On the morning of Tuesday, April 18, Stephen Wise Temple and Wise School marked Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—by hearing the harrowing story of Holocaust survivor Michele Rodri during a special memorial service in the Westwood Sanctuary.
After a moving service led by Rabbi Josh Knobel and Cantor Emma Lutz, Wise School sixth grade students memorialized the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Rodri, accompanied by her family, then discussed her escape from the Nazis with Rabbi David Woznica.
The daughter of an observant Jewish Parisian family, Rodri was abducted from her parents by Nazis while playing in the streets. She was remanded to a transition camp. Every morning, she watched as SS officers would pick prisoners at random, prisoners they would never seen again. This went on for months—so long that Rodri lost track of time. One morning, she saw a familiar face: her oldest brother.
“I didn’t know at the time if I was hallucinating, if it was real, if it was really him,” says Rodri.
Dressed in a Nazi uniform, he spoke perfect German. Rodri’s mother had been a bit of a linguist, and spoke literary German, teaching her children how to speak it. That knowledge became an asset for Rodri in the camp, and an even greater asset for her two brothers, who had joined the French underground, led by Charles de Gaulle.
Her brother addressed one of the SS officers, and asked to take Rodri and another young girl named Nicole, the daughter of a French POW who had stood against Hitler’s regime. Suspecting nothing amiss, the SS officer obliged, even thanking Rodri’s undercover brother for coming.
After celebrating their escape in the car, Rodri’s brother—still dressed in a Nazi uniform—took the two girls to safety in a Catholic convent. For a year and a half, the Mother Superior cared for Rodri, protecting her, ensuring she was shielded from have to do anything that would violate Jewish tradition, taking her to school, and ensuring she had a steady supply of French chocolate croissants.
She eventually reunited with her parents at the end of the war, moved to the United States, and raised a family, marrying another survivor.
She gave a message to those watching, both in person and online:
“Don’t give up. If you are having a hard time, keep fighting. Keep going for it. Don’t ever give up on a project that you want. If you see somebody who is doing something wrong, you have to speak up. You can’t just sit back and make like you don’t see it, because if you don’t, you are just as bad as the predator. You’re as guilty. So, if you see a friend that is getting mistreated, you have to speak up, or if you see an adult out on the street that is being mistreated, you have to help. This way, if everybody helps, it will be a beautiful world again, the one that we used to have.”
