Rabbi Paysach Krohn speaking at the Holocoust Memorial Event (Yom HaKaddish Haklali) in Queens

this past week Mrs Russel came to my home and she gave me the video that we just saw I'm so grateful that I watched it before I came because I cried so much after I watched it the first time that if this would have been the first time of my watching this I could not have said a word to me this proves that 6 Mill is a lie it's not 6 million it's 60 million cuz every one of them could have been a father a mother a grandfather a grandmother a great-grandfather a great grandmother and you know when I saw the film the first thing that I thought of was this really puts our lives in perspective how in the world can we worry about Petty things that go on when you see a video like this so you didn't get the furniture so the delivery didn't come on time and so your child got a 95 instead of 100 or a 75 but you have a child and one day you're going to be a Bubby and a zadii and when we see this film this is really a time that we have to be grateful that we live in a great country and that we can have an event like this and that we can learn and we can study and we can grow and that's the purpose of getting together tonight it's not only to talk about our past but to talk about our future you know there's a very interesting kazal tells us that every generation has to have stars why is somebody called a star a star is somebody that you look up to just like you look up to stars at night and the question is who are the real stars of a generation tells us those that make the many righteous the like Rabbi sheld senior Rabbi sheld Jr if you can call Rabbi sheld Jr Rabbi shinefeld all the other wonderful Rabon that we have here in Queens from Rabbi Steinberg and Rabbi Olam one after the other was so fortunate to live among these people who are the real heroes those that teach children Tyra and when I learned this gor I was wondering what makes them a star and you know what makes them a Star based on what the Mas tells us something fascinating tonight you go out at night and you see the stars so you know that they're there on a clear night you can see hundreds of thousands of stars but in the daytime you can't see the stars but if you have a brain in your head you know the stars are there and that's what a great rebi is that's what a great parent is the Great rebi and the great parent is there even if you can't see them long after you've gone out of the classroom long after you've left the dalaras of the rebi or the Moa or the man or Manas when you have to make a decision who are you going to marry you're going to think what would my rebi have said what would my Mo have said what neighborhood should I live what would my rebi have said what would my rashash Shiva have said that's what a star is all about a star is there even if you can't see them that's what a real star is all about that rebi that MOA that parent that has made such a lifelong impression you don't have to see them anymore but you're thinking all the time what would they say that's what it's all about and tonight we've come to talk about those type of stars that we can no longer see but they are the real stars because they are the ones who died ales hasem and that's what we've come to learn from and you know when I Was preparing for this talk I was wondering as RAB shinefeld mentioned before for years the survivors they never spoke about it never said anything about it so if that's the case why should we come and talk about it they didn't talk about it so so why are we talking about it and I'll tell you a fabulous answer the kenberg Reba who NE lost a wife and 11 children was once asked he said how is it that so many who lost so much parents children siblings spouses how are they able to build look at this so many people here can I so many people in the world that are those that were built by these who went through the geham in this world how did they do it and the Clen rebba gave a brilliant but puzzling answer he said the answer is now when the people asked him that question and they heard what he said they said rebba what do you mean it's something that you say by a bris in their blood they shall live something that we say by the but what's it got to do with the question and the answer the answer was how did they build and listen how brilliant he explained it he said doesn't only mean in their blood we all know that when a lost his two children the POS tells us was quiet doesn't only mean blood comes from the word they were quiet in their quietness they lived they didn't focus on the past cuz if they would have focused on the past they couldn't get by one day they knew they had a job to build soay in their quietness and not talking about the past but just knowing what their job was for the future that's how they built it but now after all these years when we see the halite of what they built as ra mentioned the the communities all over the world then now we can begin talking about it now we can assess what they really were and what they really meant but if they would have spoken about it right after when they came out they would never be able to build so as Rabel mentioned I've had the opportunity numerous times to be an it to be in midic and it's just impossible no matter what video you see until you're there and to witness it and to see that the barracks are still there and the shoes are there and the TM are there and the suitcases are there and so every time when we go there I tell people I want to give them an approach how we should walk through alwiz how we should walk through midic which is literally just a few miles from Lin and I tell them as follows the posk tells us when heard that his son Y is alive means said it's wonderful my son is alive let me go see him before I die so the simple