01/27/2026
Today I honor the four souls who came before us â
my parents, and my husbandâs parents â
Holocaust survivors whose lives were shaped by loss, courage, and unimaginable resilience.
My husbandâs parents endured the horror of the concentration camps and somehow survived the unspeakable.
My parents were among the few who escaped Austria, finding refuge in the Shanghai Ghetto, where they lived for 12 years. That is where they built the beginning of their life together â in uncertainty, in exile, and in hope. Eventually they made their way to Israel to reunite with family, and later to the United States, where they became citizens and built a new life from what little remained.
They were forced to give up homes, possessions, security, language, and the lives they once knew.
But they never gave up their will to live.
They never gave up love.
They never gave up building family.
Everything we have⌠every gathering, every celebration, every moment of safety and freedom⌠rests on the courage of people like them.
Their survival is not just history â
it lives in us.
In our values.
In our strength.
In our gratitude.
Today I remember what they endured.
I honor what they rebuilt.
And I carry their resilience forward. đ¤
