The Woman Who Defeated the Nazi Dragon: In Memory of Pearl Benisch

Pearl Benisch passed away a little more than a month ago, at the age of 100. She enjoyed a remarkable longevity, and the last decades of her life were devoted primarily to one thing: passing on the legacy of the Holocaust to future generations.

Her first contribution to this field was writing the popular book 'The Courage to Survive: The Story of Ten Women Who Remade Their Lives'. In the book, Benisch documented her experiences during the Holocaust, alongside the stories of nine of her friends, forming a cohesive group in Auschwitz. This group, known in Holocaust research literature as the 'Tzener The Chevra' (the Ten), exemplified the heights to which the human spirit can soar, even in grim deathly valleys like Auschwitz.

"If I could erase the traumatic memories of the days of the Holocaust from my mind, I wouldn't," she said five years ago in an interview with 'Aish HaTorah'. "I learned a lot in this university of torture. I grew from it. I don't want to forget it. I want to teach my children about it. I want to tell my children and all future generations what a person is, how a person can fall deep into the abasement of evil, and how a person can lift themselves to the most sublime heights and be greater than an angel".

Pearl Benisch was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1917. Her parents, Leib and Chaya Freida Mendelkar, were devout individuals who raised an exemplary religious family. Pearl's brothers studied Torah day and night, even in the extermination camps, where they were known as the 'crazy ones' who studied Torah at night after long hours of hard labor. The Mendelkar family home was on the same street where Sarah Schenirer, the founder of the Bais Yaakov movement, lived, and Pearl was privileged to be among her students. (Later, Benisch would write the most comprehensive biography about Sarah Schenirer and the revolutionary movement she founded: 'Carry Me in Your Heart').

The values she learned in school and the informal lessons she absorbed from being around Sarah Schenirer fortified Pearl even when she arrived at Auschwitz. In the extermination camp, she found nine friends, nine girls who, like her, were Bais Yaakov graduates. If that wasn't enough, one of the inmates in a relatively high position with more advantageous conditions was Tsila Orlean, a teacher at Bais Yaakov with whom the girls had previously studied. In her book, Benisch vividly describes how these young women did everything they could to save each other's lives, assist others, and observe the Torah and mitzvot as well as they could under the camp's conditions.

"I should have written a separate book on Tsila Orlean," Benisch sighed in later years. Yet even from the descriptions in 'The Courage to Survive', the extraordinary spiritual strength of the young teacher becomes clear. Tsila Orlean (later, Rebbetzin Tsila Sorotzkin) would, for instance, light a candle every Friday before Shabbat. The women of the barrack would gather around her, drawing comfort and encouragement from the blessing over the Shabbat candles and the single flame flickering in the darkness. But one Friday evening, the footsteps of a Nazi guard were heard outside the door. "Tsila, put out the candle!" the frightened inmates pleaded with her, but Orlean refused. "This is my Shabbat candle, and I'm not extinguishing it." The Nazi who entered found her standing by the candle, looking at him. He stared at her in amazement for a moment and left without a word.

Pearl Benisch recounts in her book stories about the dedication these friends had for one another that make one wonder whether they were humans or angels. For instance, she shares how during one of the horrific selections, which determined who would be sent to the gas chambers and who would continue the grueling labor for the Germans, Pearl and Sarah Blaugrund, who were in exceptionally poor condition, were sent to the left—to death. Rivka Horowitz and Ruchka Shanor were sent to the right. But the girls didn't think for a moment of abandoning their friends: Rivka and Ruchka sneaked into the group on the left, and Rivka dragged them back into the line of women awaiting selection.

They reached the doctor again, and again the selection results were the same: Pearl and Sarah—to the left. Rivka and Ruchka—to the right. Again, the ones sent to live snuck into the death row, insisting on staying with their friends. Rivka sent them to stand in line...yet all efforts were in vain. When the selection ended, Sarah and Pearl were destined for the gas chambers, with Rivka and Ruchka clinging to them persistently.

"Sarah and I screamed, cried, pleaded with them," Pearl Benisch recounted later. "Why would they come with us to death? I told them: it isn't just your lives at stake; it's the lives of future generations. You have no right to do this. Go back to the side you belong to! But they remained resolute in their decision. When the selection ended, all four of us were led together to 'the death block,' where all women condemned to death awaited their turn in the gas chambers".

Then, another miracle of friendship and courage occurred. That evening, someone knocked on the door of the barrack. The block leader opened the door, and into the room entered Tilly Reindor, another Bais Yaakov graduate and a dear friend of Pearl, who worked in the Auschwitz infirmary, risking her life daily to help people, known as 'the White Angel of Auschwitz.' With her was Tony Katz, another of those remarkable women who, even in Auschwitz, found time to think of others rather than themselves. "They told us: girls, come quickly with us and hide in the shadows," Benisch wrote. The six girls walked silently, clinging to the walls. Guards had orders to shoot anyone caught wandering, but they safely reached the barrack where the other girls awaited them. "I feared for our rescuers, not for us—we were already marked for death," Benisch said. "I prayed to Hashem to protect them." And He did. All of them.

Pearl and her friends survived the war, as did Tsila Orlean and Tilly Reindor. Benisch built a proud Jewish family and divided her life between the United States and Israel. She dedicated the last decades of her life to educational activities and the imparting of the great lessons she learned during the Holocaust.

"The education we received was to always help people, no matter the cost," she answered simply when asked where she and her friends found the strength to sacrifice themselves for one another. "We are in this world to give. We give in order to live. As long as you give, you live. When you stop giving, you're no longer alive; you're merely existing".

She never had questions for God.

"I was taught to believe that everything that Hashem does is for the best. It's very difficult to go through a period like the Holocaust, but we went through it. There's a verse in Psalms that I used to recite repeatedly in the camps: 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.' We experienced many nights, but we always believed the morning would come. We believed that God wanted us to survive, to be witnesses, to tell the world about the greatness of our people during the war. And indeed, we were privileged to live and tell."