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By: Brandon Chiat, Digital Media Strategist 

“The Jewish people have all too often faced terrible persecution and tragedy,” Rabbi Steve Schwartz said. “The Jewish people survive because we maintain faith in the possibility of a better future. There is something very Jewish about maintaining hope even in the darkest times.“

Honoring Jewish resilience is why the Israeli Knesset designated the 27th of Nisan as Yom Hashoah ve-Hagevurah (the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism), a Holocaust remembrance day for Israeli citizens and the Jewish diaspora.

“The Israeli government felt a strong responsibility to the Holocaust survivors since many settled in the land that would, in 1948, become the modern State of Israel,” said Dr. Eyal Bor, Director of Education and the Rabbi Mark G. Loeb Center for Lifelong Learning. “Israel, its citizens and its army remain strong and vital because we remember that our people were almost wiped out in the Shoah.”

However, remembering the Shoah has become increasingly difficult.

There are fewer living Holocaust survivors with each passing year. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, estimates there are less than 100,000 Jews who were in camps, ghettos and in hiding under Nazi occupation still alive today.

Therefore, the responsibility falls to the children and grandchildren of survivors to honor their memory and articulate their experience.

“Jewish tradition teaches us that we must do the work ourselves,” Rabbi Schwartz explained.

“The second and third generations are stepping up to speak about their parents and grandparents,” Dr. Bor said. “Many survivors did not talk about their experiences, so their families have begun researching and preserving their parents' experiences.”

Two longtime Beth El members - Brenda Mandel and Richard Grilli - have assumed that responsibility. Here are their stories.

The Mandels:

Mrs. Mandel's father, Julius Mandel, grew up in Szombathely, Hungary with his parents Bluma and Abraham, his brother Ernö and sister Anna. Bluma perished at the Auschwitz death camp, and Abraham and Ernö met their fate at Buchenwald. Julius and Anna survived.

“Before the war broke out, there was a quota that determined how many Jews were allowed to emigrate from a Nazi-occupied country,” Mrs. Mandel said. “My father and aunt were included in the Austrian quota, which was much larger than the Hungarian quota, and in 1939, they went to England. Eventually, my father boarded the Aquitania - a ship in the Cunard Line - and went to New York.”

Mrs. Mandel's mother, Tony Weil Mandel, lived in an affluent community of Freiburg, a town located in the Black Forest of Germany, with her parents Hilde and Theo Weil and twin sisters Lisa and Erna. Mrs. Mandel's grandfather was a successful businessman who manufactured the stoves and ovens used to heat homes.

However, their idyllic life would not last.

“My mother came home one day and saw the local synagogues burning. The next day, the police came and took my grandfather to jail,” Mrs. Mandel said. “My mother went to the jail with some checks and told the guards her father needed to sign, or his non-Jewish employees wouldn't get paid.”

In actuality, that money allowed Mrs. Mandel's mother and aunts to leave Germany in 1940, and eventually, helped her parents escape a French concentration camp.

“My mom and her sisters went to England where they spent their remaining money to forge passports which her family then used to get out of the internment camp in Gurs, France,” Mrs. Mandel said. “The Nazis seized my grandparents' house and sent them to the camps. However, before that happened, they were able to pack up a number of their belongings into large storage containers which they shipped to England, where my mother and her two sisters had settled.”

Eventually, the Weil sisters and their containers set out for New York, but due to a workers' strike in the New York harbor, they arrived in Baltimore. Along the way, one of the shipping containers was irretrievably lost, but the two containers that did reach Baltimore brought valuable links to the Mandel family's past.

“We deeply cherish our family's surviving heirlooms,” Mrs. Mandel said. “These pieces of my family's history are tangible evidence of the Holocaust.”

The Grillis:

Mr. Grilli's mother, Olga Gabanyiova (née Bergmann), was born in Chotebor, Czechoslovakia, a small town about 60 kilometers southeast of Prague. On March 15, 1939, the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia and Olga's life changed forever. Mr. Grilli's grandmother acted quickly to save her daughter from the impending peril.

