Two women who shared similar suffering from the past united to promote Torah for the present and the future. Although they could not rejoice together at the hachnosas sefer Torah in Katzrin, Shifra Morozov and Marta de Lange were united as soul sisters, even though one could not be present.
Marta de Lange and her fiance Baruch van Gelder, lived in Holland on the eve of World War II. When the Germans invaded Holland, both the De Lange and Van Gelder families were taken to concentration camps where most of the family members were killed, including Baruch. Marta managed to survive Auschwitz, but only as a subject of Josef Mengele’s cruel experiments which robbed thousands of prisoners of their dignity and health. Marta was also forced to push women into the gas chambers. In addition to the nightmares she experienced after the war was over, she also struggled with loneliness; Mengele’s experiments had rendered her barren.
Shifra Morozov, relative of Baruch Van Gelder and fellow Holocaust survivor, recalls the anguish Marta felt that she had been robbed of the ability to bring children into the world. The two women had met in the home of survivors who were miraculously spared; “In the dark of the night,” Morozov told Chabad.org, “she would spill out her heart and tell me about what she went through.”
Morozov and De Lange went their separate ways. Morozov moved to Eretz Yisroel and raised a family; her daughter is Shlomit Schwartz, Chabad emissary in Katzrin. Marta De Lange lived in Toronto. The women lost touch, but met again when De Lange visited Eretz Yisroel, 22 years after their previous meeting. After their long reunion the women resolved to maintain regular correspondence and sent birthday and Purim gifts to one another overseas. Morozov did not receive a letter for a long time and feared the worst. She learned that De Lange had passed away and left Shifra her inheritance, which she used to purchase a sefer Torah in Marta’s memory.
As Shifra Morozov celebrated the hachnosas sefer Torah with her daughter Shlomit, she imagined Marta watching the festivities in the streets of Katzrin from afar. Shifra’s daughter, Shlomit commented, “From the time we went outside to when we entered the synagogue, it didn’t stop raining. It was like the tears of angels deeply moved by the ceremony.”