A couple of chance -?- incidents happened recently. I want to share them with you. But first, a message from our sponsor:

Sunday, May 1, at 4 p.m., Jews and Christians will join again to observe Yom Hashoah, the Remembrance of the Holocaust. The service will be followed by a reception, not to be missed, I promise.

Until I was in fourth grade, we lived on Graham Street in Harrisburg, Pa., in a block of midscale row houses. They'd be townhouses these days, I suppose. It was a nice neighborhood, located exactly across from William Penn High School's tree-filled campus.

For some reason, recently, I've been thinking about the little girl with black curly hair who lived in the last house on the block. We must have been roughly the same age, although I don't remember being in school with her.

Her name was Lois Anservitz, nicknamed Lowee, and we used to race each other around the block on roller skates. I don't recall ever finishing, much less winning, because my clamp-on skates rarely remained clamped-on that long.

She invited me into her home a few times; my only recollections are of a candlelit dining room and food I'd never heard of, far less tasted.

When I asked my parents if it was OK, they gave cautious permission, explaining that Lois' family was Jewish, and that they're different from us. Just....different.

This must have been about 1944. What did kids on roller skates know from a Holocaust?

Most of the adult world did not know or, for their own survival, ignored the fact that from 1933 to 1945 every country of occupied Europe suffered under the Nazi regime. Today, communication technologies like the Internet make it impossible to hide such events. Many articles are unattributed. One such, I'll paraphrase:

The Nazi legacy was a vast empire of murder, pillage, and exploitation that affected every country of occupied Europe. The toll in lives was enormous. The full magnitude of this tragedy, with its moral and ethical implications, are only now beginning to be understood more fully.

Meanwhile, the surviving eye witnesses are dying off.

We must remember too, for them.

Another odd thing, between the death of Pope John Paul II and the induction of Pope Benedict XVI, was that I received mail from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. It had my exact [email protected] address, but the name bracketed next to it was <sallie shapiro>. That can't happen, can it?

I wrote Juno about it and it hasn't happened again, but meanwhile I'm reading the messages it contained, by Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the SWC, the mission of which is to be an "international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action."

(An aside here: I don't like the word "tolerance" as a socio/ethnic/religious descriptive. I find it condescending, but I'm still working on its replacement. "Acceptance"?)

Wier's entire message is too long to include here, but he wrote in praise of the late Pope John Paul II, that he was "the greatest Pope in the history of the Vatican, with respect to his relationship to the Jewish people."

The rabbi acknowledged that he was not in total accord with John Paul, and nor were most Christians, when, for example, the Pope met with then-Austrian President Kurt Waldheim. But one thing is clear, he said, that in the 2,000-year history of the papacy, no previous Pope has had such an interest in seeking reconciliation with the Jewish people.

"With his passing," Wier wrote, "the world has lost a great moral leader and a righteous man, and the Jewish people have lost [their] staunchest advocate in the history of the [Roman Catholic] Church."

In 2003, Wier met with John Paul to present to him the Wiesenthal Center's highest honor, its Humanitarian Award. Recapping the pontiff's accomplishments and firsts, Wier said:

"As a youngster, you played goalie on the Jewish soccer team in Wadowice...in 1937, concerned about the safety of Ginka Beer, a Jewish student on her way to Palestine, you personally escorted her to the railroad station...in 1963, you were one of the major supporters of Nostra Aetate, the historic Vatican document which rejected the collective responsibility of the Jewish people for the crucifixion...in 1986, you were the first Pope to ever visit a synagogue...the first to recognize the State of Israel...the first to issue a document that seeks forgiveness for members of the Church for wrongdoing committed against the Jewish people throughout history and to apologize for Catholics who failed to help Jews during the Nazi period...the first to visit a concentration camp and to institute an official observance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Vatican."

We must remember too.

I thought I'd see what became of my childhood friend, Lois. These urges are common among aging contemporaries, I understand.

But what are the odds of tracking down a woman (whose name has probably changed, if I had it right in the first place) with whom I've had no direct or indirect contact, after roughly 60 years?

The very first thing I did was to Google her. And the very first return - success! - of sorts.

Lois Anservitz died a year ago. I was reading her obituary.

A brief biography appeared, followed by sparse but heartfelt praise. She had lived in a town just outside Harrisburg, and remained active at Beth El Temple, which I recall as a breathtakingly beautiful edifice on Harrisburg's riverfront.

She graduated from William Penn and was honored as an outstanding senior at Temple University. She retired as a teacher and coach (of what?), then founded and owned a travel agency (Lowee's Group Tours!). She retired again in 1999. Her age and date of birth were omitted, likewise cause of death. Contributions in lieu of flowers were directed to a hospice or a scholarship fund at Beth El.

Her brother Herschel, daughter Christina Kelly, and two grandchildren survive her. Why Lois still wore her maiden name is not explained.

Join me Sunday afternoon at Beth Israel on Hwy. 54 East. You'll be glad you did.

We must remember too.

Some useful sites:

Judaism 101

The Simon Wiesenthal Center: About the SWC

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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