meaning is raav a raav is called a ra because they know a lot ra my joy is great but the medish tit is totally different Rashi is tiing according to the but do you know what the medish says said my son is greater than I am he had so much sorus he had the problems with his brothers he had the problem with ptif he had the problem in in everything all the time sold from one group of Arabs to another and he still remained a he's much better than me because I had problems and I questioned Hashem but my son he's greater than me R because he went through such him and he still and that's what I tell the people as we stand outside that gate in alwiz or if we go to midic just remember ra those people are greater than we could ever hope to be and I tell him the story about that person on Kaneka who wanted to bench khek we you going to get a Mana so did you ever realize that two forks equal eight prongs and that they took some wax and wound it around each of the prongs of the fork and every night they got a little cotton a little Wick and they put it on one of the prongs and then by the eth night of Kaneka they held up two forks and that's how they were able to make Kaneka LIF and we're worried if we have a big silver one or a little silver one or how much oil it's going to light a whole night we'll never be like them never and that's how we have to look at these people ra they are greater and we have to talk about them with the gr that their I want to share with you some stories about some of the people who lived during that era there's a woman that I love very much she's one of the my favorite women in this world and I can say it because she's 96 she's my son-in-law schl fer his Mrs Ila roberg who lives in Detroit I'm telling you if you're ever in Detroit you have to go and speak to this person an incredible human being she's so incredible she just bought a new car she's 96 so she went to the motor motor vehicles Bureau and this little 22-year-old chuchi you know who's registering the car and she takes a look she can't believe are you the one who's registering this car she says how long are you registering it she says five years says five years what are you gonna do after five years she said I'll re-register so Mrs Ila Rober has her head screwed on straight so she told me she told me was 1938 was before chrisal a few months before her husband Alex was teaching in stutgart in the Yesa in the day he taught Hebrew studies and she taught English studies they had just gotten married and at that time already in 1938 they were rationing food so you could only get a certain amount of bread no yid could buy chocolate you could only get a certain amount of butter and you could only get four eggs a month four eggs a month so she told me that every Friday she would take one egg and she made a little cake for her husband Alex and that was a specialty for chabas that's they didn't have much food but chabes that's what she used the egg for she saved it for Friday to make a little cake for shabas she told me one Friday Alex was teaching she's home in the kitchen and she opens up the egg and it has a bloodstop in it and she can't believe it this is the only egg that she has for this week and now the egg is trfe she can't use it so she told me she was thinking you know it's really just on top maybe I could just wipe it off and then it didn't pierce the egg yet so maybe I could use it but there were no raon to ask Ron were taken away already she had no parents so she told me she figured look I'll make the cake I'll scrape away that blut scrub and if we ever get out of here alive I'll ask a Rob if I did the right thing M he'll tell me that look you know you were poor you didn't have food for shabas it was okay and if he says that I shouldn't have done it so I won't do it again and then she said to me she thought of her husband Alex and she thought of the and she said Alex trust me we know how much men know about kasas in the kitchen very little so they rely on their wives she said he trusts me he'll never know the difference only Hashem will know the difference I'm not going to use the egg I can't betray him and I'm not going to betray the r sh and so she told me she threw out the egg washed out the dish and now she had another decision to make does she use next week's egg for this week's cake cake well this week we won't have a cake so she told me she figured who knows if we'll leave him be alive next week I'm going to use next week's egg for this week's cake she washed out the bowl again she cracked open the egg and out came two yolks and Mrs Ila roberg Omar roberg told me such a beautiful beautiful thought I want to quote it exactly she says sometimes sends you a small insignificant message but it's all a person needs to carry them for the rest of their lives those two yolks that came out of that second egg showed her the is saying to you you're my daughter you I can trust because nobody would have known the difference except me and you but you are faithful to me and you're my daughter and you're the one that I trust and incredible beautiful story of a person who was so poverty stricken but R raav perhaps greater than any of us could ever hope to be you know I didn't think about it until tonight that I'm going to talk about the relatives of the shelds RAB schom jakobitz RAB schom jakobitz was a ro he was actually a principal of a whole network of schools in Toronto called aim and I remember one year I was traveling to Israel I had already known him because I was in Toronto numerous times to talk for the benefit of his schools and it's important to remember that it was the year 2000 and we're flying to Isel forus and you know when you see one child after the other is extraordinary his brother was Lord Emanuel jacobitz and he is who he is and there was a third