Esterke’s Spar

AS I was reviewing the Haggadah recently, I stopped at Ha Lachma Anya. The words opened a floodgate of memories of a mainstay of my youth, Mrs. Spiegel a”h — my friend’s grandmother and our family seamstress.

Mrs. Spiegel was a powerhouse of inspiration. She survived Auschwitz, broken and alone, but she forged on to build anew. The Nazis had robbed her of her family, her shtetl, her world — but not her emunah. Sadly, liberation was not the end of her troubles; the memories haunted Mrs. Spiegel for the rest of her life.

One particular memory tormented her. Suffocating in the mangled masses on the train to Auschwitz, she traveled with her older sister and her little niece, Esterke, who was about five or six. For days, neither a morsel of food nor water passed their parched lips.

“A bissel vasser,” her niece begged, over and over, her voice growing weaker each time. “Vasser, vasser.”