Deep in the French countryside, Mrs. Ruth Becker stayed one step ahead of the Nazis
“I
t’s possible we won’t return. Du zolst vissen sis meuglish mir vellen nisht zurick kommen. You have a grandfather in Palestine, living on Dizengoff Street, in Tel Aviv. Repeat after me: Dizengoff Street, Tel Aviv. Tell them your grandfather lives in Tel Aviv. And look after your little sister.”
These were the words Mrs. Ruth Becker, nee Padawer, heard from her mother as a little girl in southwest France during the Second World War. They were repeated whenever there was a rumor of a Nazi raid, and her parents were forced to leave her and her sister in the care of local French families while they went into hiding until the danger had passed.
“I don’t know exactly how many times my parents left us with gentiles and ran for their lives, but this memory of my mother’s instructions remains with me. I’m no psychologist, but I can tell you that the trauma remains. If someone tells you they went through the war as a child, and it didn’t affect them, that’s untrue. I can never lose the feeling of insecurity I had knowing my parents might not return.”
Mrs. Becker’s vivid memories of surviving the war are a classic tale of the Jew in galus — hunted, wandering, but protected, against all odds, by Heavenly kindness.
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