Good germs: did the righteous among the nations use the Nazi fear of germs to save Jewish people?

Can the legacy of the righteous among the nations help to keep our souls more free?

Jew hate, which sometimes manifests itself in attempts to distort the Holocaust, must never be far from mind when one rhetorically invokes the Holocaust for any context other than the commemoration of the Holocaust itself.  The agenda of Holocaust distortion often dons the “intellectual” mask of free thinking, but, in my mind, it is often little other than what Jew hate has likely always been: an attempt to construct fantasies around the Jewish people and their imagined “agendas” in order to fulfil some inner emotional need.  For that reason and other reasons, it is crucial to emphasize that the thoughts that follow here do not in any way intend to compare the extreme murder, suffering and destruction associated with the Holocaust with the significantly milder problems associated with COVID culture.  To me, the Holocaust is evil personified. COVID culture, on the other hand, is an incomparably milder but problematic phenomenon that highlights flaws and vulnerabilities in human nature and society and that requires vigilance so that we may self-improve and self-correct rather than slide into a more authoritarian and power-oriented society.  Readers who are not familiar with Holocaust history and memory may find it meaningful to consult the educational materials that are widely available through websites such as those of Yad Vashem or the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Speaking in 1995 in Brooklyn, New York to the USC Shoah Foundation while recording his Holocaust memories, German-born survivor Harry Alexander recalls something remarkable that a fellow victim said to him in the midst of both of them being severely tortured.  They had both been hanging down from hooks and had been intermittently unconscious when he said, “Harry, are you up?  You know, I just can’t get used to this kind of life.  I am trying, but I just can’t get used to it.”  Harry says the following about his fellow victim’s spirit: “you see, in the midst of darkness, in the midst of pain, and hurt, and hopelessness of the situation, he found the strength to make a joke.  In the morning he was dead.  They had beat him so bad that he hung dead the next morning.”

In the world in which we live where, despite possible vaccine adverse effects and questionable mandates, many of us live in comfortable homes and benefit from work-from-home flexibility, we might ask ourselves without any dark humor or particular strength: can we get used to this kind of life?  And the answer is usually yes, we can.  But where do things go from here?

One of our most basic limitations as moral human beings is that we do not have a crystal ball into the future. The record of human life provides countless illustrations of the ability of some human beings to be sadistic and perverted to their fellow human beings—often through organized regimes.  And yet, when a suspiciously power-oriented phenomenon presents itself in the present moment in front of us, it hard to know what to make of it: is it an annoying but ultimately fleeting wrinkle in the generally smooth fabric of our society that will soon self-correct? Is it just inevitable cultural/technological change that should not send us raging against the machine? Or is it an ominous harbinger of worse things to come? 

It seems that COVID culture may be a new phase in the development (or decline) of civilization in which ideas about the common good revolve around compulsory medical treatment (experimental repeated vaccination) and other measures, such as masking, that control the mind by controlling bodies.  Until recently, we have implicitly believed that medical treatment should be offered to an individual patient on the basis of that individual’s needs and with that individual’s consent.  But under COVID culture, a person who works at being a good human being every day from morning till night is by definition an Enemy of the People the moment they decline to have an experimental medical treatment injected into their body.  Humans are thus judged not as free moral agents but as homo-pharma, or pharma-human. For the pharma-human, medical treatment is no longer merely something that may occasionally become necessary due to a problem that arises. On the contrary, consuming unnecessary pharmaceutical products is now at the very essence and definition of what it means to be an ethical member of the human family.  Even if the pharma-human as an individual does not need the medical treatment, they are perpetually pregnant, metaphorically, with “the common good,” a rhetorical baby they must protect (and that has been conceived through coercion, invoking arbitrary notions of the common good that are not well supported by evidence and that may often contradict the actual common good). 

Despite my criticism, I have been obedient to that culture and what was its vaccine mandate as a condition for employment.  Does this mean that, in practical terms, I have learned nothing from history? When I thought that society was safely free, it was also safe to loudly admire those who, in past generations, resisted totalitarian phenomena.  But what is the meaning of my awe for people who sacrificed their lives to resist the real totalitarian regimes of the past when I myself have not sacrificed anything to peacefully resist the demands of a much lesser authoritarian phenomenon? 

Do I even really admire people who risked their lives to fight totalitarianism, or am I just enjoying their stories as one would enjoy any highly engaging narrative?  What is the meaning of admiration if we cannot—at least to some limited extent—adapt what we have learned to the present moment?

