Los Angeles Jewish Home

By: Ellis Simon, 88, Los Angeles Jewish Home resident 
Originally published in the Chai Journal Summer 2012 issue.

Miriam Rothstein, 91, is a lovely, gentle lady who survived the Holocaust. There is not one shred of bitterness in her demeanor. Born to an observant, educated, and well-to-do family that owned a supermarket in Romania, Miriam was the ninth of eleven children. When she was four, her family moved to a village in the Carpathian Mountains to be with her mother’s family. After Hungary annexed Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Miriam’s prep school studies ended and the family supermarket closed. In August 1941, Jews lacking Hungarian citizenship were apprehended. By March 1944, Germans controlling their town rounded up all able-bodied Jews. Miriam and her older sister, Rachel, who looked more like her younger sister, since Miriam was taller and stronger, boarded a train for Uzhorod, then part of Hungary, where her older sister Margaret and her brother Baruch lived. In April, the Jews in Uzhorod had to report to the ghetto there, and Miriam and Rachel hid in a shed for three days. Miriam changed into a two-piece red silk dress, attaching her mother’s diamond ring to an inside button before the sisters entered the overcrowded and unsanitary ghetto.

At the end of May, they were squeezed into cattle cars headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her red dress was tossed into a huge pile and her hair was shaved. Everyone slept on the floor and people were brought to the crematorium. With the Russian army approaching in 1945, two kind SS guards gathered up food and escaped with the girls and eventually left after rescuing them. In the bitter cold, they finally came to a farm where they slept in the barn until Russian soldiers liberated them. Eventually, Miriam and Rachel returned to Uzhorod where they learned their parents, sister Margaret, and youngest brother Yehuda had been poisoned.

While living in Czechoslovakia, Miriam met Herman Rothstein, a guard for the Czech president. In 1946, they married and he, too, owned a supermarket. Their daughter Vera was born in 1947. In 1949, they immigrated to Israel where their son, David, was born in 1953. A year later, Miriam had tuberculosis, prompting a move to Chicago where Herman had relatives. Their youngest daughter, Mindy, was born there in 1957. Vera and Mindy currently live in LA, and David, a university professor, now lives in Israel. Miriam and Herman retired and moved to Los Angeles in 1992.

Herman died in 2000, and Miriam lived on her own, assisted 4 hours a day by helpers who cleaned and took her shopping and on excursions. Her children eventually convinced her it would be wiser to move into a retirement community. In 2008, after checking out three other communities, Miriam chose the Jewish Home. She wanted to live in a warm, friendly Jewish setting with a built in social life and clinic. We are so pleased to have her as a part of our community. Miriam enjoys playing bingo, our entertainment and many special events, Rabbi Rita’s services and classes, and the Talking Yiddish Group with Murray. Miriam wishes she knew the names of the kind SS officers. Her three children, seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren give her great pride.

When I asked Miriam how she survived such harrowing experiences, she said it was hard work (which included building trenches and laying cable), eating little (mostly bread with a little jam and margarine snuck to her by a kind cook), and living one day at a time. But mostly, it was her belief that she would survive that kept her going. Miriam’s story is truly a profile in courage.

Miriam’s story was also featured in an article by Jane Ulman in The Jewish Journal. Photo credit: David Miller

Labels: Biography, Chai Journal, Courage, History, Holocaust survivors, Jewish Home Residents, Miriam Rothstein, Remarkable Residents, Seniors, Simon

In some of my classes I have been discussing the subject of courage, following the recent Torah readings about the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. Throughout that period the faith of the Israelites, that they can and will escape their Egyptian slave-masters and become a free people, swings wildly between moments of trust and confidence – Yes, God is on our side! – and times when they want only to remain slaves, for freedom is just too risky.

When the Israelites complain to Moses – Why don’t you leave us alone, to remain in Egypt as slaves? – they want to stay in the world they know, rather than take all the risks of freedom. Freedom carries the dignity of making choices, and the possibility of good and new things in our lives, but also it means we live without knowing what tomorrow brings. Willingness to face the uncertainties and the difficulties of life, as well as its possibilities, is what courage is all about. The alternative, in the words of one resident, is: Just give up, stay in bed, and pull the blankets over your head.

Does growing older call on us to have courage? A resident answered: Yes we need courage, because we never know what’s going to happen. Perhaps she was thinking about the sudden change in health she had recently gone through – without a negative word! Another resident told us her first words on waking each morning: No surprises today please!

It is not just the unknown. Some residents live in almost constant pain or discomfort; others get on as best they can despite physical difficulties. Most know the loneliness of life following the death of their long-time husband or wife. As I see how the majority of residents make the best of life without complaint, it strikes me that courage is indeed an important factor in making senior years a positive time of life. Here at the Home, the staff does a wonderful job in making the life of residents as comfortable, dignified and enjoyable as possible. What is sometimes overlooked is that the residents do a wonderful job too. For me, to see such courage is both humbling and inspiring.

The Torah expresses courage as faith in God. For instance, when the Israelites are facing the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army coming up behind them, they initially complain to Moses who tells them: Have no fear, stand by and watch how God will save you! While many people have courage which is not based on faith is God, there are others for whom faith can be a source of courage. Psalm 23 puts it: Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. A sense that one is not alone can give great strength.

I have very great respect for those who came through years in the Nazi death camps or work camps. I know from my reading that not everyone kept their determination to survive; some just gave up. I am not surprised, so I asked the Holocaust survivors in my groups what gave them the courage to keep going. All without exception told me their faith was very important to them. One said his recitation of psalms sustained him. Another said she felt God by her side as she volunteered for work – which turned out to be her route to survival. Another said her religion was important to her, but she also believed a person’s childhood upbringing made a big difference. She herself had had a very poor childhood, and that difficult time gave her the strength she needed to face the enormous challenge of life in the camps. I understand that; although we all want an easy life, it is very often difficult experiences that strengthen us to face even greater challenges in the future.

We talked a little about the courage to face death. One resident was sad about the relative shortness of the time still left for her, wishing she had achieved more. But not one person expressed fear about the future.

Perhaps that is why I love being a rabbi at the Jewish Home: while I am no longer young myself, I work amongst my seniors and my teachers, who help me to think that maybe I too will be able to face all the uncertainties and hardships that lie ahead. For that I am grateful.

Labels: Aging, Bible, Courage, Death, Elman, For the Spirit, Holocaust survivors, Inspiring, Israelites, Jewish, Judaism, Letter from the Rabbi, Moses, Rabbi