Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2015 | Page 30

SERIES

things i learned…

While teaching everyone else
The story of our nation in our time
It’s not often that one gets to experience
the whole kaleidoscope of Jewish history
in one day. It’s even less likely for the dramatic story of the Jews in the 20th century to be encapsulated in the span of only
two hours. But it happened to me just the
other week.
On the very same morning, two of my
older congregants passed away. The funerals were both arranged for the very next
day, back-to-back. At 12:30pm on Wednesday 9 September (25 Elul) I delivered the
eulogy for the late Cecilia Boruchowitz. Cecilia was one of the grand old ladies of our
shul. She was born in Dvinsk, Latvia,
home of two of the most famous rabbis of
their time, the Rogatchover Gaon, Rabbi
Yosef Rosen, and Rabbi Meir Simcha,
known as the Ohr Someach.

From a very young age, Cecilia was a musical prodigy. She played the violin and was
admitted to the prestigious Music Conservatory, becoming the prized pupil of Professor Paul Kruminsh. At 12, she was accepted
to the world-renowned National Conservatory in Riga. For five years she studied
there, boarding with an uncle and aunt.
But in 1941, the Nazis arrived.
The Jews were herded into Rabbi Meir
Simcha’s shul. Inhumanity, humiliation,
atrocities, and the public desecration of
the holy Torahs followed. Cecilia’s father
was taken away with the men and hundreds were shot in the forest. She would
never see him again.
With faith, courage, and a good measure of ingenuity, Cecilia and her sister
Nadia managed to escape. Her non-Jew-

Cecilia often spoke of the hand of Hashem
that seemed to be plucking them from
mortal danger time and time again.

Cecilia Boruchowitz through the years.
26 JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 89

ish mentor, Prof Kruminsh, took them in,
arranged false papers for them, and at
great risk to his own life, used all his connections to get them out of Dvinsk safely.
They fled to Vilna, in and out of the Jewish Ghetto there, and eventually to Vienna. Miracle after miracle saved them from
being discovered, apprehended, and sent
to the death camps. Cecilia often spoke of
the hand of Hashem that seemed to be
plucking them from mortal danger time
and time again. Once, as the young sisters
were about to be caught, they were actually ready to swallow the cyanide pills a
kind pharmacist had given them so they
could end their own lives rather than be
tortured to X]