By Yocheved Goldberg
Sitting on my shelf is a precious treasure. While its pages are starting to brown and its letters starting to fade, its words still jump off the pages and fill my heart every time it catches my eye. Because it’s more than just an old, used book. It’s a time machine.
My Babi, Chaya Esther Bruckstein, was born on August 15, 1913. She grew up in a beautiful, spacious and ornate home in Bustina, Hungary (now Ukraine). Later in her life she would wistfully tell us, “We were so very wealthy.” Her family was prestigious and prosperous and Babi’s childhood was filled with plenty—the most beautiful dishes and décor, servants who took care of everything, even a separate guest house on their large estate.
It was a hospitable and warm home too, rich with Torah values and acts of kindness, attracting all different types of guests. Some were recuperating from illness while others were visiting Rabbis from all over Europe. Her family, including six siblings and over 60 first cousins, was loving and close-knit, a robust, beautiful family steeped in Jewish tradition. It was during those early days, and then later in 1938 when she and her husband had their first child, that she would open up her Book Psalms and recite the words of Hallel and Thanksgiving for all the good she was given and for the blessings in her life.
Shattered Life
Like so many others, one day her warm, pleasant life was shattered. She, her husband and their 5-year-old daughter were rounded up together with her extended family and community, and taken to Auschwitz.
As she was standing on the platform, waiting to be told in which line she should stand, an unfamiliar man in prison garb came up to her and instructed her, “Give your child to the old lady next to you right now.”
My Babi, disoriented from the long and arduous train ride, followed his orders and handed over her child to her mother-in-law, never to be seen again. As the days went on, starved and exhausted, Babi would find inner reservoirs of strength that she never knew she had. It was there, in Auschwitz, that she would see her father for the very last time, across a fence in the men’s camp, and not know who he was, until he called out to her in a weak voice, saying, “Don’t you recognize me Hajnal? It's me, your Opu.”
A little while later, while in Ravensbruck, her sister and cousin would task her each day with dividing up the measly rations they would get, because she was the oldest and wisest and had deep compassion and integrity. It was there that her younger sister felt helpless and hopeless and shared her plan to throw herself against the electrocuted barbed wire to end her agony.
My Babi was the one who, despite being just as beaten down and tired, pleaded with her sister, encouraging hope, faith and will to survive. It was there that she cried out to G-d, from the depths of her suffering, quoting the same Psalms from her parched lips that she once sang from a full heart: “Mima’amakim kirasicha Hashem – Out of the depths I have called You, G-d.”
Marriage and Rebuilding
After being liberated and reuniting with the few scattered members of her family, her realization of how many people were lost was daunting. Among the living was her first cousin, a wonderful man she had her eye on earlier in her life and had wanted to marry, but her parents had not allowed it at the time. They both found themselves at a mutual cousin’s home in Romania and they decided to get married. Together they grieved the life they once had, he too having lost a wife and son in Auschwitz.
Together they grieved the life they once had, he too having lost a wife and son in Auschwitz. It is there that they committed to put one foot in front of the other and look towards the future. There was nothing left for them in their hometowns and it was time to move on.
They had a baby, my father, secured visas, and came to America to start a new life, but the hardships continued. They arrived in Ellis Island with battle scars, empty pockets and an unfamiliar language. They were able to get jobs in a garment factory, sewing clothing. My grandfather had no idea what he was doing. He was a brilliant man but his talents and skills were not in the sewing and fabrics trade. He would slowly and painstakingly try to do his work, but struggled to finish his pile. My grandmother would not let him get fired. She would spend those days working quickly and tirelessly to do his workload in addition to hers, in order for him to save his job and his self-respect.
It was here, replanted in a new world, with nothing but hope for the future, that she called out with those same prayers that had accompanied her this far, King David’s Psalms: “Ezri me’im Hashem – My help comes from G-d.”
As the years went on, Babi slowly rebuilt her life. She raised her son and supported her husband with care and selflessness. She placed tremendous value on learning Torah at a time when it wasn’t so common to care about daily study. In the cold, winter months she would wake up early to warm their clothes on the heater so “her men'' could learn together each morning in comfort, before going off to work and Yeshiva.
With kindness and grace, she devoted herself to her sister Gizi, who never merited to have her own children, including her in every part of her life so she had a family to call her own. It was in their Washington Heights apartment that she had to tell her precious 13-year-old son that he did not need to fast as a firstborn before Passover, because there was another child who came before him.
And it was here that she reunited with the man who took that child from her arms in Auschwitz and, now realizing that he had saved her life, stayed in touch with him and invited him to partake in all of her family celebrations.