“My mother's aunt lived in Prague and heard about an Englishman, Sir Nicholas Winton, who was organizing Czech Kindertransports (German for "children's transport") to England,” Mr. Grilli said.

On the eve of World War II, Sir Winton saved the lives of 669 children - including Mr. Grilli's mother - by finding them homes and arranging for their safe passage to Britain. Olga's transport left on July 31st, 1939, it would be the final Kindertransport the Nazis permitted to leave Czechoslovakia.

Parents like Mr. Grilli's grandmother faced an impossible decision: send their children away to fend for themselves in a strange country or risk their near-certain death at the hands of the Nazis.

“The train left at midnight from Prague and it was a traumatic scene,” Mr. Grilli said. “The parents were beside themselves with grief as their frightened children cried. It was chaos. Deep down, most of these parents knew they would never again see their children.”

Such was the case for Olga Gabanyiova and her mother.

“In late 1942 my grandmother and her two sisters - Anna and Zdenka Bergmann - were rounded up and sent to the Terezin concentration camp,” Mr. Grilli said. “From there, they were deported to Auschwitz in January 1943 where they were gassed immediately upon arrival.”

Though many Jewish children escaped death camps thanks to the Kindertransports, they nonetheless suffered significantly.

“Rationally, my mother understood why my grandmother sent to her away to England. But from an irrational perspective, she never forgave her mother, even though doing so saved her life. My mother sustained psychological trauma which she had to live with for the rest of her life,” Mr. Grilli said. “In retrospect, my grandmother exhibited great courage to give up her only child. It was heartbreaking for my grandmother, who had no spouse to console her. It took tremendous courage.”

Holocaust remembrance: A Jewish battle

“Jews have a responsibility to preserve the memories of the Holocaust. After all, if we don't do it, who will?” Rabbi Schwartz asked. “We already see Holocaust deniers around the world attempting to change the history. No one will care more about this issue moving forward than the Jews. Holocaust remembrance is, in a sense, our battle, so we have to fight it, and we can't expect others to fight it for us.”

Brenda Mandel and Richard Grilli, have assumed that mantle.

Mrs. Mandel and her husband Lou Frock, have generously supported many Holocaust memorials. Most notably, they dedicated the flag terrace at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.

“During Beth El's 2011 trip to Israel, surrounded by 80 of our fellow congregants, Dr. Bor, and Rabbi Schwartz, we dedicated the terrace - which welcomes visitors to Yad Vashem - to my family and the many families who endured this tragedy," Mrs. Mandel said.

“With global antisemitism on the rise, institutions like Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. have never been more important,” Dr. Bor said. “Jews and non-Jews alike must learn about the Holocaust, not just for posterity, but as a symbol of unity and coexistence.”

Mrs. Mandel speaks publicly about the Holocaust. The American Society for Yad Vashem honored her at an event in Florida, at which U.S. Senator Marco Rubio was the keynote speaker. “We must remain dedicated to continuing the legacy of the Holocaust survivors, by ensuring the younger generations never forget their experiences and messages,” she said.

Closer to home, Brenda and Lou dedicated the breathtaking Holocaust Memorial at Beth El's Memorial Park. “I hope that the Holocaust Memorial serves as a tribute to all those Beth El members who are connected in some way to the Holocaust, and will inspire future generations of Beth El families to preserve those memories,” she said.

Like Brenda Mandel, Richard Grilli diligently works to preserve his family's history.

In 2017, Mr. Grilli commissioned German artist Gunter Demnig to lay down stolpersteine in his mother's hometown of Chotebor, Czech Republic. A stolperstein - which translated from German means a "stumbling block" - is a concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Demnig's stolpersteine project commemorates individuals at precisely the last place of residence or business, which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror.

Upon hearing of the Grillis' efforts, a Christian missionary living Chotebor told them that the Jewish cemetery there was in ruin. The headstones had fallen over, and weeds overtook the plots. So the Grillis arranged for landscaping, the rededication of the headstones, the construction of a new fence, and the installation a plaque commemorating the final resting place of his relatives and their community.

