Comings and Goings...
Friday, April 9, 2010
Vera Toper, mother of congregant George Toper, gave her personal account of her experiences during the Holocaust. Read her story...
It is over 65 year since the end of the war, and in all this time I have never spoken publically about my personal experience during the Holocaust. I simply could not open up. It was too painful. Time goes by much too fast and I’ve realized that my generation is the last eye witness to the horror and tragedy that the Jews in Europe experienced. Six million innocent men, women and children were killed terribly. I have concluded that if I don’t talk about it, I am just as guilty as the people who deny the existence of the Holocaust.
I was born in Vilna, which is now the capital of Lithuania. The climate is very severe with long cold winters and short hot summers. Vilna was established by the Lord of Lithuania in the 14th Century. To improve life in the cities they opened their doors to Western Europe. They invited craftsman, farmers and businessmen. They gave them rights and privileges. Among the invited were many Jews. They brought their knowledge and skills. Being educated, they were put in charge of taxation and worked for the government. In the beginning they lived very well, but soon life began to change. Their rights were taken away and the friction between the Jews and Christians began. The only occupations left for the Jews were business, money lending and craftsmanship. No matter how hard life was by the beginning of the 20th century, Vilna became a center for intellectual endeavors. Many schools were opened, high schools, both public and private, and technical schools, as well as a teacher’s training college where subjects were taught in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian and Polish. No wonder that Villna was called the Jerusalem of Lithuania.
My parents were born and raised in Vilna, which at that time belonged to Russia. They studied in Russian schools and spoke among themselves in Russian. My parents were the first generation in their families to receive a higher education. My mother went to dental school and became a dentist. My father went to business school and became a controller in a Russian bank. After World War I he went out on his own and became a business man.
He was an ardent Zionist and believed strongly in a Jewish homeland. At home we discussed Jewish history. He believed that we as Jews should not go to Spain because of the Spanish Inquisition. I for my part did the same with my son. I instructed him that he should never go to Spain and of course he should never visit Germany.
After World War I, Vilna was annexed by Poland. The Jewish people did not rely on the Polish government, but organized their own government called Kihila. They taxed the Jews in accordance with their means. The money they collected supported Jewish schools and hospitals and was distributed to the very poor. Privately the Jews of Vilna helped the poor. I remember my father’s friends coming to him repeatedly to ask for money for some widow, or someone sick or in need. Names were never mentioned so as not to embarrass the needy person. That was nothing unusual, sedacka was a way of life. Every Thursday morning when my father was going to his office, some poor women would wait for him outside. He used to give them money for Shabbas. In Vilna we had an institution called Magda Shabbat, where poor Jews could come every Friday evening to eat a Sabbath meal and then could take home additional food for the remainder of Shabbas. My brother and I would often go there to serve the food.
Our life before the war was very normal. My brother, who was two years older than me went to the same private school as I did. All the teachers and students were Jewish, but all the subjects were taught in Polish. At home we spoke Russian, but with our friends we spoke Polish.
My life before the war was very pleasant. Everything rotated around my school. There was no TV to distract us so I did a lot of reading, and belonged to a reading club. I participated in many sports. Our winter lasted five months so ice skating, skiing and sleigh riding were very popular. In the evenings and weekends, boys and girls were getting together to dance or just to talk. In the spring and fall we were on our bicycles going out of town. Vilna was surrounded by magnificent forests, mostly pine. In the summertime my family went out of town to the country. There we would spend days on the beach, swimming, canoeing or playing ball. My life was no different than any young person’s life. Unfortunately everything changed in September 1939 when the war began. The Germans attacked Poland from the west and the Russians from the East. Vilna was taken by Russia and was given to Lithuania. After a couple of months the Russians took it back and we began to live under Communism. Being that my father was a business man, he became right away an enemy of the people, labeled bourgeois. They dispossessed us from our apartment; they felt six rooms were too large for a family of four. They were arresting business people and sending them to Siberia. My father did not sleep at home anymore, as the night was time when the police most vigorously searched for and arrested people.