On the one hand, given that the crimes committed by real totalitarian regimes were significantly worse than what we have seen under COVID culture, the need to resist coercion in free society might not present itself as a moral imperative.  But the contrary argument also requires contemplation: if under violent totalitarianism some people were willing to risk their lives to stand for what was right, was there not an obligation for us to peacefully struggle and act on principle, given that sacrifices such as losing one’s place in society, however devastating, are after all smaller than losing one’s life?  Resisting COVID culture does not directly save lives, but could it in the long run help in a small way to prevent a dystopian future? 

My position remains that I will not demand of myself or encourage other people to give up our means of making a living and the ability to work in society and love one’s work in order to stand on principle—nor do I believe that people who stand on principle are morally superior to people who decide to provide for themselves and their families. Not everybody can stand on principle while having alternative sources of income and a platform from which to articulately tell the world about their principles.

Image: The Encyclopedia of the Righteous among the Nations, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

More than two decades ago, I was at a reception, chatting with a woman I had just met and whom I never met since then.  When she found out that I had grown up in Israel, she told me about her trip to Jerusalem.  The itinerary included a visit to Yad Vashem, a Holocaust remembrance center and one of the most visited sites in Israel.  Yad Vashem is situated on a 44.5-acre complex in the pine-forested hills of Jerusalem.  The campus contains several buildings and monuments, including, among others, a Holocaust-history museum, a Holocaust-art museum, a children’s memorial, a research institute, a library, and a synagogue.  The Yad Vashem complex is also home to a boulevard of trees known as the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.  In that avenue, each tree is dedicated to honoring a different person who risked their own life to save a Jewish person or persons during the Holocaust. In response to the question, where was God during the Holocaust? it has been suggested that the righteous among the nations may be the answer: He resided in their hearts.  The Jewish saying, “however saves one life saves the world entire” is often invoked in relation to the righteous among the nations.

The Yad Vashem website states, “One of Yad Vashem’s principal duties is to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to Righteous Among the Nations who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust.”

The website then quotes Eli Wiesel: 

"In those times there was darkness everywhere. In heaven and on earth, all the gates of compassion seemed to have been closed. The killer killed and the Jews died and the outside world adopted an attitude either of complicity or of indifference. Only a few had the courage to care. These few men and women were vulnerable, afraid, helpless - what made them different from their fellow citizens?… Why were there so few?… Let us remember: What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander…. Let us not forget, after all, there is always a moment when moral choice is made…. And so we must know these good people who helped Jews during the Holocaust. We must learn from them, and in gratitude and hope, we must remember them."

https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/about-the-program.html

I cannot remember what exactly the lady that I was chatting with at the reception said about her stroll down the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, but it was something that linked her own charitable activities in late twentieth-century Canada to the moral courage of the righteous among the nations.  The connection seemed farcical.  Charitable activities in free society, no matter how generous they may be in terms of a person’s time or money, are often in accordance with society’s social cues, and they often bestow social and professional rewards upon the volunteer.  The righteous among the nations, in contrast, risked their own lives to save Jews and often lived in constant nerve-wracking anxiety and tension with their society, often suffering hostility and fearing betrayal from their neighbours.  They had no way to know that one day they would be celebrated and rewarded—but the threat to their lives and to the lives of their loved ones were very real, and many were indeed imprisoned or murdered by the Nazis.

In “The Rescuer Self,” Eva Fogelman emphasizes the danger and emotional isolation in which rescuers found themselves: “rescuers became outlaws in a Nazi no-man’s-land. Their ideas of right and wrong were not widely held.  Being isolated was new for them, since before the war, they had been very much part of their communities. . . . Neighbours who suspected people of harboring Jews viewed them as selfish and dangerous because they risked the lives of those around them. . . . At home [where Jews were being hidden] strains were often as great.  Overnight, dynamics changed, as families adjusted to the new ‘member’ being sheltered.  The atmosphere could become poisonous if one spouse did not support the other’s rescue efforts” (p. 3)

Today, we take it for granted that those who struggles against Nazism were fighting evil—but at the time the regime presented itself—and even possibly thought about itself—as working toward the common good, and many people bought the lie. 

