A Patch of Sacred Ground

I know a friend in Los Angeles whose parents are buried in a mass grave in Vienna.

The first time I visited this memorial was a few years ago, on Tisha B’Av. Today, during the week of Yom HaShoah, I felt drawn back again.

I remembered that it was near the Ohel of the great Gadol, the Pressburger Rav. I walked a few steps, and there it was.

A simple black and white two step stone podium. The engraving, aged and worn, was barely visible.

I bent down almost ninety degrees to read the inscription.

Two hundred Jewish souls are buried here, murdered by the Nazis in the former Yugoslavia in 1941.

Only decades later did my friend discover what had happened to her parents.

It is a lonely gravesite. Without the presence of the great Rav nearby, one might pass it without ever realizing the holiness that rests beneath.

I was reminded of another mass grave, in Kaufering near Munich, where my grandfather is buried among thousands.

My father zichrono livracha tried to find a way to exhume his father’s body so that he could be buried kedat ve kedin, in accordance with Jewish law. He even knew the exact location, thanks to a friend from his hometown who had managed to mark the place.

It was just two days before liberation. The Nazis had already begun to abandon their posts, no longer watching the inmates.

But it was impossible to exhume one body without disturbing the others. And so they remain there, in the midst of a beautiful forest deep in the Bavarian mountains, waiting for the days of redemption.

And here in Vienna, someone through courage and perseverance ensured that those who died al kiddush Hashem were brought to a מקום קדוש, a place of sanctity.

I sat on a chair in the Ohel of the Pressburger Rav and allowed my thoughts to settle. I davened for the families, for those who still carry the absence, and for a Refuah Shelema where healing is still needed.

It took me time to rise.

It was Erev Shabbat. There were errands to complete, a kosher market to visit, a bakery waiting.

And yet, as I walked away, I understood:

This small patch of earth holds an entire world.

A fragment of Jewish history beneath my feet.

And for a brief moment, I was able to stand still long enough to feel it.