Earring in the Cellar: Growing Up in Ruined Worlds

One spring morning in the ghetto, my mother, sisters, and I went down the steps into the cellar. Mother was holding a long tube, which she had filled with the few pieces of jewelry she still had from her wedding. She looked at us, her daughters, and removed the earrings I loved so much. She dug a small hole in the ground, wrapped the tube in numerous layers of cloth, placed it in the earth, and we all joined in to cover the hole. This is so you, my dear daughters, will have something to start with when you return. From her poverty-stricken, yet happy childhood in Hungary, when the author was strongly influenced by her family and community’s Zionist ideology, to the hell of Auschwitz and her escape from the Death March in the final days of war, to the tumultuous period in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel, Rachel Bernheim-Friedman’s life was and is filled with passion, determination, and a strong will to survive and build–to build a better life, a Jewish state, and a hopeful future for her children and grandchildren. Continued in Jerusalem, Lebanon, Palestine, the United States and Israel, Earrings in the Cellar is a story that should not be missed.