From: ShirleyM65@aol.com
Message-ID: <7e.1af7d661.28d7fe0c@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:31:56 EDT
Subject: Re: No Words to Describe
To: david90@alumni.princeton.edu
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Status: U

Dear David
   This is for you only and i just decided to go on line.  Its hard to 
believe  the story you told and i am glad that the Siddur  is saved and you  
will have it back.  its a miracle that sometimes we have to believe in the 
little things  and this  is the little thing that turned out to be a big 
story and a miracle.  All the Best for the New Year.  What  a Story.
  My husband and i were  to leave Last Thursday for Israel.  we were going to 
leave earlier but we needed not be in a hurry so we had decided to Leave sept 
i3 and all that reminaed at the time was to to go the bank to get some money, 
even with our charge cards.   Now we have changed it to This coming Thursday 
and made preparations again for 3 months going Continental.  our children 
wait for us and said come mom and dad its safer here .  we do go twice a year 
two to 3 months at a time to our kids iN herusalem and our grandkids and much 
of our family.  Your e mail is one good thing to come out of the disaster, I 
do believe in some things as  that or what else can we believe.
   My husband is a HOlocaust surivivor of course that was not the name  when 
those who came  from the camps or ghettos or  other places that they were 
kept alive.  He is the ONLy survivor out of his parents,  and six other 
brothers and  sisters -sand of these one brother was married with 3 children 
and he was alive in Auschwitz till they took the brother to dachau and 
records show he perished there Jan 45. My husband saw him in Auschwitz late 
Oct 1944 and my husband had been there for months already in Auschwitz.
 I tell him every day that he is the miracle for he surivived after almost 
five years in camps after the Lodz ghetto and with the four married daughters 
and io grandkids, his family still lives-  the grandkids range from 22 to 
four years old.  
 he is the miracle for if not him the family would be lost forever and of the 
first cousins who survivied on the moms side and were in camps, they are 
dying off and so My husbands family threre would be no one to remember, as  
the children of the cousins  born in canada and some of the cousins on the 
dads side we found only in Israel in 81 and were in camps they are still 
alive and are not young and so who would be left to mourn Leos  family or 
remember and the family would be lost forever.
 that is our miracle everyday i think of after 50 years of marriage, our kids 
and grandkids carry the name of his parents and his siblings.
  One brother all of i7 died  of burst sppendix and  this was in 1938 and at 
least he did not  have to go thru the war if we look  at it that way.  his 
grave was still in lodz cemetery on our last trip there in 87 and in 83-- 
when our third daughter was with us in Poland and we found his grave  in the 
Lodz Poland cemetery - he was Hersh Machel- our daughter then  i9 - lisa 
Michelle looked at the grave of her namesake uncle whom she never saw.- and 
we said Kaddish for the brother.
 she is the one in Israel now married with 3 children.
   at this time of sadness  i tell My husband he is the miracle and i have 
told him this for years.  I am writing this letter to you and not for the 
Jewish gen. i write with sadness like everyone else.  but  we hope to leave 
for Israel this thursday and if not it will be another week. 
 What else can i say.  Anyway All the Best for The HOlidays and your lucky 
Siddur.  Its the little things that comfort us.  Regards Shirley and Leo 
Laufer
 I hope that i did not burden you at this time.  thank you again.