I called her and introduced myself, asking if I could come for a visit. She agreed, somewhat hesitantly. Treasuring the opportunity to meet and talk with a survivor, of whom so few remain, I brought my whole family along.
Suzi welcomed us cheerfully enough, but after we’d settled on the couch, she asked, pointedly, “So, why are you here, Rabbi?”
“We came to visit you!” I told her, with wide-eyed innocence. “We want to hear your story, and maybe share a bit about what we do here in the Sunshine Coast.”
Suzi shared a heartbreaking story of how she’d been hidden in the barn of a non-Jewish neighbor for the duration of the war. She was only two when the Nazis invaded Hungary, and she spent her early childhood trying not to make a sound, and barely surviving. She’d come within inches of death multiple times, but each time, was miraculously saved. She proudly showed us her memoir, The Courage to Care.
Robbed as she was of her childhood, it was clear Suzi had never been introduced to Yiddishkeit. Her husband wasn’t Jewish, and her only biological child had tragically passed. She was 84 years old, and had never had any contact with any Jewish community.
This year, Suzi lit a menorah for the first time in her life, crying tears of joy as she kindled the flames. She tasted matzah for the first time in all her 84 years. Her pintele Yid could not be quenched.