In Ann Michael’s novel Fugitive Pieces, the fictional character Athos (who, had he been a real person, would have been entitled to the title of a righteous among the nations) is working in the Polish archeological site Beskupin.  Hidden in the muddy forest, he finds the Jewish boy Jakob, whose family has just been murdered.  Athos takes Jakob to a hiding place in Greece, concealing Jakob under his clothes as they travel through Europe toward the island.  As the vehicle in which they travel passes through a Nazi inspection point, Athos fakes illness: “For miles through darkness in the back seat of the car, I had no idea where we were or where we were going. Another man drove and when we were signaled to stop, Athos pulled a blanket over us. In Greek-stained but competent German, Athos complained that he was ill. He didn’t just complain. He whimpered, he moaned. He insisted on describing his symptoms and treatments in detail. Until, disgusted and annoyed, they waved us on. Each time we stopped, I was numb against his solid body, a blister tight with fear” (p. 13).

The contrast between the righteous Athos and the germ-fearing Nazis provides quasi-comic relief from the terror of the situation.  Athos makes Jakob a part of his body as he takes upon himself the risk of rescue with love and dignity.  The Nazis, in contrast, who were supposed to do their duty with “devotion” and sacrifice themselves for “blood and honour” can in fact be derailed from their “duty” rather easily when they perceive the risk of coming into contact with “inferior” germs. 

I recently obtained the Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations published by the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem.  So far, out of the 5000 pages that make up the encyclopedia, I have read only 21 pages, and I found it interesting that this tiny and random sample alone contains three interesting references to how the Nazi fear of germs helped the righteous among the nations in some way to save lives:  

First example: from the entry for Braakhekke, Herman and Braakhekke-Muil, Jantie (The Netherlands)

“In January 1943, seven-year-old Helly Oestreicher was taken in by the Braakhekkes, even though they had been told they would be getting a baby girl.  She was the daughter of Felix and Gerda (nee Laqueur), originally from Czechoslovakia, who had fled to Amsterdam in the late 1930s.  She and her entire family—parents, two sisters and a grandmother—had been arrested in November 1942 and taken to the Hollandsche Schouburg, the assembly point for Jews who were to be deported.  On their way, father Felix, a physician, succeeded in convincing the Germans that Helly, an asthmatic girl, was suffering from diphtheria, a contagious disease the Germans were afraid of.  As a result, Helly was left off at the Joodse Invalide Hospital close by.  From there, Helly was whisked away to the Braakhekkes by underground workers” (Supplementary Volume II, page 439).

Second example: from the entry for Clercq Zubli de, Julius Karel Isaac (The Netherlands)

“Dr. de Clercq Zubli also issued false medical attestations so that Jews could receive a postponement of deportation.  In this way, he prevented deportation of his Jewish neighbours, the Reinders family of four.  When in November 1942, police came to the Reinders apartment to take them away, de Clercq Zubli spontaneously intervened and stated that one son of the Reinders had scarlet fever, a contagious disease, very much feared by the Germans.  On the basis of this statement, the Reinders family got a postponement of a number of weeks, enough time to find a hiding address.  Another patient, Ies van see Ster, also received a false medical attestation, which enabled him to postpone deportation” (Supplementary Volume II, p. 441).

Third example: from the entry for Eckhart, Geertruida Christine; Elkhart, Karel Gerardus and Eckhart-Hald, Elisabeth (Else) (The Netherlands)

“On July 31, 1944, the Eckharts were betrayed by neighbors and a house search, by German and Dutch police, revealed the three children in hiding.  They were arrested, along with Geertruida.  Elsa was ill in bed at the time and was left alone, whereas Karel was not at home” (Supplementary Volume II, p. 446).

This tiny sample raises research questions that can be answered by reading through the entire collection: did the righteous among the nations mobilize the Nazi fear of germs to save Jewish lives?  If they did, what does this mean about the idea that the Nazis were true believers? True believers, it seems, until they perceived a risk to their own health. Or perhaps the Fuhrer failed to provide them with the appropriate mask or vaccination mandate, so they did not feel safe at work.

The righteous among the nations, by contrast, seemed to care about the truth, about humanity and about the quality of their own souls—and above all the survival of another human being—more than about self-preservation.  It should be noted here for the sake of accuracy that the righteous among the nations were not a homogenous group of human angels, and there were some bad apples among them who mistreated those whom they rescued from the Nazis.  For example the story of sexual abuse in the link below should be known.  However, I believe that the vast majority of the righteous among the nations were good people.

https://thecjn.ca/perspectives/opinions/shternshis-should-we-talk-about-sexual-violence-during-the-holocaust/  

There have been several attempts to study the psychology of the righteous among the nations, who came from all walks of life and who, superficially, often did not have obvious unifying characteristics that distinguished them from their fellow citizens.   

