Ellin Yassky and Zoe Sara Yassky

00:03 My name is Ellen yassky. I was born on September 26th. 1956. Today's date is October 11th 2008. We are at the Fairfield Public Library in Fairfield, Connecticut. And I am the mother of Zoe ASCII. Hi, my name is l e a ski, I am 14 years old. Today is October 11th 2008 for in the Fairfield Public Library, and I'm interfering my mother Ellen ASCII.

00:33 I'm so Mom would like to talk to you about a project that you created and work and have worked on for the past two years. You call it the clown of Torah research and rededication project. So what inspired you to create this project while it was September 11th 2006 and it was a Saturday morning. I was just about to enter services at synagogue and congregation Beth-El and I was thinking about the date and what happened in history and how that it changed September 11th, 2001 how it changed all of our lives and I was just in a more open frame of mind and I was just about to enter and I looked behind me at the memorial Nish for the Holocaust Torah that's stood in the hallways since 1974. And I looked at the tour over there and I really don't know why it struck me any more than any of the other thousands of times that I literally that I've walked past it, but I looked at that.

01:33 Torah and I thought I bet this is got an amazing story. I wonder what it is. So, what did you find out about it?

01:41 I found out more than I could have possibly ever imagine that shows you what happens if you just are willing to ask a question and be open to the answer. I find out that it was one of eight Taurus from a small City in the Czech Republic 25 kilometers Northwest of Prague and the name of the city is Claude. No.

02:01 But I found out that unlike all of the other tourist girls that were sent in 1939 up to Prague for their safekeeping. It was a an edict that was issued an edict but I request pretty strong request that was issued from the head of the Jewish community in Prague to send up all of the Toys R Us from all over Czechoslovakia for their safekeeping these particular Torres in this town of Claude know did not go and if they didn't go because of a very yet unsung hero, it turns out that the sportscaster from that town. He was the soccer sportscaster was Jewish rather assimilated Jewish person. He didn't he wasn't even married to a Jewish woman. I think he was married three different times, but she didn't like the sound of the request. He didn't trust it.

02:52 And he decided that the Toros would be much safer if they were hidden behind the walls in the basement of the synagogue and so he did a rather an extremely Brave thing and dangerous for anybody that was involved. He had them.

03:12 Varied so to speak it all eight of them behind the walls of the basement of the synagogue and then in 1939 after the Nazis had come and occupy Czechoslovakia the Jewish community in Clyde. No realize that it was it was very dangerous. They had no idea of what was to befall them, but they knew that their lies to a reprobate changed and so they they made a deal with the hussites in Claude know how sites there a check Protestant Reformation sex Christian sect and they made a deal with them. They quote unquote sold the synagogue to the church so that it would not be destroyed in the hopes that it wouldn't be destroyed and and hopefully by the Jewish Community a little bit more time. So here these brave people that if their plan became known to the Nazis, you can only imagine what would have happened. They they sold the souled synagogue embarathy.

04:10 Torah is behind it.

04:13 Then this one man, who was the sportscaster his name was Joseph Salas.

04:19 He was finally sent to terezin not in 42 and most of the other occupants were it were sent on the two transports but later in 1944, and it was probably because he was not married to a Jewish woman that eventually saved his life. So he was sent to terezin and he actually survived Harrison came back and Unearthed the Taurus behind there and at that point then they were sent up to Prague with all the others and then we'll be found out is the story goes is that

04:48 The war's over you have 1600 Taurus that are all different ages from all over Czechoslovakia and they're all stored up in warehouses in Prague. They're stacked like cordwood. They're not giving the protection of any humidity controls like you would imagine today for an old document. They were just stored through the cold through the rain without any covering eventually the government up in Prague in the Czech Republic didn't know what to do with them. But they realize that they were precious at least to the Jewish Community set large and so a private sale was created with a philanthropist from London who went over and he decided he wasn't going to buy just one of the tourists he made a deal to buy them all and so about 1600 Taurus were eventually purchased and were sent to London and in 1964 the sale went through and they created some

05:48 I called the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust.

05:51 And the edict definition of this trust was to protect these terrorists to document them and then to send them out all over the world like something like the kindertransport when the children were sent to England to be able to protect them many of them never saw their parents again, but these tours over then disseminated throughout the world and today there are 1000 in the United States and 400 of them in Europe the other 200 or still at with a call Kent house now, which is the headquarters of the trust and where the museum is. So in 1974 congregation Beth-El learned about the trust and they sent money to the trust to become the trustee. We don't own the this Tara but we became the trustee of Torah scroll number for 58 and when it arrived in Fairfield a beautiful Niche was created. You've seen it before with a barbed wire and the railroad tracks and remember what's attached on top remember that little pea?

