Keep Walking

One of the most inspiring Holocaust stories my grandmother told me was the one about her Death March experience. At the end of the war, as the allies began to close in on the concentration camps, the Nazis marched as many Jews as possible out of the camps to their deaths to accomplish the final solution. My grandmother was determined to survive throughout her hell in the Ghetto, Auschwitz, and the ammunition factory where she was enslaved but when it came to the death march, she said she could not do it anymore. She was emaciated, starving, deprived of any sleep rest, food or water for days. They were not even allowed to eat the bread thrown by kind Germans, horrified by the sight of them. The first few girls who ran to grab it off the floor were shot by the Nazis. The people still threw bread over their shoulders as they ran away from the shots. If someone stopped to shovel grass into their mouth, they were shot, or worse beaten and left to die. My grandmother always wanted to survive. When her friends told her she was going to heaven from there, she said she was going home. When she saw girls dying in the barracks from disease, she snuck out in the middle of the night to wash her body with lye so she would not get sick. When on line to get her number tattoo, she switched lines to the tattooist who was writing it neater because she so much believed she was going home, and she didn’t want sloppy numbers on her arm for the rest of her life. Day after horrible day she woke up and did everything in her (limited) power to live. She convinced her baby sister to keep going to not give up.  But when it came to Death March, she simply could not do it anymore. She didn’t want to die but she could not keep walking. Her sister felt her faltering and held onto her arm. She told her sister she was finally ready to let go. Her sister said, “oh no you don’t! You know they are marching us now because they know they are losing the war. You didn’t make me live through all this so that you can give up now. You keep walking!” My grandmother told her sister, “I can’t”. And her sister said, “well don’t you know? You have to.” And so, my grandmother decided to take another step. She told me that step felt worse than death. It felt like she had to summon strength she didn’t have to lift her foot. She had not slept more than a few hours straight for a year. She had not eaten a morsel of food in weeks. She was only skin and bones.

She took the step.

She said she felt like she was lifting the weight of the entire world on her knee. She felt like she would be crushed with the weight of it all. But she took that step. She kept going. Then she said she felt something come to her right and something come to her left and lift her up under her arms. She looked but no one was there but she was lifted inches off the ground. She felt like there were angles holding her up, and they didn’t put her down until she got to where she needed to be.

When she was 78 years old, she worked in a clothing boutique in Manhattan. She took the train to Manhattan everyday but on September 11, 2001, the unimaginable happened. It must have horrific for her, a Holocaust Survivor experiencing trauma yet again. There was no way she was staying in the city. She didn’t want to wait to see what was coming next. She marched her 78-year-old body, through the heat, over the bridge all the way to Williamsburg to safety.

When she was 95 years old, she fell. She worked her hardest to walk again. She rode the exercise bike in rehab. She marched her walker down the hallway of her building. She danced with the walker. She even walked out to the car to go out to eat with her publisher. Her legs hurt her, it wasn’t easy, but she walked and appreciated it so much.

In her life she has walked many paths. She walked through Auschwitz and Death Marches and over bridges away from a terror attack. But she also walked to a job she loved and my mother down the aisle and her great grandchildren in their strollers. A few years ago, she told me, “What should I say? 94 years old and I am still enjoying my life!” Did her 19-year-old self know she would appreciate her stubborn steps so much, 75 years later?

Yesterday I took my son who is named for her beloved grandfather, on a walk. Today I walked my daughter’s home from a great day in school where they got to learn so many interesting things. Tomorrow, I don’t know where I will be, but I know I will keep walking because my grandmother told me to. She told me we will never know the paths we will walk on in our life (one of her favorite songs was Que Sera Sera). She wished for a better world while accepting the one we live on needs more love. But she told me that no matter how hard the walk gets, even if it feels like you are lifting the entire world on your knee, take that step. I am forever grateful she took hers and I know she would want you to take yours too.

That for me is a comfort and I hope it can be a comfort to you too.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about her life after the war that you would like me to write about!

Thank you for taking the time to read this and keep her story alive.