Tetzave (Parshat Zachor) - Purim 1945

“Pardon me, sir, are you perchance a Jew?'”

Ralph Goodman immediately reached for the .45 calibre pistol on his hip.

The 24-year-old American soldier didn’t know what to expect from the approaching middle-aged man wearing a felt hat, one side folded up, and speaking Australian-accented English.

Goodman stopped and looked the stranger in the eye, his hand firmly planted on his gun.

“I am,” Goodman replied. “Why do you ask?”

“It is so nice to be able to say aloud ‘I am a Jew,'” answered the man, introducing himself as Philip Vecht."

This conversation took place on a hill in the small (Belgian) village of Spa, near the German border.

It was February 1945.

Goodman, who was on an errand for the 1st U.S. Army Headquarters Commandant section, relaxed as my maternal grandfather explained that he was Australian born and that he, his wife and two young children had fled their home in Antwerp in 1942 and spent the war years stranded in a rented cottage in this once-popular resort town. Only the Vechts’ British passports had saved them from deportation.

He recounted that virtually no Jews remained in Spa. And that his own father-in-law, a Belgian citizen hidden in a nearby house, had died of natural causes several years earlier and been secretly buried. The family had not been able to recite Kaddish for him."

 [I am named after his father-in-law - Kalman.]

"The two men also noted that Purim was approaching.

“Sir, I have holy books buried safely in my cellar, and amongst them Megillat Esther, and my daughter has not yet heard it read,” my grandfather said.

“Mr. Vecht, the Megillah will be read Purim evening,” Goodman said.

Goodman, from an Orthodox background in Pittsfield, Mass., was looking for a reason to celebrate. It had been a bitterly cold and nasty winter. Chanukah passed unnoticed. And the Battle of the Bulge, a surprise attack, one of the war’s bloodiest battles with more than 80,000 American casualties, had ended less than a month earlier.

Life for my mother, uncle and grandparents had been extremely difficult and my grandfather had been on strict orders to report to the Gestapo on a weekly basis.

In preparation, Goodman approached his mess sergeant, Tony Seas, a former World War I Polish army captain, for whom he had done a favour.

“Tony, I need flour, oil, raisins, poppy seeds, sugar and lemons. It’s Purim.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Seas answered.

“Tony, you owe me.”

Before the holiday, Goodman delivered the ingredients to Henrietta (whom everyone called ‘Hetty’) Vecht, my grandmother, who greeted him open-mouthed at the sight of such luxuries.

He returned on Erev Purim with a group of Jewish soldiers, including his yeshiva-trained buddies Paul Burstein from the Bronx and Melvin Lewis from Washington, D.C.

My uncle wasn't there that evening since he had already been sent to boarding school in London. And my mother, seven at the time, remembers it only vaguely.

But Ralph Goodman clearly recalled that Purim celebration.

The Ma’ariv service was prayed, Kaddish was recited for my great-grandfather and the Megillah was read.

“The GIs ate lovingly baked and tasty Purim pastries with coffee that Sgt. Seas provided,”

Goodman said.

Goodman also remembers two little girls — Rosette (my mother) and perhaps a younger cousin — who “sat on a kitchen table with tears running down their faces and sang zemirot [songs].”

In the story of Purim, with its unpredictable and paradoxical chain of events, “The world turned topsy-turvy,” according to Megillah 9:1.

But for the Vecht family and the Jewish GIs, for a few hours that Purim night in Spa, Belgium, with Haman dead and Hitler on the run, with a Megillah reading and homemade hamantaschen, the world turned right side up."

The extraordinary excerpt above which I have slightly edited, is taken from an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, dated 2^nd March 2007, exactly 13 years ago (I wrote this drasha on the same date this year). It can still be found online (please see the link at the bottom of this page).

Ralph Goodman had recently written to the “Stars and Stripes” a highly respected US Military news source, in order to tell his story.

His account piqued the interest of a journalist, Jane Ulman who met with him in Florida and he recounted his story to her. Then in his late eighties, Ralph was very keen to trace the little girl he’d seen sitting on the table, sobbing and singing zemirot, along with her her brother, whom he’d never met. He wanted to celebrate Purim with them as free Jews.

Somehow, Jane managed to locate my uncle Romeo who invited him to journey across ‘the pond’ for Purim and Ralph was incredibly excited to come over, despite his family’s very real concerns about his fragile health. 

Ralph being ‘Ralph’ would not let this stand in the way of his achieving his dream and duly joined us, along with his charming daughter, Myla, for an unforgettable evening, on 23^rd March 2008 (two days after the holiday, which he had celebrated with our family) held at my cousin Nina’s house in Hendon.

Before an invited room of family and close friends, we heard my uncle’s stirring recollections of growing up in wartime Belgium followed by a detailed account of the meeting between Ralph and my grandparents, all those years ago. It was an unforgettable evening which I fortunately videoed and shared the DVDs amongst the family.

My then-wife and I had the pleasure of inviting Ralph over to our house for a Shabbat lunch, so that we could spend more time with him and most importantly, he could have the opportunity to meet the next generation, my daughters.

The following Purim, Ralph sent us a beautiful box of hamantaschen whose taste lasted longer than the crumbs they generated.

I stayed in touch with Ralph until he sadly passed away a few years later, on 7^th July 2013 and I still correspond with Myla, despite the physical distance between us.

I mention all the above because, despite it being 75 years since the event, an auspicious commemoration in itself, it speaks directly to me in connection with this Shabbat of Parshat Zachor.

“Devarim 25:

Remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt, that he encountered you on the way, and he struck those lagging at the rear, when you were tired and exhausted, and he did not fear God. Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

Some Rabbis have compared the actions of the Nazis to those of Amalek, in their barbaric treatment of the Jewish people, not least the singling out of our vulnerable members and particularly the one-and-a-half million children who were murdered during the Shoah.

Tzaddikim like Ralph Goodman, Ruel Reuven ben Mordechai zichrono livracha, - may his memory be a blessing), ensured that he did everything in his power to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under the Heaven”. He didn’t just sit back in the United States where war seemed to be, but a distant thundercloud. He literally put his life on the line to help save the continent of Europe and not least, his own brothers and sisters. To rescue them from the furnaces that had engulfed the area, both literally and metaphorically.

And that’s why, 75 years later, I say “thank you”.

Thank you, Ralph, for putting your hand out to that Australian gentlemen on a hill, somewhere in the countryside between the Channel and the Rhine and thank you for bringing Purim back into my grandparents’ lives.  Coming towards the end of the Shoah, it was, at least for our family, nothing short of a miracle, which is what Purim is all about.

We have never forgotten Ralph’s incredible gift to our family. In doing so, he created an inexorable bond between the Goodmans and Vechts because in Jewish geography, mountains and oceans simply do not exist.

We are one family.

Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach.

(You can read the unedited article at https://jewishjournal.com/tag/rosette-vecht/)