06:51 The fabric that's up there. What is that? Fabric is uniform. But yeah, there was a Shard of his little tear the blue and white striped and then the Torah is was there with a beautiful covering that was Handmade by members of the synagogue and then do you know what's on the front all this little plaques are do you know what they are? They are.

07:18 I don't do the names of people whose family members in the synagogue there their family that were lost in the Holocaust. So that's her was taken down. Every once in awhile for Holocaust Remembrance Day and it was there as a memorial for the Holocaust. So that's what we knew about the Torah until that day two years ago when I just stopped and I asked this question just to myself and then the rest is more or less as we say history. We began to research and we found out more about it and we're very lucky that that particular scroll came into our into our lives. So why when we first got the Torah did we not put it in mediately into the r o that's a really good question.

08:08 It in some synagogues in a report in the reform synagogue for reform congregation. I should say it would be okay to put the Torah right in the arc, but in Orthodox and conservative synagogue Satori has to be called what they called kosher not like kosher food, but kosher in the fact that it's in perfect condition. The letters haven't been scratched off or falling off and I was always a really old Taurus so they've been rolled on roles that ink dries off flakes off. So if it's not perfect, that's what they cool pustule which means that it's not Kosher and you're allowed to use it for research and for teaching but you can't use it for actually actual prayer unless it's restored. So did you know that you wanted to have it restored when you first learned about it? You know, I didn't I didn't even think about that. This whole project was very organic and its development when I look back I see that there was a path that was laid out, but it wasn't like I laid out of half of what we were going to do.

09:08 Each time we learn something we realize that we needed to address that situation and it it it was wonderful at it almost like it took us by the hand and said well, I've got the story inside me. I have to tell you I mean Taurus don't speak to you but it was as if this to her actually spoke to us, so it hadn't. I hadn't really thought about getting it restored until we went last Christmas. It was a year ago. It's only a year so much has happened then a year ago Christmas 19 of us from congregation Beth-El. We went to Prague remember how crazy we were in Winter to go to the Czech Republic and we went to Prague and we went so that we could see the synagogues in the ancient Jewish community of Prague and then we went to Tara's into raisins. The concentration camp where so many of the Czech Jews had been sent and then from there we went to the cemetery where the people the Jewish community of

10:08 Kladno had been we went back to the roots to see the the synagogue that had become a church and just to see where this Torah actually came from and when we were there to remember what we did on on that Christmas Day, I remember that the emo one of the congregations meeting I guess but with such great spirit and the most beautiful voice and great love of Torah, where do we go after we went to Tara's and where we go the next day or so important about going to the cemetery Cemetery. We ran into Rudolph's Alice's grave and they're all who is real solid was the sportscaster. He was the sportscaster. He was the man that came up with the idea of putting the doors behind the wall to save them.

11:03 And so on and who else was buried in this Cemetery?

11:08 All of all of God knows Jews from before the war and then there's the Gap and then after so what did we do at the cemetery? Remember that? All nineteen of us all bundled often are huge jackets for singing El malei rachamim, which is the prayer for the dead and luckily by that point. I was Bat Mitzvah so I could participate and it was very sad because all these years. Nobody had had these people hadn't had anybody to pray for them and there we were just only nineteen of us. I know it sounds like a small number but it was very heartfelt right. It was the first time I think you've ever said kaddish for anyone and Ben for El moley rahamim, and it was a very big Mitzvah because there wasn't there's nobody else these people have no families that are alive anymore it root word. We're still trying to find them if they if they do and so not to have anybody to Paris and not have anybody to remember.

12:08 Say this prayer is so sad. As long as you have somebody to remember you're that's what the cottage is all about. Still alive in somebody's hearts. And so although We Were Strangers to these people we came and read communally did this really important Mitzvah indeed in and it was the first time that you and your brother were able to participate as adult members of the Jewish Community during this most important Mitzvah because it can't be done back for you by these people, right? So it was so it was so important about that.

12:41 Remember what what happened that first night that we arrived in Plano?

