Yom HaShoah

Mendel Rosenberg was born in 1928, in Konigsberg, Germany.  Later his family moved to Shailiai, Lithuania.  Mendel’s father had a clothing business, and Mendel had one brother.  When World War II broke out in 1939, the Russians came into Lithuania, and Mendel’s father had to give up his business. 

 

In 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, and Shailiai was occupied by the German army.  Mendel’s father and brother were taken to jail and his father was shot in July 1941.  Later that year, the family had to move into the ghetto.  They were put to work; Mendel first worked as a carpenter, then on the railroad, later in a sugar factory.  

 

Mendel stayed in the ghetto with his mother and brother until 1944 when they were transferred to Stutthof, a concentration camp in Germany.  Later, Mendel and his brother were sent to Muhldorf, a subcamp of Dachau.  Mendel was put to work on a construction project, unloading and carrying cement.  The food rations became smaller and smaller and after six months Mendel became sick.  He describes it as a terrible time when they had only one thing in their mind and that was “how to survive and make it to the next day.  Mendel was transferred to a carpenter shop in the camp, which he says saved his life.  He and his brother were separated at the beginning of 1945.  After the war Mendel found out that his brother was murdered in February 1945.

 

After the war, Mendel stayed in Feldafing, Germany in a displaced persons camp.  He was reunited with his mother in late 1946.  They had relatives in the United States, and they decided to come here.  They arrived in March 1947.  Mendel first settled down in Youngstown, Ohio, then 10 years later his company transferred him to St. Louis, Missouri.  Later he started his own business.

 

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As you light your yellow candle at sundown on April 17, please recite this meditation.

 

As I light this candle, I vow never to forget the lives of the Jewish men, women and children who were martyred and are symbolized by this flame.  They were tortured and brutalized by human beings who acted like beasts; their lives were taken in cruelty.  May we be inspired to learn more about our six million brothers and sisters as individuals and as communities, to recall their memory throughout the year, so that they will not suffer a double death.  May we recall not only the terror of their deaths, but also the splendor of their lives.  May the memory of their lives inspire us to hallow our own lives and to live meaningful Jewish lives so that we may help to ensure that part of who they were shall endure always. 

-Rabbi Jules Harlow