What are the things that make us feel alive and purposeful? This week we feature an interview with the author of the newly released Recipes from Auschwitz. The book has a very specific and unusual focus, as Sarah Faygie Berkowitz captures so movingly. Olga Elek, mother of author Dr. Alex Sternberg, entered the concentration camps and chose to focus on living. She and her fellow prisoners did that by sharing the days that they felt most alive.
As the women talked about the recipes they had once prepared, longingly describing how they’d made each dish and how they would host their guests, Olga listened and memorized. She was so filled with life and hope that she was sure she would once again be able to cook and nurture her family when she’d be liberated from the camp.
Food is a nurturing aspect of the Jewish woman. I imagine that Olga found something to hold onto by picturing in her mind the future generations that would benefit from these recipes, perpetuating the Jewish legacy.
Whether or not we’re into cooking, it is through nurturing that we breathe life into our home. As our people were being destroyed in Auschwitz, Olga was building. She wasn’t just in survival mode; she had the spirit to envision herself out of the endless abyss.
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