Parashat Bo: My Father's Exodus

 

In late September 1938, the infamous Munich Pact (or 'Munich Agreement' as it is formally known) was signed between Germany, Italy, England and France.  This granted Hitler the authority to extend German sovereignty over the Sudetenland, which saw Czechoslovakia surrendering some of its territory to its aggressive neighbour.

At the same time, in the port city of Antwerp, a confluence of events within our family led to my paternal grandmother being able to secure three visas for her, my grandfather and my father, who had just turned 10 to travel to New York.  My grandfather transferred some money to a corporation in the city which eventually allowed them to emigrate to the United States.

The situation in Belgium was not as precarious as it would turn out to be a year-and-a-half later.  Anti-Semitism was rife and my father had to endure taunts from non-Jewish fellow classmates on a regular basis.  My grandfather realised that they had to emigrate upon the invasion of Denmark and Norway in the spring of 1940.

My father recalled that when he told his classmates that he was leaving, they said, "The rats are leaving the sinking ship."

On 10^th April, aged eleven, he and his parents boarded the S.S. Westernland, a transatlantic liner which formed part of the Holland-America (Red Star) Line.  They were joined by hundreds of other Jewish refugees.  The ship docked at Dunkirk so that the area could be swept free of the mines that were scattered along their path and after two weeks, arrived safely in New York.  They did not know at the time that they had secured a passage aboard the last neutral ship that would leave Antwerp for the city before the invasion of Belgium on 10^th May.

Having disembarked, they were met by one of my grandfather's nephews, who took them to their first American residence in Brooklyn.  My grandmother left her parents behind and they were hidden throughout the war in France.  Miraculously, they survived and were able to join the family after the end of hostilities.

When my father and grandparents entered the United States, they spoke no English.

They were foreigners in a foreign land.  Refugees relieved to find refuge but understandably wary of what lay ahead.  It took my father and his parents five years to become naturalised although they were somewhat fortunate to have a few relatives already living in New York.

Stephnie and I have been watching a fascinating but deeply disturbing documentary series on BBC4 entitled ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust'.  It highlights in intricate detail the rise of Nazi Germany and examines how this influenced America’s isolationist stance throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s.

'The Land of the Free’ lovingly christened the 'The Golden Medina' by those immigrants who were fortunate enough to reach it, was anything but.

Slowly and surely, she closed her gates to our people, as witnessed by the horrific story of the S.S. St Louis.  You might recall that this was a ship which left Hamburg carrying 967 Jews on 13th May 1939 and was refused entry to North and South America as well as Canada.  It was forced to return to Europe and docked in Antwerp on 17th June (ironically predating the journey that my father's ship would take in the opposite direction).  254 of its passengers would end up being murdered by the end of the war.

In the USA, support for our people ebbed and flowed throughout the 1930s but with influential antisemites such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and Father Charles Coughlin leading the charge hand-in-hand with the State Department, other Jews were not as fortunate as my family.  It is very conceivable that they could have well been passengers on ships like the St Louis instead of the Westernland.  Similar route, different year.  Another family, that of Anne Frank, who were desperate to emigrate to the USA were unable to do so when America closed her consulate in June 1941.

Returning to my own family, I wonder what it must have felt like for my father to be uprooted from the world he had grown up in.  He has often described how happy he was to leave Belgium and to this day, has no great love for the country, granted the racism he faced.  It must be akin to the feelings that were experienced by our ancestors when they left Egypt.

Of course, it is different in that the Bnei Yisrael had endured hundreds of years of slavery and were able to witness the 'strong hand' and 'outstretched arm' of Gd as He smote the Egyptians and bought the world's most powerful empire to its knees.  Pharaoh was not Hitler and once the Israelites had left, he did not carry out the atrocities that we recalled on Holocaust Memorial Day (and throughout the year), even though his chasing them to the Sea of Reeds was terrifying.  There are similarities in respect to the abuse that our ancestors endured from people who were stronger than they were and who singled them out because they were different.  Slave masters who beat them daily, who wielded power because they could.  They were forced to build supply cities.  Their descendants would be forced to scrub streets and then worse.  I cannot help but draw parallels between the exodus of the Jewish people and their journey into freedom with the experiences that my own family lived through.  This week's Parasha, coupled with Holocaust Memorial Day fills me with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude to Gd that I am here to tell my father’s story.  It is unbearably painful to think that, unlike our ancestors in Egypt, there were millions of Jews who were not able to experience salvation and freedom as they could not obtain the visas that could have saved their lives.

The Egyptians too urged the people to make haste and leave the land... the people took their dough before it could rise, carrying it upon their shoulders in kneading pans wrapped in their clothing (Exodus 12.33)

There is one detail that I have not disclosed hitherto which inexorably links both journeys together, one from Egypt and the other from Europe.  One of the common denominators being matzah.  Before they began their trip, my grandmother packed food such as matzot and salami for the journey as they knew that Passover was imminent.  On board, she approached the ship's captain and told him (in Dutch as she had been born in Holland) that they were Jewish, needed to prepare for Passover and asked whether he could help them.  The captain who was a very decent man told her that one of the chefs was Jewish and he would assign him to assist them.  He would also allow them to use part of the kitchen and they would be given brand new cutlery, China and plates as well as vegetables, eggs, fish and any other food they required.

The ship eventually docked in New York on Thursday, 25th April - the first day of Chol Hamo'ed, a date which was not lost on my father or his parents. On the festival of freedom, they were now free from the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

Whether leaving Egypt or Belgium, my ancestors never forgot where we came from.

We all look forward to the time when we will be able to enjoy complete freedom, with the arrival of Mashiach, may he arrive speedily in our days. Amen.

Shavuah Tov