brother M all one is better and bigger than the other so anytime I see children like that one after the other I always like to know what the parents were like so I said to him you know you must have had incredible parents tell me something about your father it's interesting his name was yo so he tells me his father was a r in Berlin and again this was also in and we know that Chris Al happened November 38 this is October sukus is always in October so he said his father's m was su he loved sitting in the Suka that was a Mitzvah every one of us has a Mitzvah that we feel very close to so he told me that they lived on the third floor and they had like a little deck in the front in the front porch from the third floor and that's where they would have normally made the Suka but now everybody was afraid cuz the SS guards were already marching up and down the streets so how you going to make a so look up they'll see a Suka they could not only break the Suka take the people to jail and take away their jobs who knows what could be so he told me that his father showed him the first mishna in Suka now anybody who learns this mishna in Suka they're trying to figure out what in the world are one I'm talking about why would they even teach us this you know what the is that the smallest type of Suka the lowest height that you could have for a Suka is 40 in 10 that's about from the floor this High not that floor this floor right here 40 in who in the world is going to build a su like that why did kazal teach it to us they taught it to us for jobz you know what he did he realized that if he measured the wall the retaining wall and it was 44 in high now don't forget he's on the third floor so he builds a Suka 40 Ines high this high is the Suka and he puts on top of it so now it's 2 in of so it's still 42 in so when the SS guards are Marching up and down and they look up they can't see this they can't see the Suka cuz the wall is 44 in and the Suka is only 40 plus two for and he told me they didn't miss one meal they put pillows on the floor he went in the Suka okay the wives the wife and the daughter didn't eat in the Suka they didn't sing zirus that they didn't do right nobody should hear but they didn't miss one meal Aus they sat on the floor on pillows that's rough that's people who went through those times those bitter times and yet look how they responded it's an amazing thing I had this you know many of you know me here personally I mean I grew up with K you know before I before I knew my wife I knew ha but all these people from Q Gardens you're like brothers and sisters so she knows and everybody knows here that my father passed away when I was 21 and there were very few people who wanted to help me Rabbi shonfeld was a dear friend of my father shalom it's one of the only Rabon who trusted a 21y old Mo I don't know how you did it but I'm grateful that you did it I would come into a house and the grandmother would say oh you look so young so I would say what the baby's also young but RAB shonel trusted me a lot of others you know they said you get experience in 5 years 5 years we all would have starved you know I was supporting my mother my younger brothers and sisters but one of the people who helped me was Rabbi jacobitz and his wife Amal was like a sister to my mother for all the years and I became very very close to the family when I go to England I always stayed by elisheva hurger which is amal's daughter and I'm very very close so am once told me this amazing story you know they lived in France she was the daughter of RAB Leo monk they lived in France and then NE they had to run because the Germans occupied France and she told me about a friend of hers Gertie and Gertie her father also was in France and they had to run they had to run from where they were and they had to come to Paris and now Gertie and her mother and the two sisters they were living alone because the father was taken to the Army and Ne then the Germans came deeper into France and they had to run away and they went on trains and the trains were packed and some of the people everybody was desperate we should never ever know from those situations they were desperate and what happened was that they tried to get on the trains and sometimes there were little kids on the train they pushed the kids off the train cuz they wanted to save their own lives so many times this little Gertie had to was pushed from one side of the train to the other she couldn't find her parents her mother every time she found them except one and of course that was the last time she know where her mother was she was afraid to be on the train alone she got off and she slept in a forest one night and she realized this is not an Asic so am told me that this Gertie told her she knocked on a farmhouse knocked on the door and the fellow said I know where you're from come I have another girl that's in the basement just like you I'll protect you don't worry and she came and she was in the basement with this other girl in this Farmhouse and within a few days two boys old these kids were less than 13 less than 12 little kids so now they were three girls and two boys each one was afraid to say what the truth of their background was but eventually they all admitted to each other they were all yiden and this farmer would bring down food to them every day and they were in a seller there was a window on top obviously they would go out but they could just see the Sun and they knew when it was day and when it was night and Gertie and am would tell the story every year at the PES s she said all of a sudden they began realizing as the days were going on that the sun was brighter and that there was grass that was growing near the house so that meant that soon pesak is coming now this farmer was a so he wouldn't know when