I will share what has worked for me all my life. I was orphaned at a fairly young age but thank G-d have a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren. My parents were in the concentration camps and I grew up with only a set of cousins and an aunt who I love dearly in Kansas City, Missouri.
My father Jacob was in Auschwitz, my mother in Skarjisko and Buchenwald. When my father met new people, especially non-Jews, he would show them the number on his arm and when asked how old he was he would subtract the years he was in Auschwitz, and say those years he did not live. I learned that when I was under great stress, to say the following: “At least I am not in Auschwitz.”
We will get through this together. We have cabin fever and our lives have been turned upside down but “we are not in Auschwitz.” I send each and every one of you a hug.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Edison, New Jersey
