Triumph After All

By Bina Kozuch

"I am like an even-fresh olive . . . I trust in the kindness of God . . ." The Book of Psalms 52:10.

This book tells the story of a young girl, the only remaining member of her immediate family. Cipora survived the Holocaust during the Second World War. She drew her strength of survival from her mother's prophecy and the faith in God.

Through the stories told by the survivor, the author brings to life the shtetl-village in Ruscova, Romania especially when the Sabbath and the holiday of Passover are described in details. The recipes which were collected by the author connect us to a lost Europe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543939866

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Triumph After All

BinaKozuch

ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-54393-985-9

ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-54393-986-6

© 2018. All rights reserved. Registration number: TXu002025902. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Triumph After All

Self Publishing

Kirkus Review

Kozuch’s mother, Cipora, was born into a Jewish family in Ruscova, Romania, in the early 1930s. Narrating in the voice of Cipora, the author tells how the girl was raised helping her own mother collect and prepare food for the family table: gathering fruit, pickling vegetables, milking cows, baking matzo for Passover. Her father worked with food as well, as a kosher supervisor for a wealthy local family. After increasingly severe anti-Semitic laws curtailed the rights of Jews in Romania, the Nazis came to power and began their program of extermination. Cipora and her family were forced to relocate to the Falchovitcho ghetto and then, soon after, to Auschwitz-Birkenau: One hundred and fifty thousand Jews from Maramures, Romania entered the camp. One hundred and forty six thousand Jews from this county were murdered, among them my immediate family: Papa, Mama, my sister Haya, and my brother Mendele. Interspersed with Cipora’s account are recipes from her later life as the chef at a Cleveland synagogue: traditional Jewish and Romanian recipes like hamantashen cookies, caizee latkes, and hyneer paprikash. While splicing recipes into a very upsetting Holocaust story might at first seem incongruous, the importance of food to the family and culture of Cipora and her relatives is omnipresent, especially when their access to staples becomes limited: Mama tried to invent different dishes from the peels of rotten vegetables she found in one of the garbage cans located not far from the house. We were still able to indulge in two slices of black bread a day. The work is short, just over 100 pages (and that includes some two dozen recipes), but that is enough to capture the harrowing memories of Cipora, who told them to the author only after many decades of silence. The resultant book is a unique work of horror and history, food and heritage. Perhaps more, it’s a reminder of the things that get passed down from mother to daughter, the items that get withheld, and the ways that daughters attempt to pay their mothers back.

An idiosyncratic but effective book that delivers hard memories and traditional recipes from a lost Europe.

Rabbi’s Review

I had the great honor to know Cipora Kozuch of blessed memory. She was a woman full of honor and was thankful for each day of her life. She had much pride in the family she had, after coming face-to-face with evil and human destruction.

This book is an important testimony of those no longer able to speak for themselves. It is through her daughter’s insistence of conversation, about a past more readily forgotten that brings us Cipora’s story.

What is so terrifying is that Cipora’s story is not unique but unfortunately was the norms for her, her community, the Jews of her country, and everywhere else in Eastern Europe.

This is the first book relating a Holocaust story that I have seen interspersed with recipes.

Though strange at first, it may be saying the following:

Cipora can be proud in fact, that long after those that sought her destruction are gone. The smells of the food and the vibrancy of her faith and religion are still alive today.

RABBI MOISHE DENBURG-CHABAD CENTRAL, BOCA RATON, FL

Contents

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

PREFACE - THE JEWS IN ROMANIA

CHAPTER 1 - EVACUATION

CHAPTER 2 - REFLECTION

CHAPTER 3 - SHABBAT AT HOME

CHAPTER 4 - AT BUBBIE’S HOUSE

CHAPTER 5 - THE RIDE ON THE CATTLE CARS

CHAPTER 6 - AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

CHAPTER 7 - BYDGOSH

CHAPTER 8 - THEY WERE SILENT

CHAPTER 9 - LIBERATION

CHAPTER 10 - THEY SANK

CHAPTER 11 - WILL IT EVER CEASE?

