The Holocaust and Shopping

Hi all!

I am sorry for the late November Substack, but I’m happy I’m getting it out while it is still November. Thank you so much for being here. (Don’t judge the writing, it’s been frantic.)

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving.

Today is Black Friday so shopping is on my mind.

One of the first things my grandmother did when she was liberated from the Holocaust was go shopping. She did not go shopping in the sense that she bought clothes. She was poor before the war but whatever little money she did have was looted by the Nazis. When she was liberated from the death camp Terezin, she couldn’t exactly go clothing shopping either.  She also didn’t look well enough to shop . Her hair was shaven. She was so emaciated they called her a muselmann, a skeleton. She had just survived 3 death camps and a death march. Yet still, she went shopping.

Terezin was a horrible death camp. It was used for propaganda. The Nazis videoed the inmates doing things like participating in concerts. After the Nazi videographers shot the show, they shot the musicians, literally. They videoed the inmates playing sports and participating in clubs. They even had an old age home. “Look how well we are taking care of the Jews,” they told the world as they systematically murdered 6 million other ones. At the end of the war, Terezin was a destination for the death march and was where my grandmother ended up. It became the battlefront for the Soviets against the Germans. She was in a bunker there for ten days. She said she felt alone, forlorn, like she was buried alive.

On May 8th, 1945, Terezin was liberated.

My grandmother has told me many horrific stories, but she has also told me incredible ones. She said when she climbed out of that bunker, she felt like she was climbing out of her grave. The first thing she saw? Wildflowers. It was spring. They bloomed as she was buried. She said they were all colors, and the sight of them went on forever. She said she felt like God was telling her, you are alive, you are going to live and there is still beauty in this world waiting for you. And there was. Challenges yes, but also beauty. The day she was buried? May 8th, 2022, exactly 77 years to the day she climbed out of what felt like her grave.

One of the first things she did when she was liberated was go to work. My grandmother told me that in Auschwitz, she did whatever she could to hide from work because she knew work would kill her. But as soon as she was liberated, as soon as she got some food, she knew that not working would kill her.  They needed people to work in the old age home. She immediately volunteered. She took good care of the elderly there. She washed them, fed them, sang to them and they loved her. It was at that old age home where she went shopping. There were some suitcases of clothes stashed there and they told her to take whatever she wanted. She found floral dresses and leather belts. She brought a few of them back to her bunkers where she dressed the shells of girls who were left there. They took off their rags and adorned themselves with pretty dresses and smooth belts and slowly, they began to feel a little better about themselves. She gave them back some dignity at a time when it was stripped away from them literally and figuratively.

She worked as a stylist until her late 70s. She got piles of letters from women thanking her for making them feel confident and beautiful with the clothes she dressed them in.

She dressed herself up until she was 96 years old. She looked fantastic with her perfectly ironed blouses and suits and little silk scarves and orthopedic shoes embellished with velvet bows.

I think what I am trying to say here is, that your life is magical. It is precious and unique, and you should dress for that. (I am talking to myself here. Sometimes I look at my closet and I think, Bobby you didn’t leave me your talents or enough tips!) So I hope you can wear something that makes you feel beautiful today. If not, I hope you can go shopping for it. Mostly, I hope you know that no one and nothing can take away your dignity, it is something you choose for yourself.

This is a comfort to me, and I hope it can be a comfort to you too.

Love,

Nechama