Polish sisters reunited, discover they are Jews

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Tue, Feb 08 2022, 7:32 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

One of the reasons that frum Jews didn't place their children with non-Jews is that there just plain old weren't that many non-Jews willing to take them.

This. I have family who were placed with non-Jews at the outset of the war. The father knew these non-Jews through his extensive business dealings and they came to know him and trust him. Still he paid them enormous sums of money to take the children. So one had to have money and connections.

ETA: Down the line, some of the kids were given up to the Nazis by these same non-Jews...

Mermaidinexile

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 7:49 pm

Reality wrote:

Avodah zarah is one of the big three a Jew is supposed to give up their life for. Catholicism is avodah zarah.

A Jew is supposed to give up their life before converting to Catholicism. I don't judge anyone's choices. Hashem should help that none of us should be in that position. But it's not true to say anyone would be better off dead. It is better for a Jew to die a Jew than to live a life as an oveid ovadah zarah.

This is not true when saving lives in a time of gezeiras shmad.

↑ Reality

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 1:02 am

Mermaidinexile wrote:

This is not true when saving lives in a time of gezeiras shmad.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember learning the opposite. During times of gezeiras shmad the halacha is even stricter. Then you are supposed to give up your life for any mitzvah.

Think back to the old stories. The Jews risked their life to learn Torah, to perform a bris milah etc. None of those mitzvos are the big 3. Yet during gezairos shmad the Jewish people did those mitzvos knowing they could be giving up their life if they were caught.

shanarishona ↓

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 1:22 am

I believe many people chose dying al Kiddush HaShem for themselves and their children.

Knowing what they were doing.

The way I see it - both were right - in a time of such unimaginable difficulties, both the ones who knowingly chose dying Al Kiddush HaShem and the ones who hid their children were right. Not that I would make a judgment. But to me they were both decisions made lmaan HaShem.

And the ones who didn’t know it would be death, until the end, also died Al Kiddush HaShem.

↑ shanarishona ↓

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 1:33 am

The truth is that this is a topic that is very much of interest to me - the idea that there may be so many Jews who don’t know they are Jews all over Europe, whether survivors or their descendants. It is very sad.
And what happened after the war with the church not returning children is an atrocity.

I am very moved by the song “Shema Yisrael” and the story of trying to save the children.

Also the story that Rabbi Berel Wein tells of how - was it Rabbi Isaac Herzog? - went to the Pope and he said “we can’t return those children” and how devastated Rabbi Herzog was, and that meeting when Rabbi Wein was a young boy shaped him into who he is. Because Rabbi Herzog impressed upon everyone there to - I forgot exactly, but I think something like do what they could for the Jewish people. Because he was so devastated that he couldn’t save those Jewish children.

↑ shanarishona

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 1:36 am

I don’t know how to do the link, but a quick google search took me to an article on Mishpacha.com called “the lost children” - it tells over the story I just did in it’s accurate version

↑ PinkFridge

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 8:42 am

shanarishona wrote:

And Rabbi Herzog gave the boys a mandate to live the most full lives they could as they were blessed with the opportunity so many lost.