Happy Birthday Ala

Today would have been my grandmother Ala (Aloisia) Rozynes Faitlowicz's 94th birthday. She passed 22 years and about one month ago. Every year on or around this day, I visit the place where her body rests at Hills of Eternity Cemetery in Colma, CA. Colma is a gray and windy place just south of San Francisco, and there's not much there except many cemeteries, some big stores like Costco, and some mobile home parks. And yet it's kind of pretty there, especially the place where she's buried which is on top of a hill. I've enjoyed spending time there over the years, either alone, today with my sister Sharon, I think once with my daughter Dahlia when she was a baby, once with my husband David, mostly on my own. Sometimes I've brought a journal and written to her while there. She is very much with me all the time, not just on her birthday. Her strength runs through my veins. Her chutzpah and sharp sense of humor reminds me that I can do anything and to always remember to laugh.

Here's a great story about Ala, which my dad told me once: She was visiting us from Israel, and as usual when she did, she took over the kitchen for the 2-3 months she stayed with us. My dad worked in computers internationally and had a group of European colleagues over for drinks. Ala prepared snacks and brought some into the living room for them. One of my dad's friends from Germany said something to her in German, without thinking that she might not understand. He commented on how good her food was. Quite casually, as she walked from the room, Ala replied in German, something like "Thank you" and maybe more. This man asked her, astonished, where she'd learned to speak German so well. And just as casually, as she rounded the corner to the kitchen, she replied, "In Auschwitz!" He didn't know what to say...

My grandmother was a very special woman. I continue to miss her, and yet I feel her with me and I know she would be proud of the life I've built. She'd also love to know that my husband is on the road to becoming a rabbi. Now that would've made the Nazis cringe, and I know she would like that. When I went to Auschwitz in 1994 and walked along the tracks into Birkenau, toward what were the crematoria, I felt Ala there with me and I started laughing loudly. My friend who was with me couldn't understand what I could possibly find funny. I replied, "They tried to kill us. They tried to kill my family, and they killed many of them. But look, I'm here, two generations later. And one day I'm going to marry a Jewish man and we're going to have Jewish children, and they will have Jewish children. Ha! That's what makes me laugh."