory).

When Leah arrived in Canada, she immersed herself in her studies. Even though she had missed eight formative

years of education, and lived through hell, she eventually earned a Masters in Education from Concordia University. Leah was hired by a Jewish day school and became a devoted and beloved teacher. She taught Judaism, Hebrew, and Yiddish. After 10 years, the school introduced Holocaust studies into the curriculum. At that point, Leah had never told anyone, not even her own three sons, that she was a survivor.

“I simply broke down the first few times I tried to prepare the Holocaust curriculum. Slowly, I trained myself to teach this subject by distancing myself from whom I was – a survivor. It was extremely difficult to do; nonetheless, keeping my identity hidden was a

good thing in retrospect. Otherwise, I would have become the focus, either as a ‘hero’ or a ‘victim,’ without doing justice to the many children, their ag-ony and their memory.”

Until one day it slipped out. As Montreal was home to many survivors, the school had a yearly assembly about the Holocaust. The children wore yel-low stars and lit candles in memory of lost neshamot. Leah participated, but refused to wear a star or be actively involved. One year, a student asked her, “Morah Leah, why don’t you also wear a yellow star?”

“Because, I already did.” The shock reverberated through the class.

“Right. You’re just kidding about the yellow star?”

“I would never kid about such a thing.” The secret was out. And the children’s behavior changed. They became careful and protective of her.

SPEAKING OUTGiselle Tamler a”h, like Leah, lived

in Canada and was also from Hert-sa, Romania. Being much older, she had been married when the Jews were forced on the death march. Since Hertsa had been taken over by Russia before the war, Leah had become pro-ficient in Russian, as well as Romanian, Ukrainian, Hebrew and Yiddish, and then German. The death march was to Transnistria, a Ukrainian province which Hitler had granted Antonescu, the Romanian dictator, permission to use for ghettos and death camps. Few survived the hell of Transnistria; Leah and Giselle were among the survivors.

For two years, Giselle incessantly

Leah Kaufman Tells The World

“After your speech, I wanted to write an email to my parents summing up the two hours you spoke with us. How do I present the many details, but make it so they would read it, not skim or skip to the end? I couldn’t include too much because it would be too long. I realized that must be

how you feel every time you tell your story. If you tell too much the listeners eventually zone out, check their phones, chip

their nails, or watch the clock. Not because they don’t care, but because it’s hard for our generation to sit still. But how can you tell your full story in only two hours? Even in three days?

Besides thanking you for the most incredible two hours, I want to apologize on behalf of my generation – those who came late, those who didn’t bring money to buy your book (more important than any textbook), those who didn’t shake your hand after you finished speaking, and those (myself included) who won’t be able to fully recount your story because we will miss important details or forget over time.

You have probably been told a million times how special you are, but I’ll be the million and first. When you held my hand that extra moment and told me to share your story, I started crying. You inspired me.

My three roommates, all students from comfortable backgrounds (with simple worries about money, clothes, and school), discussed your story for over an hour. No one checked their phone or paused to look at Facebook. We just sat around our kitchen table talked, cried, and laughed. Your words go further than your speeches... thank you. I will never forget you.”

– From an overseas Tel Aviv University student