12:47 We went to the Hotel Dieu member who came to visit it was Charles knows. Mr. Herman. Remember right before we took off. I got a telephone call at the airport and they said that they actually had found the last remaining member of the Jewish Community. Everyone else had died. But there was this one man Peter Hermann who lived in an old age home outside of Prague. He heard that we were coming and he wanted to meet us so he took public transportation. We were so exhausted that day. We had no idea what he was going to be like we knew he was elderly and he came to meet us at night and to speak just to me into Jeffrey gross Preston of the congregation and just to let us know that there was actually somebody that was still alive do remember meeting him there.

13:45 He was remarkable. He was so tall and handsome and elegant and dignified and he came so prepared. He had a biography that he typed up about himself and a brochure that he had created about dobris the town where his family had been from and a DVD that he had made with pictures and music behind it of all of the other members of his family that had been lost in Claude know he was 16 when he was taken. Same age is your brother Max same age and every member all 26 members of his family were all lost in terezin and he wanted to make sure that nobody forgot about this so he came down imagine how hard that must have been public transportation for an 83 year-old man on a cold cold December evening, and it came down and he met us and he gave me this whole package of information.

14:42 So we we said to him. Mr. Herman. We are going to be spending Christmas day with the the hussites have invited us to the church for celebration won't you please come with us and he was too old to come and he said I don't think I can make it and we were heartbroken because here we had just found out about this remarkable man, and we really wanted to spend more time with him and we thought that we would never see him again, but then we went after we went to the cemetery in the morning and then we went to spend Christmas day with the hussites. He came he was brought by members of the Jewish community and they and they brought him there and that you remember what that what that evening was like where we had the hussite what what did they do to remember how they greeted us and the gifts that they gave us in terms of what it was a picture of what Claude know used to look like which was gorgeous and now it's just a mining town and

15:42 Actually not as pretty as it used to be and what about the ceremony that they would they do in the ceremony they saying all of these Jewish songs, they really put some time into it and then prepared an all kosher meal for us and it was so

16:03 So nice that they had gone through all of that just to make us feel welcome, but they gave up their Christmas day to spend this day with us wasn't that amazing and you met a Martina who had become your pen pal when we first started the research I asked if there was somebody your age so that you could start this correspondence with her and that it was exciting for you to finally meet her and you exchange gifts hugs and it was a it was really wonderful. It was very important to the hussites because they're very spiritual people and they wanted to spend this day with us and they never this beautiful prayers and the apologies that no one expected on behalf of the Czech people for not having done with a considerate enough to be able to save the Jews of their Community checks are extremely Brave fabulous people and they started the ceremony with the blowing of the shofar.

16:58 And prayers and then they spoke and we spoke and they sang this beautiful songs for us, but I think perhaps one of the most remarkable.

17:07 It probably was the most remarkable part of that whole evening is mr. Herman came and he stood up in front of everyone in her. It was freezing in there. That is no absolutely no no heating at all.

17:22 And he stood there and so elegantly got up in front of everyone in and check in an English. Give a very brief history that when he was 16, he was taken from the town in the Sip in the synagogue of his Youth and then he did something truly truly remarkable. Remember heat. It was very quiet and he reached into his dress coat pocket and he pulled out a kippah and yarmulke and put it on his head and then he pulled out the prayer for the shehecheyanu. What's it what prayer is that for for thanking God for being there on that day keeping that day different than any other day Forum working at its very unique. And you said that para million times right? You say it when the first night of Hanukkah when you light the first candle and anytime you do something for the first time or first fruit of the Season or you had a new experience.

18:18 But it's a really not the prayer that we say. I'm going to really think much about it. But here he got up and he said this prayer thanking God to be alive on this remarkable day.

18:30 I do remember there must have been a hundred people in there and nobody could breathe to remember that we were so afraid we were all going to start to cry this gift that he gave us. I can't even imagine how Brave he was and he what it meant to him to be able to to do that being back at the scene of a of a place that had once been such a part of his Youth and then all is beautiful taken away from him and to be there with the strangers and have a strength and bravery. I don't think I've ever met anybody so remarkable in my life.

19:06 So what did it mean to go to club now in the Czech Republic with last myself? Oh well.

