The Pin Cushion

Monday, May 2, is Holocaust Day this year in Israel

In the early summer of 1939, a mere two months before the Nazis invaded Poland, Kaila Burda said to her husband Gamaliel, “I’m at wit’s end. Chasia wants to go to the summer camp with her girlfriends from school. Why not send her?”

“Kaila, these are troubled times. When will you understand that we can’t stay here any longer. Chasia is the only Jewish child in her class. I’d prefer that she stays at home.”

“But she has nothing to do but draw. She sits at home and draws pictures all day long! She needs to be outdoors and play with other children.”

Gamaliel shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not safe, but have it your way…”

Chasia went to summer camp. When her first day was over, she was a bloody mess, escorted home by one of the sixth-grade teachers. “We can’t take responsibility for your daughter,” she said in Polish to the appalled Gamaliel and Kaila on their front doorstep. “She’s the only Jewish girl in our school, and the other little girls know it. They played a game of 'seamstress' and they made your daughter the pin cushion…”

After Kristallnacht in Germany, anti-Semitism in neighboring Poland was fast on the rise too...

Continue reading The Pin Cushion, the amazing story of my own mother,(Rabbi Laser Brody) Chasia, may Hashem bless her with long and healthy days, in this week's issue of Breslev Israel web magazine.
http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/holidays_and_fast_days/holocaust_day/the_pin_cushion.aspx?id=11760&language=english