Teens ‘Twin’ With Holocaust Victims

‘REMEMBER US’ PROJECT KEEPS MEMORIES ALIVE

Rebecca Stuckey looks Monday for the portion of the Torah that she read at her bat mitzvah in January at the Congregation Etz Chaim synagogue in Bentonville. Her father, Paul Stuckey, looks on. To preserve a part of Jewish history, 13-year-old Rebecca was “twinned” at her bat mitzvah with Holocaust victim Bella Shtelman, who died as a 2-year-old in the ghetto at Minsk, Belorussia.
Rebecca Stuckey looks Monday for the portion of the Torah that she read at her bat mitzvah in January at the Congregation Etz Chaim synagogue in Bentonville. Her father, Paul Stuckey, looks on. To preserve a part of Jewish history, 13-year-old Rebecca was “twinned” at her bat mitzvah with Holocaust victim Bella Shtelman, who died as a 2-year-old in the ghetto at Minsk, Belorussia.

— Bella Shtelman was born Sept. 1, 1939, in the Belorussian city of Minsk. She died Nov. 20, 1941, five months after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Minsk.

Those facts, along with her parents’ names - Bronya and Roman - are the only historical record of Bella’s brief life. Yet a family in Northwest Arkansas who has claimed Bella as “kin” has unearthed additional information.

The child died on the day some 7,000 to 10,000 Jews were marched into the forest near Minsk and massacred, Paul Stuckey said. The adults were shot and piled into trenches.

Children like Bella were likely tossed in alive.

Rebecca Stuckey, 13, the daughter of Paul and Carol Stuckey, “twinned” with Bella for her bat mitzvah ceremony Jan. 29 at Congregation Etz Chaim in Bentonville. The action commemorated Bella’s life and allowed her to participate, symbolically, in a coming-of-age ritual for Jewish teens.

Girls become a bat mitzvah andboys a bar mitzvah - literally, a daughter or son of the law - at age 12 or 13. They are no longer children in the eyes of Jewish law but full members of the Jewish community.

“Twinning” with a child like Bella has no religious significance for the deceased, said Rabbi Jack Zanerhaft, leader of Congregation Etz Chaim. It’s not comparable to the Mormon belief that people who have died can be baptized by proxy and thereby attain salvation, he said.

Instead, it’s a symbolic action, a commitment on the part of the young bar and bat mitzvahs to keep their “twins’” memories alive. The idea is to remember the young person they paired with for the rest of their lives, Zanerhaft said.

“The hope is that it will be an ongoing thing. Not just on the day of the celebration, but on the anniversary of their bar or batmitzvah, that they will continue to remember their twin, their pair.”

Rebecca was the first young person in Arkansas to take part in the project, Zanerhaft said.

He introduced the idea to the congregation last year.

Matthew Bratspies, son of Lisa and Steve Bratspies, twinned with a boy named David Weinsztock for his bar mitzvah Feb. 19. David died at age 9 in the Treblinka concentration camp in Poland.

The camp is in the same part of the country Matthew’s greatgrandfather came from.

Project Empowers Teens

The twinning ceremony is a project of Remember Us: The Holocaust Bnai Mitzvah Project in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Bnai mitzvah is the genderinclusive term used for both girls and boys.

The goal of the nonprofit organization is to help Jewish children come to grips with the Holocaust in a way that makes them stronger, said Gesher Calmenson, founder and director of Remember Us. The group aims to “mobilize the power of memory” to empower Jewish teens and keep the murdered children’s memories alive.

The retired educator realized that as eye witnesses die off, the events of the Holocaust - or Shoah, as Jews call it - will become more and more remote in children’s minds, he said.

“If it’s only museums and monuments, kids won’t really have a way to connect with it,” he said. “Memory is most significant when it inspires.”

More than 14,000 children in some 550 congregations in the U.S. and abroad have taken part in the project, Calmenson said. There is no charge, although donations are welcome. Remember Us is funded by private donations and foundation grants.

Calmenson gets the names of deceased children from a database maintained by Yad Vashem, an Israeli organization dedicated to Holocaust commemoration, documentation, education and research.

After a child has been paired with a bat or bar mitzvah, his or her name is taken off the Remember Us list.

A Personal Loss

Rebecca researched the Holocaust and the Jewish ghetto of Minsk as part of her preparation for her bat mitzvah, she said in an interview Monday.

“It makes me sad to think about what Bella went through. At the same time, I’m glad people are able to find out that what she went through is real.”

The Bentonville teen babysits a little girl the same age Bella was when she died, she said.

“Every time I think of Bella, I think of Sabrina. It’s almost impossible to imaginehow anybody would be able to hurt her. ...

“All my life, I’ve had chills down my spine to think about anyone hurting innocent people or animals. To be able to honor someone who had gone through that was really special for me.”

Rebecca plans to mark the anniversary of Bella’s death - Nov. 20, 1941 - with special prayers for the dead and by lighting a yahrzeit (year’s time) candle,she said.

The seventh-grader at Lincoln Junior High School was inspired to take part in the project after hearing Zanerhaft and his wife, Debbye, recount their families’ suffering during the Holocaust, she said. Rebecca’s parents are converts to Judaism, so they don’t have the immediate connection to the loss.

The Remember Me project creates personal ties for allJews who take part, Zanerhaft said.

“Now you have a personal loss. You have a name, a story to tell. You’re more linked to the historical event.”

Paul Stuckey said he is proud of his daughter for participating in the project.

“It’s both a diff cult thing and a positive thing for the kids to do. Remembering our history is painful, and at the same time, important to do.”

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WEB WATCH

REMEMBER US

remember-us.org

YAD VASHEM

yadvashem.org

Religion, Pages 6 on 02/26/2011

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