“The Rescuer Self” by Eva Fogelman, available on the Yad Vashem website and mentioned in the beginning of this commentary, is worth reading:

https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/fogelman_the_rescuer_self.pdf

While the article is firmly rooted in the context of the Holocaust, Fogelman seems to implicitly acknowledge in her conclusion that studying the behaviour of the righteous among the nations has relevance beyond extreme situations: “Each rescuer was unique.  Yet research shows patterns in the ways people became involved in rescue, which provide useful ideas as to how to nurture humane behaviour” (p. 11).

Fogelman identifies the conduct of the righteous among the nations as “rare behaviour,” with the act of rescue often being “an impulsive response.” She observes that “the ability to see beyond Nazi propaganda, to strip away the gauze of Nazi euphemisms, and to recognize that innocents were being murdered lies at the heart of what distinguishes most rescuers from the bystanders.”  However, “what is disputed among researchers is how one develops this ability to see things differently.”  The key difference is that “bystanders who transformed themselves into rescuers held on to their innate empathy, while others who did not were swept up in the restructured social hierarchy with Aryans at the top and Jews at the bottom.”  Fogelman also mentions “psychologist Daniel Goleman’s theory of ‘psychic obtuseness’” by which “we crop our mental picture. . . and in so doing, ignore clues that indicate that things are amiss.” In the case of the righteous among the nations, “their heightened sense of empathy overrode Nazi propaganda and their own instinct for self-preservation” (p. 1-2).

Fogelman writes that “‘interpreting a situation as one in which help is needed’ is the second stage in becoming a rescuer.  While local citizens were aware that the Jews were losing their civil liberties, most interpreted that change as temporary, not fatal, and not necessarily warranting intervention . . . . Psychologist Elizabeth Midlarsky feels that the willingness to take responsibility requires a perception of competency—the view that one can alter events to bring about the desired outcome, whether or not it was objectively true.”

Fogelman emphasizes that “rescuers were neither fools nor suicidal.  They were not about to offer help unless they felt there was a good chance that they could be effective.  They have to have faith in their capacity to assess situations and find solutions. . . . Rescuers framed the situation this way: ‘Can I live with myself if I say no?’. . . . In most cases, transformation from bystander to rescuer was gradual, and characterized by an increasing commitment” (p. 2).

Fogelman comments on the resilience of the rescuers: “rescue often entailed great risk and anxiety; rescue acts could also unleash strong feelings of guilt (at not being able to do more, at risking one’s family in the service of others); rage (at the oppressors); terror and grief (at witnessing atrocities and dehumanization), all of which could induce inner chaos.  But it is apparent from my interviews that rescuers have strong equilibrium.  They can withstand intense decentering experiences and the accompanying pain and confusion.  As Robert Jay Lifton points out, such experiences can help to recenter people, allowing them to achieve a new mode of flexible psychological coping.”

Our knowledge of the righteous among the nations is also useful when it comes to self-critically examining the reasons for opposing a regime or a cultural phenomena.  Fogelman observes that self-centered satisfaction has been invoked to explain the behaviour of the righteous among the nations:

“Many psychoanalysts believe that rescuers’ acts derive from self-centered, unconscious motivations: expressing rage against the Third Reich, for example, or undoing a sense of helplessness.  Saving the lives of Jews is perceived as providing rescuers with the narcissistic gratification of outwitting their oppressors or of having someone totally dependent on them.  Most analysts would argue that self-gratification rather than altruism underlay the rescuers’ help.  Anna Freud, for one, felt that there was no such thing as altruistic motivation.  People who help others do it for personal gratification.”

However, Fogelman also emphasizes the limitations of the narcissistic-based explanation: “unconscious motivation may have played a role in turning bystanders into rescuers.  Yet intangibles such as narcissistic gratification and enhanced self-image were small reward when weighed against the vast risks that people understood” (p. 5).

