My grandmother was an amazing woman who stood out in many ways. The first woman to get a PhD in Canada, in physics. She founded the first Jewish day school in North America, in 1929 and she had 5 children.
She also had time to have a weekly broadcast on the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster – News from a Woman’s Perspective. This recording of her broadcast from May 6, 1943 still stands out:
Why? Because so many who stood by later cried ignorance. The Germans, the Poles, the Ukrainians and all, didn’t know? The British who blockaded Palestine and wouldn’t let refugees escape didn’t know? How could they not know if Mattie Rotenberg in Toronto Canada knew? How could they not know what was broadcast on the CBC?
Once again,Yom HaShoah has just passed and people are talking about the Holocaust. For one day a year around the world people lament what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. I can not count how many times my heart has been broken by stories I heard as a child, from survivors, by dramatic presentations when I was in school, by dramatic presentations our children put on in school, by the testimony of those who lived through it recounted in my sister’s house – in a project koown in Israel as Zikaron B’Salon – surviving in the camps, hiding in the forests, fighting the Nazis where they could.
Is this why we do it, so that people will cry with us? The people of the world all ask what they could have done?
But they say they didn’t know.
Some Jews fought back, some hid, some ran – many simply weren’t equipped to do any of this, but even more so, they didn’t believe the rumours, the whispered stories.
So, is this the best we have to leave our children, is this what we need them to understand? Jews can show the world the worst horror of a anti-semitism. We can tell you about it. We can put on heartbreaking productions, make movies that will make you cry? Come, cry with us.
I don’t think so.
One of my father’s friends was a navigator in the Canadian Air Force during the war. He told me that his squadron wanted to bomb the tracks into the death camps – did they know about death camps? I thought they didn’t know. He told me the command said no, they could not afford the cost of the mission and they might lose some aircraft as well. He told me the Jewish community raised funds to pay for the mission. The bombs, the airplanes, the fuel, everything, in advance. Full cost, even of the planes should they come back. The command said no, they might lose personnel. He told me the airmen were volunteering to go, but the mission never happened. Should we cry?
We will mourn our losses, but let’s not cry with them. We will remember our family and friends lost in the Holocaust to the same people who persecuted us, hated us and slaughtered us for thousands of years. Our children must hear the stories as they are taught to make the choices so that it will be our choice to defend our lives. No longer will it be other people's choice whether the mission flies.
Jews will no longer hand other Jews over to the British, the Exoduses and Altalenas will be welcomed The arms will be shared among all those who wish to live. The education of our children will be in the hands of those who treasure our precious Jewish values. The courts will support our rights as Jews in our Jewish land.
We will make the choices as proud, secure Jews representing Torah values and defending what is precious to us. We will stand as a beacon unto the nations, they are welcome to follow.
Thanks To Cecile Rotenberg of Tel Aviv, my cousin’s daughter for editing and posting the video of her great grandmother, Mattie Rotenberg
Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto and is Vice-President of the Toronto Zionist Council and is editor of the TZC weekly newsletter about Israel and the Jewish World, available from [email protected]. He and his wife have five children, two of them IDF soldiers.