My brother finished High School in 1939 and was accepted at New York University. He was supposed to leave for the United States just as the war began. Unfortunately, it was impossible to leave Poland after the onset of the war. We survived two years under communism. Life was not easy, but the worst was still to come. On June 23rd 1941 the German’s attacked Russia and the real nightmare began. We were ordered to wear yellow stars on our garments. We were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks. The Germans were grabbing Jewish men to work for them, so they said. They would disappear not to be seen again. Actually they were murdered. Jews were restricted in their movements, they could no longer shop in many stores. Life became very difficult.
My father was connected with the Yudenrat. This group represented the Jews of the Vilna and futilely tried to negotiate with the Germans for the safety of the Jewish community. As a member of this organization, my father had a pass which allowed him to move freely within the city. On July 15th a young boy came and asked my father to take him to his grandparents. He was afraid to go by himself. My father went with him. On the way they were stopped by the Gestapo. My father showed his pass. They tore up his pass, and arrested him. The next day he was murdered. This was an incomprehensible tragedy for my family.
When the Germans came to Vilna on June 23rd, 80,000 Jews lived in the city. By the time they took us to the Ghetto on September 6th, 30,000 were killed. For the Ghetto the Germans selected an old Jewish section. First they took all the Jews that lived in that section and killed them. Next, they fenced off six short blocks and prepared it for the rest of the Jews. On September 6th, with loud speakers blaring they announced that all Jews were to take what they could carry and to leave their apartments, and under guard they took us to the Ghetto. Many Jews never got there. They were taken to the forest outside the city and killed there. My family, my mother, brother, aunt and I found a small room for ourselves. In the Ghetto, every room was shared by many families. The conditions were unbearable, crowded, little food and every minute your life was in danger. Right away, they made us go to work. My brother and I worked in the airport, which was out of town. It took us more than an hour to get there. They would pick us up at 7AM and we would have to walk in all kinds of weather. I was lucky and was selected to work in the kitchen pealing potatoes. That way I was able to get extra food for my family. My brother worked unloading coal, cement and other heavy objects. The Germans watched them constantly. The Germans beat them if they slowed down. The Jews became real slaves. The worst was the constant selection in the ghetto. They would come into the Ghetto and select old people and children and take them to be killed. My mother developed tuberculosis from the cramped and unsanitary conditions, but unfortunately there was no medication in the Ghetto with which she could be treated. We worried about our mother and every time there was a selection we used to hide her.
People adjusted and adopted the best they could to the new situation. Schools opened in the Ghetto, which was illegal. We had libraries, concerts and people were falling in love and getting married. Nobody knew what the next day would bring. The ghetto lasted for two years. By the time the Ghetto was liquidated there were 11,500 people left.
By 1943, the Germans were on the defensive. The Russians were advancing, and in response the German’s decided to liquidate the Ghetto. On September 26th, 1943 they ordered the people to come down and again to take whatever they could carry with them. First they separated the men from the women. Then they separated the young from the old. The old and the children were taken to the left, the young and the strong to the right. My mother was taken to the left. I went with my mother, and when she begged me to leave her I refused. The soldiers that supervised this liquidation were German but there were some Ukrainians also. One Ukrainian soldier, hearing us speak Russian, approached us and asked why we were speaking in Russian. My mother explained to him and he took my mother and me and brought us to the right. This meant we were allowed to stay alive. On the way to the train my mother collapsed and died. They did not allow me to stay with her. I do not think there was anything more painful than what I went through then.