Fogelman mentions Eli Sagan’s view that “conscience reigns not through fear of punishment (or castration as Freud believed) but through love.  A child who receives love wants to give it back.  In Sagan’s terms, a moral rescuer [one of the categories of rescuers Fogelman describes] was simply a person trying to return the love he received as a child.”  However, Fogelman notes that “moral rescuers . . . had a strong sense of who they were and what they lived for.  Their values were self sustaining, not dependent on the approval of others” (p. 6). 

Another category that Fogelman describes is the “concerned-detached professionals:” “Diplomats, doctors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists did not necessarily love Jews, or even much liked them. . . . Unlike moral rescuers, who, through empathy, saw human beings just like themselves, these professionals saw what they were accustomed to see day in and day out: clients in trouble, patients in need, strangers in distress. . . . Whatever their particular jobs—social worker, nurse, diplomat—these rescuing professionals applied to the highest ideals of their professions” (p. 8).  This is one question that the righteous among the nations can inspire us to ask ourselves today: what are the highest ideals of our profession, and how can we try to peacefully live up to them? 

Network rescuers is yet another category: “Unlike moral rescuers or Judeophiles who acted from empathy with others, rescuers were motivated by fear and abhorrence of the Third Reich’s racist and dictatorial policies . . . . The sense of being one of many, of belonging to a group, strengthened rescuers’ resolve and gave them psychological support. . . [These] rescuers activities infused their lives with meaning and purpose; the active defence of values and beliefs.  For many, it was an experience so deeply gratifying that they would spend the rest of their lives trying to engage in another compelling act” (p. 8-9).  While I believe that many of the righteous among the nations operated without networks, some networks of rescuers effectively brought together people who risked their lives to save Jewish people. 

Networks of people today working to try to peacefully protect basic civil rights are operating in a significantly milder context and can do so openly though free speech.  However, it is difficult for such networks to bring about change when the culture as a whole demonstrates high levels of enthusiasm or complacency toward COVID culture—not to mention all the other challenges that also affect group work.  Also, people joining groups with the hope of associating with like-minded individuals can sometimes experience distress when they encounter values or beliefs that are outside of their personal boundaries among one or more of the members of the group that they have joined.  For these reasons and others, I generally prefer free thinking, writing and communicating with individuals or small groups of people over larger-group activism—even though there are groups of people that have been doing great work to challenge COVID culture. 

In summary, contemplating the legacy of the righteous among the nations is a humbling but confusing experience.  It is not clear what the “take away” would be for the present day or even if there is a take-away that can be clearly articulated—precisely because our present situation is much milder and more ambiguous and because in these much more comfortable conditions what presents itself as heroism is sometimes more self serving than it seems.  The righteous among the nations were not activists gathering “admirers” around them; they took real risks in secret and had no way to know that one day they would be acknowledged and celebrated for their courage.  Had I been a non-Jewish person living during the Holocaust, I know that I would almost certainly not have been one of the righteous among the nations. 

But I believe that despite the radically different context, the courage of the righteous among the nations can help keep our thoughts today more free.  Because the righteous among the nations did their work secretly, often isolating themselves from those around them, they are a reminder that public recognition and the craving for admiration should not be the focus of a free human being.  The analysis of the work of the righteous among the nations by scholars has given us concepts that we may privately treasure close to our hearts as small but abiding gifts, even as these key concept inspire only free thinking but no public action: recognize a reconstructed social hierarchy, see through euphemisms, interpret a situation as one that warrants intervention (even if that “intervention” means just thinking freely, reading, listening and, when possible, speaking freely), perceive the self as morally competent, maintain a strong equilibrium, hold dear values that do not depend on the approval of others, and above all—love good and reject evil.

In the interview mentioned in the beginning of this reflection, Harry Alexander describes some memories from his childhood in Leipzig, Germany:

“Shabbat was a wonderful time. . . .  I remember we all used to get dressed up.  The girls used to wear white blouses and blue skirts, and the guys used to wear short blue pants and white shirts.  Everyone used to be so clean, and the house used to smell so good—of the baking and the cooking.  We put heavy candlesticks. . . . Everything was so wonderful: such a beautiful, wonderful way of life . . . We went to shul before the dinner.  We came home, we all washed up, we sat around the table.  It was a good life.  We did not worry much about anything.  There was money.  We had a beautiful home.  It was a large, beautiful home, and we had a wonderful way of life . . . I remember Passover. . .  we always had a lot of people, I remember. . . We always had 4, 5 people that used to come up to the house.  Our door was always open.  They would come in. They would say, just to taste your gefiltefish, just to taste your chicken soup, just to taste your kneidels [matzah balls], or your cake, or your strudel.  They used to sing the Jewish songs.  It was wonderful.  Afterward the kids used to run around and play, and the older people used to sit at the table.  There was white tablecloth on the table.  The table was set beautifully.  It was just a very nice life.  We did not worry about anything at that time.”

