Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah - acrylic on canvas © 2012 Yael Bernhard

This past Tuesday was Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel. On that day, nationwide sirens in Israel sound at 10am and last for two minutes, while the entire country pauses, with citizens everywhere standing in silence to honor the 6 million victims who perished in the Holocaust. All traffic comes to a halt, and drivers stand outside their cars in the middle of the streets and highways. The unity of purpose is palpable. All Jews have been affected by the Holocaust.

Here in the Diaspora, it was my maternal grandmother, Regina Loew z’’l, who was mostly deeply affected by the Shoah. I created this painting to commemorate her. Regina escaped Eastern Europe before the war, but as a child and teen she survived a number of pogroms (antisemitic massacres) in her native Hungary, driving her to seek a better, safer life in America. Regina sailed alone from Hamburg to NY at the age of 18, and never saw her parents, four sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins again. All were murdered at Auschwitz, together with approximately 550,000 to 568,000 Hungarian Jews who perished during the Holocaust. The vast majority were murdered between May and July 1944, when over 430,000 people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in just eight weeks following the German occupation of Hungary.

My mother recalls the letter that arrived from the Red Cross some months later, confirming the fate of the Loew family. My grandmother bore her grief in silence – but as a child, I sensed her loss just the same. She was my closest relative, and I spent many overnights with my beloved Nana. She taught me to bake pies and make mushroom-barley soup, and watched Cinderella with me on New Year’s Eve so my parents could go out. She did jigsaw puzzles with me, and made clothes for my dolls. Nana adored me, yet I always sensed a deep well of sadness in her, and as I grew up and learned her history and my heritage, I felt she had instilled something in me without ever saying a word.

In this painting, the yellow star that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust – shown here as a patch over a dead woman’s heart – is also the star I wore around my neck as a teenager. For me, it was merely a necklace that I could hide under my shirt, or take off if I wanted to. For my grandmother’s family, there was no such choice. I felt how easily I could have been born in that time and place instead of this one . . . how fortunate I am to enjoy freedom and civil rights in my country (so far) . . . and how much I feel the ripple effects of the Shoah continue to trickle down through time.

Though troubling times are once again on the rise, the darkness that my parents’ and grandparents’ generations lived through is beyond comparison or comprehension. WWI, the Depression, the Dustbowl, WWII, the Holocaust . . . death camps . . . the bombing of London, of Dresden . . . of Japan . . . the devastation on the Russian front. Such dreadful times. The discordant colors in the sky, dark clouds tinged with red, speak to the unthinkable horror of those years.

In 2009, I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, for the first time. I went back again in 2011, and then took my 11-year-old daughter there in 2013. The drawings she did that night in our rented apartment were profound, expressing her childish, innocent horror at the cruelty and unfairness of the world. I did not know what impressions she would carry into adulthood, but at least I had done my best to educate one child. Education seems like the only real solution to the ignorance that drives prejudice and hate. As the saying goes: Where there is ignorance, there is antisemitism; and where there is antisemitism, there is ignorance.

Forty years after Nana’s death, I continue to honor her memory, which has truly been a blessing. Her story is part of mine. It always will be.

A good week to all –

D. Yael Bernhard

https://dyaelbernhard.com

Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!