pesak is coming so they decided they're going to designate a day for pesak and somehow they're going to try to get a matah so what did they do you wouldn't believe it so they asked the fellow that he should give him some flour bottle of water a newspaper and matches and listen to what they did they took the flow under the water they mixed it together they took the matches they lit the newspaper and the boys who were a little bit more Brave held this flat flower and the fire underneath you know burned it it or lit it warmed it less than 18 minutes and they had the weirdest looking matzah they ever saw in their lives but then they had a Seda now no new clothes no wine so the boys changed clothes with each other so that's new clothes and the girls exchanged clothes and one boy remembered kiddish one girl remembered Manana and they sang danu and they sang kaj whatever and that was the SATA that they had raav greater than we could ever hope to be and Amal would always say to her children grandchildren and great grandchildren we should never know from that type of seder but the Abisha should help that all our sedor should be as holy as that Seda was that's what it's all about I want to share with you one of the most moving moments of my life as was mentioned before I have the opportunity to travel to many of these places where yides kite flourished and a couple years ago for the first time I was going to go to Hungary and I have a m Alex Kramer and I told him I'm going to be in Budapest and he said I'll come with you he said I can't come on the whole trip I'm aan you go to the quarum and you D in there it's not I can't be by the quarum but I was born in Hungary so I'll meet you I said I'm going on the last day of the trip you'll only be there one day you're going to slept from Los Angeles all the way to to Budapest he said look I want to be with you for that day I have relatives I haven't seen them in many years it's kada for me we go through the whole trip the last day we come and I'm s I'm coming into the hotel in Budapest and sure enough Alex and shanea kma are there and as we're sitting eating dinner together I tell her what my plan is for tomorrow and I say you know what the stier rather the stier said that any place where died that's AES and it's an IND to there so I told him that before I went to Budapest I went to Mr schurger in Brooklyn and he told me what happened along the danub river along the Danel River neb they had taken yiden and they shot them they tied yiden together and they shot them into the water but they didn't shoot all the yiden that were tied together two or three they only shot one and the force of him falling into the water dragged in the other two and those other two were drowned and he told told me that Eli weisenthal no not Eli weisenthal um what's his name uh no notel no ra Wallenberg that's the name I'm looking for I knew it had something to do with Spring Valley or mon Ral Wallenberg right so what did he do from the Mish from theik so what he did was he got got passports he got 10 passports and when the women were lined up when the women were lined up he went and he said to the Germans I've got 10 passports you got to let me take off 10 people and he was able to rescue those people and I said to my that's what I'm going to tell everyone I'm going to go to the danu river and we're going to be missal there so Alex says to me I was there today I said really he says I want to show you something now Alex Kramer is a phenomenal photographer and he shows me the memorial that they put up at the danu river look at up tonight on Google shoes on the danu you'll mamish faint it's like this video just look at that what it is over there it's amazing a whole row of empty shoes shoes of parents shoes of grandparents and the thing that will break your heart is the little sh the little children empty that's the memorial along the danu I couldn't talk I saw one frame after the other I said Alex do not show this to anyone I want everybody to be as stunned as I was when they go there tomorrow and then I said I'm going to tell the story about Wallenberg he says my mother was on that line I said Alex what are you talking about he said it was before I was born my mother and my older sister were on that line and while alberg came with the 10 visas and he was told he could pick off any 10 women that he wanted and he took the 10 youngest women and their children one of them was my mother I said Alex tomorrow you're going to tell everybody that story when we stand along the danu and of course the next day in the morning I told everybody we're going to the danu shot into the water and it's a kades we're going to D in there but I didn't tell them about the memorial and then when they got off the bus and they saw the shoes they were such crying there was such I'm telling you we Stang and we cried and we sang and we doed and it was just the most moving moment to stand next to those empty shoes what it symbolized what a brilliant brilliant type of Memorial that was the last day of the trip the next day I came back to America wherever I went I spoke about those shoes was the end of the summer comes rash right before y we were speaking about before ask me as he does every year says do me a favor make the Yar appeal in sh I said okay fine the next day ier I got up and I said to everyone I said you know something stunning happened in aashu rash and everybody's looking at me what happened rashash we were all here together we didn't see anything stunning I said not only that happened the second day rashash as as well and everybody's looking at me and then I told them the story of the danub with the empty shoes and I told him the first day R right after when the so I D near the front of the sh my Talus was over my head and then when I took off the