Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. In today’s class we are going to be learning from a Holocaust survivor. Many of the studies on resilience and how to turn post-traumatic stress into post-traumatic growth come from Holocaust survivors. Yesterday I went to a funeral of Mrs. Perel Friedman a’h. She passed away at age 94. She was a Holocaust survivor at about age 14. In a few weeks from now, it'll be 80 years ago that she walked into Auschwitz after being in the ghetto with her family for a few months. They were taken on those trains, and she and her sisters and family went before the infamous Mengele who told the children to go to the right, to the work camps, and the rest of the family to go to the left.
Her son spoke at the Levaya, and said something very powerful- She never spoke about the horrors of the war when he and his siblings were children. It was only later in life that she spoke about it. She didn't go through the horrors of spending a year or so in Auschwitz working in hard labor camps.
He said that all she spoke about was the Chessed of Hashem in her survival, which is fascinating. You can focus on the horrors, or you can focus on the Hashem and the Chessed of Hashem. Chessed number one was that they were out on the line of work camp and not a death camp. Chessed number two was that most Holocaust survivors had a tattoo on their arms reminding them of their horrible stay. The day she got to the camps, the tattoo machine wasn't working so they told her to come back later. It never ended up happening. So, she was one of the few survivors of Auschwitz without a tattoo. She looked at that as a Chessed Hashem, not to have that constant reminder. She also said it was a Chessed that she had very good motor skills. She worked in the factory and was one of the top producers. Even in the Nazi camps, they would award the high producers, so every month she got a little jar of marmalade that she would bring back to her sisters and other inmates, to share that little treat with them. Think about that. Here's a lady whose family was destroyed, who's going through such horrors, and she could look back and share it with her children. And what does she choose to share? She chooses to share the positive, to find some positive in that story. Scientists and those that study human nature say that’s the secret to the people that survived. They had that outlook of seeing Hashem's kindness and seeing the positive, even in the most difficult of situations, and focusing on what they were going to do in the future. She told her children that the final words that her parents told her when they separated were, “We're older already. We did what we need to do. You're still young. Survive. Give back to the world and accomplish something.”
And that's what she did. For over 50 years, she volunteered in Maimonides Hospital, visiting the sick and taking care of them. Even when she was older, in her nineties, after a stroke, she still walked and put all the effort in.
When one of her grandchildren asked her why, she said, “I survived for a reason. I'm here in order to do and continue the legacy of my parents.” At age 14, she'd remembered how her parents had walked to hospitals in Hungary and visited the sick.
This great woman was able to survive and thrive and use all of that energy and all that emotion. She felt she had a mission and a purpose, and that she had survived for a reason. Rather than wallow in misery and look at all the horrors that happened to her, she kept her positive outlook of the kindness that she endured, and how Hashem saved her.
These are key traits that we all can use. We all have challenges. We can look at the challenge or we can see Hashem's kindness in the challenge, because there's always a kindness to look at. That gratitude is a post-traumatic growth ingredient, as is realizing that as long as we're here, we're here for a mission and a purpose and a task. If we focus on that, it will keep us emotionally above water, even after the most trying of times.
Have a wonderful day.