Where Would My Parents Want Me to Be?” A Survivor’s Answer

I have had the privilege of getting to know Holocaust survivor Sam Bradin, who recently celebrated his 96th birthday.

Born on May 1, 1930, in the small Polish town of Salesin near the German border town of Dąbrowa, Sam was the youngest of six children in a close-knit Jewish family. In 1943, at the age of 13, he and his siblings were deported to Auschwitz. There, he was separated from his sisters and later transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Sam was the sole survivor of his immediate family.  

In an interview, Sam was asked what inspires him to continue attending synagogue every week - a practice he maintains to this day. 

His response was both simple and profound: I, too, was once reluctant to go. But then I asked myself: Where would my parents want me to be? In the synagogue, as before the war - or nowhere at all?

The answer was clear. I had no doubt where they would want me to be - which is why I continue to go.

My father, of blessed memory, often quoted the rabbinic saying: “A wise person’s question is half the answer.”

Sam had the wisdom to ask the right question. But as the mystics teach, wisdom begins with humility. We must first rise above our biases and the desire for convenient answers. Only when we seek truth - not validation - will we ask the right questions and be open to the right answers.