This week, we laid to rest a pillar of our community, our beloved Channah Berkovits. As we were reflecting with her family about her incredible life, I kept thinking about what a powerful teacher she was for me and for our whole community.
Channah radiated positive energy. I remember when I first met her—she was this petite woman dressed in a bright purple suit, who seemed to always be here for every class and every service. Whenever she saw me, she would call me over and would start speaking to me in Hebrew, usually to give me a heartfelt blessing. If I asked her how she was doing, she would always say something positive about how grateful she was to be here, about her wonderful family, about the beautiful day. And she always ended every conversation with her trademark phrase, חיבוק של אהבה. She was so positive that at some point I asked my colleagues if they knew her secret. I remember them saying to me, “I don’t know what her secret is, but you should know she is a survivor.”
At her funeral, I heard for the first time her story as a young adolescent. She was only thirteen when she was sent on a cattle car to Auschwitz with her mother, her two brothers, and her grandmother. Her mother had heard through the grapevine that Germans were murdering children upon arrival, so she forced Channah to put on all these additional layers of clothing so she would look older. Channah, as an emerging teenager, was not happy with this arrangement. She didn’t like having to wear all those extra clothes. It was hot and uncomfortable. And so, when their cattle car arrived at Auschwitz, she ran ahead of her family. When she got to the front of the line, Mengele sent her in the direction of life. Behind her, he sent her family to the gas chambers.
It’s hard to fathom that kind of intense and immediate loss. What must it have been like for her, at such a young age, to witness such horrible atrocities, to endure such unimaginable suffering?
And that was only the beginning.