The letter read as follows (this is a rough translation):
During World War II, our family was deported from Holland to the Westerbork Transit Camp, and from there to Bergen-Belsen. With us was a young girl named Fanny Ehrenreich. She was placed together with the children of the Star Lager in Bergen-Belsen, and she organized activities in the camp and taught us about Yiddishkeit, emunah, Yamim Tovim, etc. She always sang us a song about emunah, in the tune of zchor davar/zos nechamasi, which had the following lyrics (translated from Yiddish ): “Hashem knows what He’s doing/ He doesn’t punish anyone for no reason/ Your (Hashem’s) judgement is correct.”
I’d be very grateful to anyone who knows anything about her, if you could be in touch with me. Did she or anyone in her family survive? I don’t remember more details about her, except for one: Her father was a devout Belzer chassid.
The letter concluded with an email address to be in touch with the writer, 89-year-old Yaakov Yehoshua of Rechovot. The letter caused quite an uproar in my family — Fanny (Fayga Gittel) Ehrenreich-Schneider was my grandmother. Oma Fanny passed away in 1978 at the young age of 48. She never met any of her grandchildren. When she was alive, she didn’t tell her children much about her experiences in the war, and whatever shreds of information we had barely gave a sketch of what she’d been through in her childhood.
Create a free account to keep reading.
