Restoring a Link to Jewish History

When 80-year-old Hana Gruna stood in a Santa Monica synagogue last week holding a 100-year-old Torah, she could see all the way back to her hometown in Czechoslovakia.

She saw relatives, friends and a culture almost totally destroyed by the Nazis. One of the few survivors other than Gruna was the Torah, lovingly restored by the Sha’arei Am Synagogue.

“Yesterday, when I saw the Torah, it was not only my family, but the whole congregation in their best clothes in front of my eyes,” she said last week of Susice, Czechoslovakia. “And I dreamt about the time 60 years ago and remembered their names, their faces. It didn’t happen for a long time. It happened last night. I saw them all.”

Gruna’s words brought the congregation of Reform Jews to tears and then to their feet in loud applause at a rededication service for the Torah.

The celebration took on special meaning because of the guest who had flown in from New Jersey to reunite with the scroll embodying Jewish religious beliefs and teachings.

Her presence came as a result of a search by Ronald Fomalont, who along with other members of a committee to restore the Torah, wanted to know more about the town where the scroll came from.

The Torah was obtained by the Santa Monica synagogue in 1983. It was one of 1,500 scrolls salvaged from Nazi-plundered Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia after World War II. Those still usable were later distributed to Jewish communities around the world.

While some temples have chosen to keep the scrolls in glass display cases, Rabbi Jeff Marx said he wanted the Torah to be put to use as a tribute to the Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Over the years, the Torah’s letters began fading, and the congregation began to restore it last year, he said. Some members wanted to know more about Susice, a town southwest of Prague and close to the German border. Fomalont also began searching for survivors.

With the help of reference books and organizations assisting Holocaust survivors, he was able to contact Gruna, who is believed to be the last living Holocaust survivor from Susice’s Jewish community. She has spent the last week sharing with congregation members some of her experiences living in Susice and surviving Nazi concentration camps.

Gruna is a “living connection to that community,” said Jeff Levin, a Torah restoration committee member, who along with Fomalont and Izak Ben-Neir, is making a documentary on Gruna and the Torah. “Her coming is a fortunate thing for us in this community because it provides us with a connection to the past and a deeper understanding of what happened to other Jews.”

Members of the confirmation class that received the rededicated Torah from the Holocaust survivor said they also felt the bond.

“All the memories and bar mitzvahs they had over there, it’s like all our bar mitzvahs and memories are going to be connected,” said Jason Kligier, 16. “They died for their religion and indirectly the Torah too. It’s an honor for us to use it.”

Madeline Gorman, 16, said the Torah reminds her that she is part of a Jewish community that is not limited to Santa Monica or California. “It is comprised of people living and people not living,” she said.

Gruna fought back tears as she stood at the altar and inked in the last letter to complete the restoration.

“Now we read from the same Torah that was used many years ago in a small town, under the mountains, by the people who were working, raising their children, praying and hoping the next day will be sunny, calm like the day before,” she said. “For no reason that can be understood or explained came the day they all were destroyed by the slime of humanity. . . . As it happened, the destruction was not completed, as it was intended.

“You will be standing in front of the same old Torah and, for a few seconds, remember who was there before you. This is a continuation, a continuation of life, of Jewish life.”