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Papa Would Have Been Proud: The Bittersweet Post-Holocaust Weddings

They were the simplest of affairs. Family members were notably absent; elaborate dinners were but a memory. Bridal dresses were visibly homemade; friends were the makeshift interfierers (escorts of the bride and groom). Simultaneous emotions of profound happiness and deep mourning ran high.

These were the postwar weddings, the bittersweet marriage celebrations of thousands of men and women who had experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. They were memorable and historic; they were the unions that ensured the perpetuation of a treasured heritage. They were the deafening cry of “Nachamu Ami.”

The Marriage Surge

In the years immediately following World War II’s devastation, the world saw a wave of “survivor” marriages of unusual proportions. On the one hand, this trend was not terribly surprising: the survivor population consisted mostly of young people without families, between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five. On the other hand, when one considers the horrors that these scarred souls had just endured, the abnormally high marriage rate becomes astounding.

Data from the Bergen-Belsen DP camp — the largest and most widely known displaced persons camp for Jewish survivors — reveals that during 1946, 1,070 marriages took place in this camp alone; the first year following liberation saw six to seven weddings a day, and sometimes even fifty in one week.

Even outside of the DP camps, in such cities as Paris, Berlin, and Bratislava, where hundreds of survivors resided as they awaited immigration papers, nightly weddings — and even “double” weddings — were commonplace.

What were the underlying factors behind this surge of marriages? From where did survivors draw the strength to move on? Without parents, how did young men and women arrange their marriages? And finally, what did these dramatic wedding look like?

Family First had the privilege of speaking with several of these extraordinary postwar brides. Now grandmothers and great-grandmothers many times over, they shared the intense emotions that characterized this defining period in their lives.

Liberation: What now?

By May 1945, every Nazi stronghold in Europe had been liberated by the Allied forces. But for survivors of these camps, the homelessness and anguish were far from over.

While some returned to their hometowns in the hope of finding family members, those who chose not to return were concentrated in assembly centers and given the legal status of “displaced persons.” These DP camps were located in Germany, Austria, France, and Italy; some of the more famous ones were Bergen-Belsen, Foehrenwald, and Feldafing.

As deplorable as it was to remain in these converted, German-built camps saturated with death and suffering, here the survivors were assured of daily food rations, some semblance of structure, and guidance towards emigration.

Mrs. Fran Laufer, author of the autobiography A Vow Fulfilled: Memories and Miracles (Targum Press), was one such survivor. Immediately following the war, she found herself in Celle, Germany, in a subsection of the greater Bergen-Belsen DP camp. Many of her acquaintances and friends immediately began to seek spouses from among their fellow DP camp residents, both in her particular compound and in surrounding subcamps.

The Will to Marry

Did these men and women feel “ready”? Mrs. Laufer believes that for most women, the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Loneliness, it seems, played a significant role in their strong inclination to wed.

“We were miserable in the DP camps,” recounts Mrs. Laufer. “We had each come to the awful realization that most of our immediate families were gone, and the loneliness we felt as we contemplated that new reality was indescribable. We just wanted to find someone to share a life with, to build a home together.”

Mrs. Chana Stollman, a Hungarian-born survivor of Auschwitz who met her husband in Paris in 1947, echoes these sentiments.

“We had no one else in the world; we felt terribly alone. We possessed this great need to find a partner, a companion.” Indeed, she notes, the Klausenberger Rebbe, who became a father and mentor to many in the DP camps, greatly encouraged survivors to marry.

A German-born Auschwitz survivor who in 1947 married in Berlin, Mrs. Berta Frank adds another thought along similar lines.

“In those days, women were not independent. Despite our emotionally frail states, we understood that we were alone, and that we had to connect with somebody.”

But as much as these survivors humbly attribute severe feelings of lonesomeness and even fear to their marrying so soon after the war, it seems far too simplistic to conclude that these were the only motivating factors.

“The fact they were able to marry, to trust another human being, and to establish deep, loving relationships, is a penetrating reflection of their inner strength,” says Mrs. Brenda Kolatch, a child and niece of several Holocaust survivors. “That they were able to commit to another soul and create strong, lasting marriages — I find it overwhelming to behold.”

But not everyone felt ready or interested.

“Physically,” says Mrs. Laufer, “I did not feel ready for marriage. When my husband first proposed to me in July 1945, I simply said, ‘No!’ I was skeleton-like and my hair was still growing in; I felt the furthest thing from pretty. I spent most of the day coughing in bed; I was certain that I had a spot on my lung. And to top it all off, I didn’t even know how to cook!”

But her future husband, Shimon, z”l, persisted. “He convinced me that he wanted to marry me, despite my health issues and my physical appearance,” remembers Mrs. Laufer. “He nursed me back to health with extra food rations that he procured by trading coffee and cigarettes. And sure enough, we married that fall, in October 1945. Ours was the first marriage in Bergen-Belsen.”

But even if they had healed physically, other survivors couldn’t think about marriage; they were consumed by severe emotional wounds. Absorbed in the raw pain of dark memories and devastating losses, marriage was not a consideration.

Mrs. Rose Stark relates her heartbreaking story with tears: her husband and eleven month-old baby boy, along with her mother, father, and several sisters and their families, were gassed on arrival at Auschwitz. A Czech survivor originally from Munkacs, she recalls how the possibility of marriage didn’t even occur to her.

“For several years after the war, I couldn’t think about marrying; I couldn’t even understand how people could laugh or go out for an evening. My lagersisters, the girls who I had befriended through our shared survival, all actively pursued marriage. But for them it was different: they didn’t lose a husband and child.”

Eventually, however, her outlook changed.

“At some point,” says Mrs. Stark, “I realized that I wanted a family and I was getting older. I needed a home of my own; I was tired of living in relatives’ homes indefinitely. So I agreed to meet my future husband, and when I saw that he was an honest and good man, I married him.”

Mrs. Peska Friedman, a survivor of Auschwitz who authored the autobiography Going Forward (ArtScroll/Mesorah), recalls her feelings of disbelief when the prospect of marriage was first mentioned to her after the war.

“I was in shock. I never dreamed that I would come to a point where I’d be able to get married. It didn’t occur to us survivors that we’d be able to make a normal life for ourselves.”

Medical Issues

With bodies that had been so debilitated by privation and disease, many women feared that they would never be able to bear children.

“Even by the time that I married,” says Mrs. Laufer, “my body had not been restored to its normal functioning. I had no idea what the future would bring.”

Mrs. Rose Stark had been sent to Sweden to recuperate after the war by the International Red Cross. She describes the healing process that took place:

“We were given pills and vitamins to counteract the powder that the Germans had put in our daily portion of water, which they called soup. Each day in Sweden, another girl in our group would inform the others “es kimt mir a mazel tov;” this meant that her body was returning to its normal state.”

Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.

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