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.
