We named our fourth child Kayla Chaya after Chaya Holtzberg.
We feel very fortunate that we were able to discover this story about our family and our
heritage.
Let me tell you a little bit about my father because that basically will explain a little
bit, I think, the background of this whole story.
My father was a very quiet man.
He didn't tell me anything about the Holocaust.
They didn't want to talk about it.
We didn't want to necessarily ask too many questions.
When I was about 10-, 12-years-old, my father bought himself a gold watch.
When my father passed away, my mother gave me the watch.
When I opened it there was a small warranty booklet inside the case.
And as we open up the folds of this warranty, something falls down.
It flutters to the ground.
So I bent down to pick it up, and it's a postage stamp picture of 2 women.
I was absolutely shocked.
I have never seen this photograph before.
I showed it to my mother, she wasn't sure what it was.
I showed it to some of my relatives, again, couldn't really get information about it.
But it seemed clear to me that my father wanted me to have this photograph.
I then found out that Yad Vashem has uploaded the database
with the memorial documents and I decided, well, let me take a look, maybe I'll find
something about my father.
So I put in my father's name, and I found 2 documents which actually shocked me.
The first one is with my father's handwriting
and basically he documents there the fact that he had a wife and 2 children.
And in addition to the name Chaya Goldberg, I found in parentheses her maiden name, Holtzberg,
and at that point I remembered that my father had relatives by the name of Holtzberg.
Perhaps they will know who she was.
And we got in touch with the Holtzbergs who Tzachi had found out were living in Queens.
We invited them to our house.
We had a family meal.
We had all of our children there.
All of our grandchildren.
This is the watch that he left for me, right…
And inside the watch, was this picture.
And he says, 'yes of course.
This is my sister.
She was married to your father.'
And we said, wow!
And then he gave us some additional information about their lives.
They had 2 daughters.
One of them was about 6 or 7-years-old, and the other one was a newborn.
And they were apparently hiding when the Germans came in.
And obviously they were very worried about the baby crying
and somebody covered her mouth, and after the Germans left they realized that the baby
died.
The mother, with her own bare hands dug a grave for her newborn baby
and buried her in an unmarked grave.
A couple of months later my father was taken to a labor camp
and Chaya Goldberg and her daughter were gassed in Majdanek.
The work that Yad Vashem does in maintaining this database, making it available…look
I would have never found out about that part of my family history.
And it is such an important component of what we are.
What Yad Vashem is doing is absolutely critical.
To the history of our people, to the future of our people…
And when you to a place like Yad Vashem, and you encounter the artifacts, and the archives,
and these stories
and these untold stories, there are so many more stories.
It's an opportunity to really understand more.
And as we understand more about our past we understand more about our future.
What our role is.
How we must live our lives in light of what has happened.
I asked my father when she was born, I told him, 'you know
I'm going to name this child after Chaya Holtzberg.'
In true fashion my father said, 'you do what you need to do.'
But I know that when I named her Chaya, he was very very thankful.