The most precious thing for any Jew is
mishpachah,
the family, and that is the reason you are driven to
return to Cracow. Possibly some member of your family has survived. You
must exert every effort to locate even one such relative.
As you reach Katowice, you inquire among Polish people about Jews who might still be living. You are puzzled by their cold reception and their unwillingness to answer. Then, you understand. First, of course, is the old problem of Polish anti- Semitism, which still exists in the country; second, they are afraid that Jews will come back and claim their property, property which Poles have now taken as their own and which they do not want to surrender. You get no satisfaction; your quest has met a dead end.
Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog of Palestine arrives one day to rescue Jewish children. The Joint Distribution Committee has heard of Jewish youngsters who had been hidden, by their now-murdered parents, in Polish homes. Rabbi Herzog is to collect them and take them to Palestine. Over five hundred children are gathered at an orphanage in Otwotck; many others will never be found. You are offered the job of guiding these youngsters to the Promised Land.
At your first Pesach seder in Israel, you gather the children
around you as you recite Vehigadtah levanecha . . . . ,
You shall
tell your children. . . . You tell them how your parents recited the
Pesach story to you when you were a young child; you tell them
about the modern-day Pharaoh who killed your parents, who almost killed
you, and whose Holocaust has led all of you to this land of Jewish life.
Together, all of you recite a prayer of praise to God for the privilege of
crossing out of slavery and into freedom.
END