My Father, a Holocaust Survivor, Taught Me the Power of Resilience

Looking back on my life, I am grateful to Hashem for being blessed with a beautiful family, wife, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I am comfortable and happy.

But it wasn’t always like this. Everyone experiences ups and downs in life. However, it was my father, Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Gottesman, of blessed memory, who helped me navigate the hardships in my life. On this Father’s Day, I’m going to remember him for his love, his faith, and his resilience.

My father was a Holocaust survivor. As a teenager, he almost died several times in the Dachau concentration camp, and his parents and all but one of his siblings was murdered by the Nazis. But he was determined to keep going. He moved to America, married my mother – also an orphan from the Holocaust – and built himself a beautiful life.

While my father strived to learn full-time, he couldn’t make it happen at first. The words of his Rebbe, Reb Michoel Ber Weismandel zt”l, in a letter he wrote to him when he was a bochur stated, “There was always money and there will always be.” My father often repeated these words to my siblings and I.

From the day he started working, my father never earned a sufficient salary. There was a businessman in the diamond district called R’ Yisroel Parnes z”l. He offered to give my father a $25,000 loan for an unlimited amount of time to open his own business. My father did not want to accept his kind-hearted proposal. He felt that if he would open his own business, it would distract him from his learning.

My father refused to accept government support because his wage was a fraction more than the allowance for claiming aid. He quoted a person will be asked, when he reaches Beis Din Shel Malloh (Heavenly Court): “Did you deal honestly? Did you deal truthfully?” For this reason, he refused.

In November of 2000, my father suffered a stroke. He lost almost seventy percent of his brain power and became paralyzed on the right side of his body. The muscles in his mouth weakened his ability to swallow and we were worried that he would no longer be able to speak.

Eventually, my father regained his speech, though every word he spoke was a big struggle and challenge. On the other hand, he had forgotten everything. Years of toil and effort in learning and absorbing the Torah. He did not remember anything. When he came home the first time, he stood next to his seforim (Judaic books) shelves and cried uncontrollably, gesticulating and signaling with his hands as if to say: “Oy, how unbelievably painful this is. Is it all this that I have lost?” It was a very emotional and painful scene to watch.

It was in these difficult times that I was once again impressed by my father’s tenacity. He fought to feel like himself again.

His paralysis and immobility slowly improved. He managed to balance himself again. It was his speech that was not 100 percent. But slowly, he regained his lost memory. He could no longer dive deep into his learning, but he could earnestly learn again with desire and persistence as he had done all those years. And this is exactly what he continued.

He was excited for every family simcha and joyous occasion, whether we were celebrating a wedding or newborn child. He would elaborate on the words in the Chumash: “I had originally only passed the Jordan River with one stick.” He would then retell how he came to America with only five dollars and how he built this beautiful family.

My father spoke about the war years and how much he had suffered. But he wouldn’t forget to thank Hashem with all his heart for all the blessings in his life and miracles he experienced. No matter the number of grandchildren that he had the merit to enjoy, whenever he spoke, it was as if this was the first simcha he was celebrating.

Since he couldn’t articulate through speech anymore, he would come home after a simcha and write on a piece of paper: “I have just returned from a bris of a grandson,” or “I have just come back from my grandson’s bar mitzvah.” This was his way of thanking Hashem.

Whenever I experienced hardships, I’d go to my father, and he would guide me. No matter what I was going through, he encouraged me to believe that Hashem knows exactly what He is doing, and that it would be for the best, even if we don’t know what that is.

My father passed away in 2016, at the age of 88. Though he’s not here anymore – and he is sorely missed –  I remember his absolute emunah and bitachon, and his strength. He went through the worst thing a person could endure, and yet, he always had a smile on his faith. He never stopped believing. He just kept pushing, kept moving forward.

Now, I will carry on his legacy and do the same.

If you found this content meaningful and want to help further our mission through our Keter, Makom, and Tikun branches, please consider becoming a Change Maker today.