Survivor Didn’t Expect This Twist

Rabbi Ilan Heifetz, M.Ed.
Director of General Studies, Cheder Lubavitch Hebrew Day School

Over the course of the past couple weeks, both 8th grade classes of Cheder Lubavitch Hebrew Day School of Chicago had the opportunity to visit the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie.

Through the private, guided tour, our students were able to see artifacts, pictures and videos from this dark time of our history, and were able to stand inside a genuine cattle-car from the period.

The highlight of the trip was definitely hearing the first-hand account of Michael Winthrop, a native of Poland who was expelled from his home only weeks before his thirteenth birthday, eventually surviving the sheer brutality of Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and a death march, among other atrocities.

The climax of the boys’ trip, however, came at the very end, when one of our students asked Mr. Winthrop, “Whatever happened with your bar-mitzvah?”

His response was a sad one, not because he had never celebrated one, but because of the way he viewed himself as a result of never “having” a bar-mitzvah. “I am only half a Jew,” he said almost painfully. “I have a circumcision, but I never had a bar-mitzvah.”

He continued to tell us how his grandparents had been orthodox, his great-grandfather a rav, and that he had studied for his bar-mitzvah. He later also showed us with pride a picture of his family, (he still in his mother’s belly,) pointing out his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

“It’s never too late,” one of our students shot back, lifting his tefillin bag, which he and another student had brought in the event that the Survivor from whom we would hear would be willing to wear them.

At first Mr. Winthrop thought we were kidding, but that lasted only a brief moment. His face turned bright red, partially from being put on the spot, but also clearly from the rush of emotion. A wide smile broke across his face, and though I saw no tears, his eyes were clearly moist.

After being assured that he would be helped with the prayer, he gladly agreed to have his “bar-mitzvah”. Not since preparing for his bar-mitzvah had he donned tefillin – never as an adult. (Afterwards he told us how surprised he was that he remembered much of the brachas tefillin and Shema from so long ago.)

We danced with him, singing “siman tov u’mazal tov,” watching this Survivor, this holiest of Jews, at long last believe and realize himself to be a full member of our nation.