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Emerson educator honored by congregation
(by Maggie Fazeli Fard - October 17, 2007)
Hanna Wechsler won’t say how old she was when her childhood was stolen. She jokes that she’s “unbelievably allergic to age” and won’t give away any clues as to how old she is today. But, in 1945, when she was “about five years old,” her childhood came to an abrupt end.
World War II was almost over and Wechsler was naked and hungry when she and her mother, Shoshana, came face to face with Dr. Joseph Mengela at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Mengela had built a reputation around torture and unethical experiments, using Jewish captives as his guinea pigs. “You two can pass,” he told the pair in a threatening reprieve. “I’ll get you next time.”
Next time never came, as the Russian army had soon forced the Germans to abandon the camp, giving the Jewish prisoners a chance to escape. But Mengela did get her, as did the anti-Jewish sentiment of the era.
“My childhood was robbed from me by the Germans,” Wechsler says, her accent betraying her Polish heritage, her strong voice emphasizing that which was lost rather than those who committed the crime. Wechsler holds no grudges, but yearns for something she will never recoup.
“Sometimes I resent that I was [given the] responsibilities of a grownup at an early age. I grew up as a child, and as little rights as children had in my time, I had even less rights because I was Jewish. I was supposed to be not seen, not heard, quiet even when kicked.”
‘Lucky duck’
Wechsler’s life started out as an unremarkable one, born in to Mordechai Kleiner, the owner of a furniture factory, and his wife Shoshana, a homemaker.
The era she was born into, however, shaped the 20th century. Weary of the growing anti-Semitism of the late 1930s, marked by the passage of anti-Jewish decrees in 1939 and the deportment of their Jewish neighbors to a
Krakow ghetto, the Kleiners tried to postpone the inevitable.
The family hid in a bunker under a horse barn of a gentile family, but were discovered and sent to
Krakow . Blonde and blue-eyed Shoshana then devised a plan to pass as a non-Jew, obtain false documents for her family and sneak them out of the ghetto under the name Koslovski, which she did successfully.
The family hired guides for travel to . Part of the way there, the guides abandoned the Kleiners, who were then picked up by shepherds who promised to help but instead turned them over to German soldiers. The family was held captive for a short time but escaped into the night without detection. The “Koslovskis” headed to to start a new chapter in their lives; Mordechai even found work as a coffin maker.
The sense of safety was short-lived, however, and the family was sent to a prison in Budapest when their false papers were discovered, followed by a trip by cattle car to
Auschwitz . Wechsler and her mother were separated from Mordechai there, and fought to stay alive during the final months of the war.
“When we survived Auschwitz, we walked to a big city,
Krakow ,” Wechsler says slowly, her eyes turning upwards thoughtfully. “I was born in August and it was a few months before my birthday, and I wished my father would come back for my birthday. And he did. He survived and came back and knocked on the door.”
Wechsler says that reunion was the happiest moment of her life. “I am a lucky duck.”
In the years that followed, the Kleiners moved to Munich, , and finally, in 1949, to , where Wechsler enrolled in school and her father once again opened a furniture factory. While attending university in Tel Aviv, she met Harry Wechsler, the owner of a weaving factory, on a blind date; the two married three years later and became the parents of two daughters, Orit and Dana-Lee.
In 1967, the Wechslers moved to and a year later moved to the . They lived in Queens, N.Y., for four years then settled permanently in
New Jersey , where Wechsler returned to school to become a teacher. In 1974, before she had finished her schooling, she was hired to teach at Congregation B’nai Israel.
Bedtime stories
For the past 32 years, Wechsler has taught Hebrew and Holocaust studies at Congregation B’nai Israel. Last weekend, at Congregation B’nai Israel’s 50th anniversary celebration, Wechsler was honored for her dedication to her job and to her students.
“It was a dream,” she says, smiling broadly and scrunching her shoulders in happiness. If you sometimes have a Cinderella dream, this was it. So much love. Everything was perfect.”
On Saturday, Oct. 13, the festivities began with a reunion of students from the past three decades. “They were big guys, big ladies with babies,” she says of the former students who attended. Those who could not attend sent Wechsler cards and contributed to a scrapbook. “I cried for that,” she says. “It was unbelievable.”
The reunion was followed by a special ceremony in Wechsler’s honor on Sunday, but Wechsler says she is the one who should be saying thank you.
“This synagogue – I have taught in many, many synagogues, but this one has an embracing feeling, a warm feeling… All my family is in . I was one of the ‘Wandering Jews’ and that synagogue gave me the feeling of community. When you hear my story, you know what belonging really means.”
But most of all, says Wechsler, she feels that she should thank her students. “I never thought of myself as an advocate of children,” she says, noting that all she ever did was treat the children in her classes with respect. “If you have children and you instill self-assurance, there is nothing they can’t do. Support the children. Take an interest in the children and their activities. A hug and a kiss and a bedtime story stays in their life forever. I never had bedtime – there wasn’t time for that.”
Saturday night, Wechsler was talking with a group of adults when a group of her students, about 11 years old, asked if they could join them. “The young ones told the old ones, ‘She belongs to us,’” says Wechsler, bursting into laughter at the memory. “They told me I can’t retire before they have their bar mitzvahs!”
At the ceremony, Wechsler was presented with a new watch as a thank-you gift for her work. “I asked them if I had to quit now – they told me I had to work another 32 years to pay it off!” she says between giggles. “I never could quit there. They are like a family.”
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