GILLIAN KLAWANSKY
“They were energetic and amazing boys who loved to play sports and to play the violin. They studied Talmud and went to shul on Shabbat with their father. They had big dreams…”
Born in Poland in 1931, Abraham and Benjamin Barmherzig were killed in Auschwitz in 1943, just over a year before they would have had their barmitzvah on 3 Elul 5704, August 22, 1944.
Almost exactly 73 years later, the Sandler twins celebrated their barmitzvah on 11 Elul 5777 – September 2 this year. Not only did the Sandler family honour the Barmherzig twins, they also tracked down the descendants of the only surviving member of the Barmherzig family and struck up a special friendship.
The plan was always to commemorate young victims of the Holocaust through Judd and Tyler’s barmitzvah, says their mother, Lauren Sandler. “I’m a firm believer in remembering the Holocaust and I’d love to encourage other families to honour victims in this way – it’s so important to pass it down to the next generation,” she says.
Initially, the Sandlers contacted the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre who mailed Yad Vashem to try and find a set of twins the boys could honour – a task that seemed almost impossible.
“They battled, but with sheer luck they eventually managed to find the Barmherzig twins,” says Lauren.
Lauren went online and read the testimonials of the twins’ only surviving family member, their brother, Alex Barmherzig. Seeing that he’d provided testimony in 1999, Lauren decided to do more online research and discovered that he’d passed away in 2014 in Toronto.
“There was an obituary from the shul, so I contacted them and they put me in touch with Alex’s four children in Canada,” she says. “They were completely overwhelmed that my boys were going to honour their late uncles and we started communicating.”
The pairing seemed to be Divine intervention. Striking up a friendship with Alex’s daughter Faye Weisman, Lauren was amazed to find many similarities between the families.
Aside from both sets of twins sharing similar barmitzvah dates, they also came from families who practised the same trade. “The father of the Barmherzig twins was a suit maker,” says Lauren. “My husband’s grandfather, who had come to South Africa from Latvia, started a suit factory, which my husband eventually also ran.”
Faye spoke of coming to South Africa for the barmitzvah, but it clashed with a family wedding. “On the Friday night before the barmitzvah, she hosted a special Shabbos dinner in Toronto in honour of my boys, though, and sent us videos of the whole family who attended,” says Lauren. “The family also sponsored our shul brocha.”
In a mail to Judd and Tyler, Faye told them things her father had shared about his late brothers. She also wrote: “You have touched us very deeply by doing this. As you embrace the Torah and read your parsha, know that Abraham and Benjamin’s spirit will be there smiling from above and that you have touched so many lives.”
“Honouring the Barmherzig twins added huge meaning to the barmitzvah for all of us,” says Lauren. The Sandler twins, who attend King David Linksfield Primary, told their story at their school assembly on the day before their barmitzvah.
The boys concluded their speech saying: “We all have a duty to remember the Holocaust and the six million Jews who lost their lives. This has been such a special journey for us and is such a special and meaningful way of taking on the responsibility of remembering.”
Steven Fish
Nov 9, 2017 at 7:01 pm
‘Thank you for writing this beautiful article. Having been fortunate to attend, I think it elevated the Bar Mitzvah to a new level adding meaning not only to the boys, but also to family and friends. It is a great example of the meaning of "community" both near and far, past and present.’