But not long after:

“I was thrown out of school when I was about twelve years old.  That was the end of my schooling. . . . It was German public school I went to, which was on our block.  And I remember how I left.  They all came in Hitler youth uniforms, the other students.  They were students I grew up with, I played with; they were my best pals.  Suddenly they all had knives that was written, “blood and honour” on it.  And they came in with their uniforms.  And I was the only one that did not have a uniform on.  They came in, and the teacher came in, and he says, “what have we here?  One more Jew!  What do we do with that Jew?  And everybody was yelling, Throw him out! And they took my books and my leather case, and they threw it out into the hallway, and then they got a hold of me and they dragged me to the door, and they threw me out of the classroom.  I remember going home with my books and was crying. . . . There came a time when we were no longer allowed to go to the park.  We were no longer allowed to go to stores. . . . We were not allowed to go to any movies.  We were not allowed to go on a walk on a promenade. . . .  Most of it was closed to us.  Wherever you looked, there was that big sign: Juden Verboten; that means Jews not permitted. And we did what they told us to do.  We did not have much of a choice.  And then of course came the time when they confiscated all the finances from the Jews, all their bank accounts, all their holdings, all their businesses.  We no longer could  buy a pair of shoes, we could no longer buy could buy a shirt or a suit of whatever.  We had to make an application to the city to allow us x amount of marks to take out from our own money to buy a pair of shoes, and either they did did or did not. [At Kristallnacht] they arrested my brother Paul; they beat us up; they broke all the dishes, they broke all the furniture . . . they shook [our feather beds] out of the window.  They made believe it was Christmas: it “snowed.”  They destroyed everything in their way. They took Jewish girls and raped them in the street; they dragged Jews by their beards through their streets.  They beat them.  They started burning the synagogues, burning Jewish books, breaking into Jewish stores and putting fire to it.  It was hell broke loose, and nobody really knew what was happening.”

As I listen to Harry, I want to freeze in time that moment when he recalls that everyone, despite their differences, “loved their strudel and their tea”—a time when neighbours came into Jewish homes to taste the soup instead of to destroy, steal and beat up—with much worse things to come as the Holocaust escalated in the years that followed into industrialized genocide.  The quick transition from a pre-Nazi time when many German Jews reported experiencing little antisemitism to a time of unspeakable horror contains a message that cannot be ignored about the dangers of latent, dormant cruelty and hate. 

In the Holocaust Survivor Cookbook, a collection of recipes by Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren, Marcia Rothenberg writes, “Grandma Rosie loved to cook.  I still remember the smells coming from the kitchen and how warm and safe she made us all feel.  She never spoke of her family that died, or of how she felt leaving Poland so many years ago” (p. 102). 

Ruth Steinfeld writes, by way of introducing “Anna Krell’s Chicken soup:”

“I was only seven when my dear mother sent my sister and I away from the Concentration Camp Gurs.  It was located on the Southwest side of France near the Spanish border.  This was in 1941.  We were then protected by an underground agency called OSE (Oeuvre de Secour aux enfants) Agency for the rescue of children.  My parents died in Auschwitz on Sept 9, 1942.  I was married in the USA in 1945.  I wanted to be a good Jewish wife and part of that meant my cooking.  I had no idea even how to make a good soup.  I do not remember exactly what my mother looked like, but I remembered the smell of her chicken soup.  I worked on it till I felt I had my Mom in my kitchen.  This is the closest to my Mom Anna Krell’s good-tasting soup.  My three daughters, their husband and my seven Grandchildren all agree. ‘It is the best’”

The recipe that follows consists of five basic directions:

1)     Always use a hen.

2)     Use a lot of parsley.

3)     Add celery and onion.

4)     Let it cook for about two hrs. on a medium flame.

5)     Add salt and pepper to taste.

*Always use a chicken hen not a fryer.

In Canada and elsewhere, as apples ripen on our trees and as we enjoy the inviting smells of fall baking—may we remember the warmth that common humanity can bring, but also the abruptness with which human solidarity may be shattered.   What can we do to avoid shattering it?