And then the Nazi demon arrived. Her family scattered; little Esia Friedman went into hiding. A story of faith amid the flames

As told to Tzivia Meth by Esia Friedman

Vilna, September 1943

“ ‘This is it,’ Mama said, ‘Now you must go. Hopefully yo′u will survive.’

“I was freezing — I had one little coat,” Esia Friedman recalled of that day.

“ ‘When I send you away, you must only speak Polish,’ Mama said, ‘because if you speak Russian or German, they’ll know you’re a Jew.’

“She dressed me in my dirty coat and said, ‘But you must remember — mein kind, zolst nit fargessen — don’t forget that you’re a Jew.’ ”

With those words, Esia’s mother sent her young daughter away from the ghetto — to danger and possible death, but also to the chance of survival.

Great Connections

Esia Friedman (née Baran) was born in Vilna in 1930. Her father Yitzchak was a wine distributer, and her mother Aidel was a homemaker. Esia lived in a small courtyard, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

“We had a wonderful life, despite the antisemitism,” Esia recounted on a beautiful spring afternoon this past May, speaking at Shevach High School in Queens, New York. At 92, her undiminished sense of humor and youthful spunk, interwoven through her tragic story, captivated her teenage audience, many of whom were too young to remember their own Holocaust survivor great-grandparents.

Spiritually, it was paradise. “My street had ten synagogues,” Esia proudly recalled. Rav Yisrael Zev Gustman, renowned rav and dayan in Vilna, lived down the block. But it was Shabbos afternoons that were particularly memorable. After the seudah, her maternal grandfather, Rav Binyamin Dov Shoag (a noted talmid chacham who spoke 11 languages), would learn with Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, Rav Gustman, and others in his home. Esia often came along and was thus afforded a close-up glimpse of the spiritual giants of her time.

“After the cholent, they’d all go to my grandfather’s house to study and argue. We kids used to sit on the floor, or sometimes on the red velvet couch in the living room, and listen to them,” Esia remembered. Her 16-year-old brother Zev (Velvel) was the only child who learned with the illustrious group, but she and the few other children “didn’t understand a word they said,” she admitted with a chuckle.

Esia’s idyllic childhood soon came to a crashing halt. In September 1939, Vilna, which was part of Poland between the wars, was taken over by the Soviets.  Shortly thereafter, in October 1939, it was given back to Lithuania, which had always considered Vilna Lithuania’s capital and resented its time in Polish hands. Many high-ranking Poles in Vilna feared harsh treatment from the Lithuanian government and were desperate for cover.

Esia’s father, who had been appointed head of the military hospital in Vilna under the Soviets, became a noted address for help. One individual assisted by Esia’s father was Rav Yisroel Zev Gustman, who became Mr. Baran’s “medical assistant,” thereby avoiding working on Shabbos. Another man, Leon, had been a prominent official in the Polish police department. Leon knew the Lithuanians would soon be after him, so he begged the well-connected Yitzchak Baran for assistance.

Esia’s father quietly put a plaque with his own family’s name on Leon’s door, and the Lithuanians soon gave up the chase. Yitzchak Baran didn’t know it then, but this small act of kindness would yield high dividends only a few years later, when Leon and his wife would save Esia.