“There are no Jews left in Chotebor. My mom was the last Jew born in that village,” Mr. Grilli said. “I realized that no one else had done this work, but someone needed to. My mother's family, like so many Jewish families, lived in Czechoslovakia for hundreds of years. We have to honor their memory.”  

In March 2019, the Grillis traveled Croston, England, home to Mr. and Mrs. Cardwell, the devout Methodist couple who took in Mr. Grilli's mother when she arrived on the Kindertransport.

In a ceremony attended by Barbara Winton - the daughter of Sir Nicholas Winton - as well as the consulate of the Czech Republic, Mr. and Mrs. Grilli dedicated a plaque to his mother's saviors that read: “In memory of the Cardwells who in August 1939 opened their house to our mother and saved her life.”

“We honored the Cardwells, but in doing so, also honored the Methodist Church, the Quakers - who financed the required payment for my mother to settle in Croston - as well as England, the only nation to accept Jewish child refugees from Czechoslovakia,” Mr. Grilli said. “What we've done with the stolpersteine in Chotebor and the plaque dedicated to the Cardwells at their church in Croston, is to ensure everyone - Jews and non-Jews alike - knows what happened to our people during the Holocaust.”

The continued efforts of second-generation survivors like Brenda Mandel and Richard Grilli represent the importance of Yom Hashoah.

“Every instance of violence is a tragedy, and unfortunately, we still see pockets of hatred focused on Jews and other minorities,” Dr. Bor said. “We can't ignore the other genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust. The legacy of the Shoah is not just a Jewish issue, but one that is relevant to all peoples who faced and still face atrocities.”

Therefore, Yom Hashoah is a day to promote unity in the face of hatred.

“When we speak about the classic Jewish values of justice, mercy, human dignity, and freedom, we are hopefully helping to make the world the kind of place where there would not be another Holocaust,” Rabbi Schwartz said.

The Holocaust Memorial at Beth El's Memorial Park

Nestled in a peaceful corner of Beth El's Memorial Park, lies the congregation's Holocaust Memorial.

Designed by world-renowned Israeli artist Yaacov Heller, and commissioned by longtime Beth El member Brenda Weil Mandel and her husband Lou Frock, the Holocaust memorial offers a unique opportunity to honor family and friends who perished during the Shoah.

“We've been Beth El members since the early 1960s,” Mrs. Mandel said. “We love the synagogue so much and felt strongly that our congregation needed to memorialize all those in our Beth El community who were impacted by the Shoah.”

While Mrs. Mandel dedicated the one-of-a-kind sculpture, along with cemetery chapel, to the memory of her family members who perished in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps, she hopes the memorial will also honor the resilience of the Jewish people.

“The Holocaust Memorial serves as a tribute to all those Beth El members who are connected in some way to the Holocaust, and will inspire future generations of Beth El families to preserve those stories,” she said.

The breathtaking memorial is a stunning work of art created by Yaacob Heller, the internationally acclaimed sculptor, artist, and jewelry designer.

“My parents met Yaacov 40 years ago while traveling in Israel,” Mrs. Mandel said. “They formed a warm friendship with Yaacov and a profound love for the State of Israel.”

Mr. Heller's work has garnered admiration from art critics and world leaders alike. He has created historically significant art for presidents, monarchs, and heads of state.

“That Beth El's Memorial Park is home to such a prestigious and magnificent piece of art, shows that the legacy of the Holocaust is a vitally important and inseparable part of our congregation's story,” said Amanda Beitman, Director of Development. “The Holocaust Memorial is a beautiful way for our members to honor their loved ones whose lives were forever changed by the Shoah.”

If you would like to honor your family's memory, please consider purchasing a plaque in their name, which will be attached in perpetuity to Beth El's Holocaust Memorial.

Plaques are available for $450.00. If you are interested in purchasing a plaque, or to find out more information about the Beth El's Holocaust Memorial and Memorial Park, please contact Amanda Bierman at 410-484-0411 ext. 1115 or email her at amanda@bethelbalto.com.