They put us in cattle cars, and packed in as many as they could push in. We traveled for three days and three nights without food or water. We arrived in Kaiserwald which was a concentration camp in Riga, Latvia. Luckily, my brother was brought there too. Women and men were separated, but I was able to see my brother daily. We worked outside carrying cement and loading train cars. It was excruciating hard physical work. In January 1944 my brother was selected to go to another concentration camp, Dundagen, which was located in Northern Latvia not far from Estonia. This camp was known as a liquidation camp, where the Jews were worked to death. I volunteered to go with him. There we worked in the forest cutting down trees. After a while I was selected to work in the kitchen and I was able to help my brother by sneaking food from the kitchen. The conditions in this camp were horrible. The inmates were constantly beaten and they were dying like flies. We were there from January till June of 1944. The Russians were coming closer and they decided to move us again. We partially walked and partially rode in trucks. Finally in September 1943 we arrived at Stuthoff, which was in Germany, not to far from Berlin. Stuthoff was a large concentration camp with a crematorium where people were killed by the thousands. My brother and I were separated and that was the last I saw him. I never found out what happened to him, but I can guess. After being there a couple of weeks, I was sent to work on a farm. I lived and worked for a German farmer. We worked hard, but they fed us well. I stayed there for four months.
Again the Russians were coming closer and they took us back to Stuthoff. They decided to evacuate the camp. It was January 1945. We were walking in circles. The Germans didn’t know what to do with us, because they weren’t given any instruction and couldn’t act on their own. Anybody that could not keep up on the march was killed on the spot. At night we slept in different stables. In the meantime the front was getting very close. We heard the shelling and the sky was red from the shelling. I knew the end was near. I was sure that the Germans would kill us, as they did not want to leave any witnesses to their crimes.
I had become friendly with a girl named Masha. I told her that I wanted to run away and escape and asked her if she wanted to join me. Late at night we squeezed through a hole in the wall of the stable and ran into the forest. We ran in the direction of the Russian troops. We walked the entire night. In the morning we heard some sounds coming from the highway. We hid in the bushes and looked out. To our joy and surprise we saw Russian tanks. We jumped out and approached them. They looked at us with amazement. We were wearing striped prison uniforms. They were very nice to us. They took us to there headquarters, gave us food, let us rest and told us where to go next. So after two years with the Communists, three years 6 months and five days with the Nazis, finally on March 11, 1945 we were liberated and so my saga came to an end.
Rabbi Sklarz led our children's Tot Shabbat with prayers, songs, music, snack and story
TYGRS (Temple Youth at Greenwich Reform Synagogue)
After an afternoon of preparation including shopping, cooking and baking, members of TYGRS and a group of parents joined together at St. Luke's Shelter in Stamford to perform the mitzvah of ma'achil r'vi'im, feeding the hungry. With a smile on their faces and expressions of care and concern, the young people of GRS graciously served those who are currently residing in the shelter.
Thanksgiving at Greenwich Greens
At 10 o'clock in the morning, some thirty members of our congregation assembled together at the Greens, a nursing community for those unfortunately afflicted with mild to moderate memory impairment, to bring some holiday cheer to the residents.
The highlight of our visit was a songfest, thanks to the effort and talent of the Stark family. Helen prepared song sheets, and Bob masterfully accompanied us on the guitar. Subsequently, our members circulated, schmoozed with, and read stories to the residents.
  
Greenwich Reform Synagogue Celebrates Sukkot
Congregants of all ages joyfully celebrated The Festival of Sukkot at Greenwich Reform Synagogue. Religious school students began this year's holiday festivities by building and decorating a sukkah. Teachers, parent volunteers and the entire GRS staff joined in the fun by helping students hang and display artwork, branches, straw and squash. At Simchat Torah services, families gathered together to sing and pray.
Sisterhood hosted it's Wine & Cheese Kick-Off in November at the home of Sandy Soule. A fun and festive time was had by all as ladies from GRS socialized and got to know a terrific group of women.
  
"Welcome Back Family Barbecue" at Greenwich Reform Synagogue
Greenwich Reform Synagogue welcomed congregants back from their summer vacations at their annual "Welcome Back Family Barbecue" on Friday evening, September, 5th. The barbecue has become an honored tradition as families and friends first gather together in prayer and song for a shabbat service led by Rabbi Andrew Sklarz. After the service, adults schmooze the night away on the terrace while children eat, sing and play on the synagogue playground. This year's barbecue was graced by a cloudless sky and a warm September breeze as congregants and friends shared stories of summer journeys and watched the sun set.
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