King David learner shows the pen really is mightier than the sword!
LINKSFIELD – One schoolgirl from King David Linksfield High School's determination to understand the Holocaust has touched hearts across nations.
“The timing is surreal,” wrote US resident Reg Tigerman, in a letter written to King David Linksfield High School learner Noa Nerwich (15), which Noa received on July 15 this year.
He wrote the letter to her as a response to her poem, A Maroon Hankie, which he had read in the ’39 Club newsletter. Tigerman is the grandson of Ruth Halbreich, the Holocaust survivor who inspired Noa’s poem which, after winning the 21st Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest run annually by the Chapman University and The 1939 Society, spread like fire across social media platforms.
This was because of the honesty, sensitivity and truth it portrays. The connection between Tigerman and Noa has been called a miracle – Tigerman read the poem, in a divine coincidence, shortly after his grandmother had passed away in April this year. Shortly after reading the poem, he found the maroon hankie, which had inspired the creative masterpiece, in his late grandmother’s belongings.
This was when he contacted Noa. Halbreich was given the hankie by her father when she was 17 years old as a way to remember him. He died in the concentration camp he was sent to and the hankie was something she thought to mention in a 1984 recording of her testimony, which Noa listened to.
This hankie was so special to Halbreich, she kept it her entire life and it touched Noa’s heart. She confided to the Gazette that she too was a sentimental person and could relate to Halbreich and her story in so many ways.
“My father made Lego roses for me, which I still have. Her father gave her a hankie.” Noa explained she had come across Halbreich’s story in 2020. Encouraged by teachers from her school, King David Linksfield High School, she entered the writing contest. The competition guidelines asked for a piece based on a Holocaust survivor’s story. She won the competition. “Growing up, the Holocaust seemed like some horror stories that we were just being told,” Noa said.
“Only after learning about the Holocaust in history and hearing stories from my family, did I realise these horror stories were true. Writing the poem helped me to truly understand this terrible time in history.”
She said when Tigerman contacted her she was shocked and speechless. “I had millions of different emotions and felt deeply saddened by Ruth’s passing as I felt a deep connection with her.”
King David Linksfield High School history teacher Jocelyn Angel said that she believed Noa’s poem was so successful because she had paid attention to fine detail and emotion.
She explained that Noa listened carefully to the recording of Halbreich’s testimony of the Holocaust and she picked up on the detail of the hankie, and because she is sentimental as Halbreich was, she could relate the truth of Halbreich’s story with stunning clarity and emotion.
“My school teaches us to learn from the Holocaust… but most importantly, to remember.”
A Maroon Hankie
Cleanly pressed and folded it was placed into my hand
A last token of a soon to be memory
I received a maroon hankie
I didn’t know the value of objects, until I had one
I didn’t know the value of people, until I had none.
But my one object carried all the worth in the world
A maroon hankie
I don’t know what happened to him
All I know is the walls were rising
And there were bombs, more people dying
and Warsaw was in flames: Red, licking flames
Like the colour of my maroon hankie
We watched from the window, havoc unleashed on our home
Yet we were the opportune, we were on the right side of the window pane
The side where we still wore silky dresses made by the sisters,
the same silk of my maroon hankie
I was lucky
not because I was saved
But because I learned the true meaning of love
His love was sewn into my heart
The same way I held the hankie so tight at night
That its fibers have sewn into the fibers of my skin
Because of my father’s honour I survived
Because of his love for us he died
He sacrificed it all so we could breathe the air of freedom
To the man who gave to me
The thing that has carried all of my tears
A maroon hankie
His maroon hankie
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