19:15 It was it was that I was able to put this in a in a context for you as well as being an addled putting it in the contacts. I've never been to Prague on moving to the Czech Republic. I never been to a concentration camp before and so to share it with not that that'll put with my children who you're my whole life and to be able to know that we would have this in common forever that we would have share this experience and then for you to be able to give me

19:43 Reaction from a youth point of view how how you felt about it and share this with me and with everybody else. There were five kids all together that went but you were my children you and Max were there that we could be that we could have this as our combined family experience. So when you were a child, do you think you would ever embarked on such a journey is this phone? Oh, you know when I was a kid, we were a lot closer to memories of the Holocaust because it was a while ago and there were a lot there were many more survivors alive being born in the late 50s. It was only say 10 years past the end of the war and as a child you weren't exposed to that much because your parents were trying to Shield you but yet we grew up in the synagogue with so many people that had numbers tattooed on their arms and we had heard stories about it. And then as you got older you learn more and more about it, but one site has began to

20:43 Grow older and realize they the enormity of this. In history and I wasn't aware of that having lost anybody in my immediate family. I found out actually that my grandfather's brother was the only one who never came to the United States and he actually did perish during the Holocaust but I didn't know that there was anybody in my family, so I didn't feel as a youth a very

21:08 A very personal experience at that point and it became more personalized as I became older. So as a child, I I couldn't have ever thought. What did I know as a kid? I was protected. I had everything I wanted and it wasn't only until I was in a Dalton had children of my own that the fear of this type of experience became real to me understanding just how precious my children's lives were. So until things hit you in your phone contact if your life you can't can't really expect it. So if you could go back to the Czech Republic go back to Prague go back to Cloud know and do this whole project again. Do you think you could change anything?

21:45 I would always better to have hindsight and be able to say Jeff would have done certain things better. And yes, I would have given ourselves more time. I would have of having found out about mr. From and I would have made sure that I could spend more time with him. It was so quick. It was so fleeting this whole evening at the church at just over before we even knew about it. I wanted to spend more time with mr. Herman and then there was this one woman who I didn't even realize who she was until we came back. She was as a young girl there when they broke through the walls up and sit in the basement of the synagogue and they and they found out that behind over the Taurus up until that point. They had known that they thought it was just apocryphal. They really didn't know that it really happens. They thought it was a story but here this one woman Vera was able to tell that she remembers them breaking open a wall and seeing books in a language that she's never seen before.

22:45 He was talking to me after the ceremony, but she was speaking to me in German and my Germans really rusty. So I got one out of every four words or something and it wasn't until I got back that I kept asking. Who is this woman? They kept speaking to me and they said oh she was the woman that was as a child was there and saw them break through the walls and I was so frustrated that I didn't have a chance to sit with a translator and ask her and tape her and ask for more time to be able to learn about her story. So that is absolutely something that I would have wanted to to know more about. So did you ever keep talked with mr. Herman? Oh, absolutely. He has an email and we emailed back and forth and emails are beautifully beautifully written. He did have a bit of a heart problem. So he went to a spa. I think they called it so that he could recover and get stronger and you know, he has a daughter me. Hi Ella who lives in Texas and so anytime I send a letter to him I send one to her and and we do keep in touch. I just heard a beautiful received a beautiful email.

23:45 From her the other day and she's hoping to meet us all one day and she's so grateful. We sent her copies of pictures and tapes and everything that we have so that she could share this experience with her father who up until recently she's seen him once a year. So we made sure that she was the beneficiary of of his generosity of his time story to us as well. So looking back on it. Now. What do you think your greatest aspirations for the project were?

24:14 Looking back on it. I realize that I really wanted to create an opportunity.

24:18 Fittest Hora to give it story and it's I realize that it's this portal in in time. It brings us back to the past and and hear the future and into heat to the present and into the future. I wanted us to be able to not lose this opportunity to see if we could to connect as head of people as possible to the Torrance story. Hopefully to find people who had relatives from Claude nowhere or could share more stories with us. It's it's this amazing vehicle almost like a and Aladdin's lamp that we could ask for some wishes what we wish we could learn more there. No juice left. It's a promise to her Monsoon historic had to be the one to tell us this whole story. I needed to make sure that as many people as possible were witnesses to this one particular story, which is just one of so many member there are a thousand such a check stories and how many more polish in French and German towers are there that they all are if they can only talk

25:19 The dentist or is that they would be able to tell us and fill out our Collective history. So what do you think most important outcome of the cloud? No car project is I think they're a couple of different things. I think one is that of course that once we came back from Claude now, we realized how important it was to restore the store and we embarked on a campaign to raise enough money was very expensive to be able to restore the Torah and

25:52 We wanted to make sure that we rededicated it and then that it was seen as the Seminole piece of our combined history. So we had this dirt dedication and it wasn't just Witness by people within our community but by Thomas Hart who is the council from the Czech Embassy in New York and Christopher Shays came to speak and three dignitaries from Claude know the town mayor of the Town archivist and then Eve about the Copa who was my counterpart in Claude know they came and they spoke and they shared witnessing this to Fairfield children's County Corral that I say that right they sang for songs three of which were buy Pratt to check dumbest lietzke who was a Jewish composer who had survived tereson. So as long as his music is still played we're able to continue the memory of the work that he did Ella weisberger. You remember her. She was one of the ra 15,000 children.