CHAPTER 12 - HOPE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

NOTES

INDEX TO RECIPES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Suggestions for Further Reading

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

DEDICATION

Listen, my nation, to my teaching, incline your ear to the words of my mouth.¹

"We shall not withhold from their sons-recounting unto the final generation the praise of HASHEM (God) . . ."²

"Praiseworthy is the man . . . his desire is in the Torah of HASHEM . . ."³

He shall be like a tree deeply rooted alongside brooks of water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaf never withers, and everything that he does will succeed.⁴

He established a testimony in Jacob and set down a Torah in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, to make them known to their sons.⁵

Dr. Daphna-Yael Spiegel—my daughter

Dr. Rafi-Yaakow Skowronski—my son-in-law

Noa-Orli Skowronski—my granddaughter

Asher-Jonah—my grandson

Roger Kozuch—my brother

Rochelle Kozuch—my sister-in-law

Naftali-Moshe Kozuch—my nephew

In remembrance of my father, Kalman-Zeev-Wolf Kozuch z’l, who endured it all with a continuous smile.

To all the kdoshim (holy) martyrs who perished in vain by the hand of the Nazis.

To the present and future generations to be born:

NO TOLERANCE WHEN ENCOUNTERING EVIL!

Last but not least, Cipora, Tziper-Gittle Younger-Kozuch z’l (of blessed memory), my mother, remnant of the Holocaust who was tenacious in continuing the legacy.

PROLOGUE

"I sought HASHEM (God) and He answered me, and from all of my terrors He delivered me." ¹

My heart is astir with a good theme, I say: ‘My works are for a king, my tongue is like the pen of a skillful scribe.²

"I will thank HASHEM exceedingly with my mouth, and amid the multitude I will praise Him. That He stands at the right of the destitute, to save [him] from the condemners of his soul."³

Cipora Kozuch, born Tziper-Gittle Dratler-Younger, was my mother, the sole survivor of her immediate family. She was a survivor of the Shoah (the catastrophe), the Holocaust of the Second World War.

It took my mother sixty-eight years to open up her heart and reveal her experiences, the good memories growing up in Ruscova, Romania. She also broke through the chambers of pain describing the despicable evil, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis against eleven million people of all races and creeds. Among the millions were six million Jews who were annihilated. The total number of Jews residing in Europe at the time was nine and a half million. Two-thirds of them were murdered by the Nazi regime.⁴

My mother endured great suffering and anguish in the infamous death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, and in Bydgosh, Poland a labor camp. Her experience as an inmate under the Nazis left an indelible mark on her.

I condensed my mother’s memories into several chapters, as she recalled them to me in bits and pieces over a period of three years. Needless to say, she could do this only haltingly, recounting the nightmarish events piecemeal. What follows is her story, told from her viewpoint.

It was bashert (destiny) directed by HASHEM that my mother was a remnant of the millions of Jews who were murdered by the Germans just for being Jewish.

I am grateful to God that He gave me the strength to share with the world the grim scenario she buried in her mind and her heart for nearly seven decades.

In regard to the recipes, my mother remembered the Yiddishe machels (Jewish food) that her mother lovingly prepared for every meal, weekday, Shabbos (Saturday sabbath), and holidays.

While my mother was the chef at a large synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio, she integrated her past knowledge from the shtetl (small village) and prepared delicious delicacies, enhanced them, and served the meals to thousands of people. Those who celebrated feasted their simches (joyous) occasions, hence the Yiddishe batamt (Jewish flavor) after each chapter. The use of Yiddish, her mame laushen (mother tongue [language]), through words, conversations, and the recipes’ names makes them a living legacy.

In conclusion, the purpose of writing these stories is to evoke the will of the present generation and the future ones to delve into the historical facts, past and present. Each one must stand up against any evil that may threaten us from the outside; evil against destruction of freedom, creed, or race. No one should tolerate any of that. Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world.⁵ These are the