Talis off my head I take a lookes there a whole row of empty shoes shoes of zus shoes of fathers and shoes of little kids I couldn't look at it I started crying I couldn't look at those empty shoes sh and then the second day I was already waiting for it and I said to the people that we were going about to say yes I said what's the difference between those shoes on the danu and these shoes that are here in every sh in the world on y when they those shoes those shoes remain empty that's why we came into this world the shoes of the all the shoes that we have that are empty we can put our feet in we could go do we could go learn we could do we could go but those shoes remain empty forever and that's when I first started saying that six million is a lie because every one of those could have had children and grandchild that's what the tells us that said toen the voice of the Bloods of your brother are crying out to me what do you mean the bloods what Bloods so Rashi says the simple meaning is that Ken stabbed him so many times so there was blood coming from many places but then Rashi says no what it means the blood of his children and grandchildren cuz when he killed heav he killed future generations and that's why we say kades tonight but we're going to say that Kadesh we have to know that kades is not only about the people that were nter you Haven noticed and Kadesh you never say the person who died you come into a Shore you see a fellow saying Kadesh you want to know who's he saying kades for his father his mother grandfather what happened no Kadesh is not only about the one who passed away Kadesh Is our commitment to them and into the future that's why we don't mention the name because every time when a person passes away there's a void there's an emptiness who's going to fill that void that's what the says I'm going to fill that void I'm going to be mad and if all of us tonight can take off our shoes and tomorrow morning put them on that's what we have to do they died Al we have to live ales that's what it's all about so I want to tell you one more story about a person that you all know all know of and that's Rim andab the most incredible story that you could imagine raim Schwab when he was a young man he was a ro in a place called isin hous this was long before he was known and famous he was a young grov and again the SS guards were traveling all around Germany making sure that the Rabon don't RI up the yiden against the Nazis and it was par B and RAB gave it and one of the SS man was sitting in the back and he had RAB arrested and R Schwab was under house arrest why was he arrested because R Schwab was saying I'll say you to you in English what he was saying and then I'll show you how it happened in German he was saying that we don't need an intermediary we can davem right direct three times a day we stand and we double we talk direct we don't need an inter inter inter an intermediate so how do you say that in German soab said doish f the Jewish Nation broke mler we don't need a middleman the guy in the back heard what he say Hitler he thought o what is this Rabbi crazy he's telling the Jewish people M BR kind Hitler he didn't hear the word mitler so he had him arrested and listen to this you won't believe it R Schwab every night went to sleep wearing his shabas suit not his pajamas his shabas suit and his children who told me the story they said to him why are you going to sleep with your shabas suit listen to what Anum God his perception he says I know these Nazis I know the Germans they could come in middle of the night and they'll grab me and they'll Hang Me In The City Square you know what a it'll be if the Rob is hanging in his pajamas I'd rather be hanging in my shabas suit so it won't be a who thinks of that in the time of geh when a person thinks that he could be hung that's what he's worried [Music] about bra these people were so great and that's why we come tonight and so I just want to end with this magnificent magnificent story we know that one of the heroes during the second world war was M be Weiss Mandel he tried desperately to save thousands of thousands of yiden and Nitra in all those areas there's a wonderful book that has written about him it's called the unheated cry so now ra M he came to America NE he lost his wife and five children he moved up to Mount Kisco and and then he had five children listen to what he said at the bris of his fifth son he said on the other side I lost five children and now the has given me back five children he said they died ales hasem my hope he said is that these five children will live ales hasem and then he made one of the most brilliant statements you'll ever hear he said I hope that these children will be able to say as they will say up in let us sanctify hashem's name in this world just like they are sanctifying H's name in in the heavens because they died and then AR the children in Shay and the children in Earth will be able to say each one isad they died they are surely I hope that they'll be able to look down at my children and say they too kadad kades and that's why we say kades and that's why we come here tonight it is the Kadesh it is the Kadesh not only for the G general public of those who we don't know it's the Kadesh for all of us tonight we have to make the commitment that we will be people of kadus that they'll be able to look at us from Shay and say kadad and then together we'll be able to say both those in this world and those in the next World can say we are living lives of sanctity I thank Mrs Russo I thank the shelds I thank all the sponsors the Brocks and all the others Hashem should bench every single one of you for bringing this night so that we should be able to be inspired and truly become the am Kadesh thank you for inviting me and thank you for listening