26:52 That was sent to terezin 132 survived. She was one of them remember how she stood in front of all of us and she held the yellow star that has been affixed to her clothing. Remember how overpowering that was and Shira might reminded us.

27:08 Do not forget her friends. She didn't even talk about her experience. It was that please don't forget my friends.

27:17 She was your age when she was in terezin and it's remarkable that she survived and she was the the cat in all fifty two performances of Brenda bar two performances a friend of our and she came with member her a bunch of life and energy she walks in the room what it seemed like when she walks in the room when she walked in. She's been through such Horrors and and yet she stood there with such peace and and purpose a sense of purpose. So to have this all films since I have a communal witness of this that was one of the most important parts. One of the the other part is that we found out that the store was a was kabbalistic Torah very rare over a hundred and fifty years old and that there are certain letters in there that were created differently and they're almost like signals to someone who knows how to read it of a secret.

28:17 Mystic message with in there. So there's if you believe in the Kabbalah and composite the message is a cabalistic Taurus. There's even more power. So I'd like to think that it had something to do with it. The reason that this particular Torah survived when so many others didn't and and it added to this amazing story of it having been hidden and then on Earth then and then sent again to just lay there for so many years and then to come to us and to wait from 1974 until just two years ago for us to say wait a second. What's the story behind here? We all need to find this out to it. It it brought us all together on this on this journey together.

28:53 And then I think the immensity of this hole to your project really came to bear just a few days ago at Yom, Kippur.

29:03 So during during the service this tour was the one that was chosen to be the Torah and that was restored last you and we had this great restoration of everybody sang and danced with the store for the first time in 66 years. And we we read from the store again. It took its rightful place again up there and during the martyrology service the store was there and as we spoke about the unnecessary loss of lives because you don't care what you think about your life and what God is going to inscribe. He's opening up. The book of life is going to inscribe what's going to happen to you Zoe and me Ellen and everybody else if this is part of your belief, what's going to happen in the next year and the first person to read from this Torah?

29:47 Was the granddaughter of Holocaust Survivors?

29:52 And she stood up there and she read so beautifully who would have thought in 1935 what would happen to the Taurus that people 70 years ago went Claude knowing that synagogue where we all stood together and they participated in Russian and Yom Kippur and those terrorists were there. They had no idea of the hell and and the immensity of what was going to happen in the rest of their lives and they work with that Torah and the end then it had this.

30:23 And it's life that is hard for us to imagine. And now once again, it's still there and two generations later a beautiful young woman the future your future like you she stood up there and in a way of being able to say to her grandparents who were survivors and those who didn't survive that it's not forgotten. It's not lost. Look at me. I'm here and the words are coming alive again as I read them. I will be the next generation of this tour of his history.

30:57 I found it for now. It's very emotional just to think about it.

31:07 The importance of what we had all done.

31:13 Came to my shoulders that day.

31:15 Of how much we were all enriched by the presence of this continuation, you know, they say Ladora Fedora from generation to generation and it was so true right then and you and Max and all of the other children you are the Next Generation we did this because we felt a moral directive that we had to retell the story. We had to find out as much as we could have had it we had to make sure it was witnessed by everyone and continue and I can only hope that we are passing this moral directive on to you and and you will at the appropriate moment make the right ethical and moral decisions in your life. And that what we've done has been an inspiration to you and is taught you that you can stand up you can ask a question. You can follow it through to its logical conclusion. You can have the strength of your beliefs and you have the power to to continue this important story and end that I was able to share this with

32:15 Zoe I think that when I become I hopefully an old cranky old lady and I look back on the greatest things that I did in my life and we all like to look back on what we did it will be having given birth to you and to Max and what you will contribute and I think that having made this having worked on this project and it getting this car restored and hearing it read from again was probably going to rank as the most the other most important thing that I've ever done and I just want to tell you that I'm so proud of you and what you and Max will do and that you share this with me and that I love you very much.