Commemorating a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 89

A bar mitzvah is a rite of passage that every Jewish boy experiences at the age of 13, as they enter into adulthood. It is a special and significant experience that many Jewish children were unable to enjoy in Nazi-occupied Europe as the Germans forbade any practice of religion. Henry Oster was one of these unfortunate children who was unable to celebrate his bar mitzvah on time.

Born in Cologne, Germany, on 5 November 1928, Henry grew up in a middle-class Jewish German household. His father, Hanz, was the vice president of a chain of stores, and his mother, Lisbeth, was a homemaker. Henry enjoyed a relatively normal childhood until Hitler came to power in 1933. The six-year-old sensed a feeling of restlessness and unease amongst his family, and started to experience antisemitism from his classmates. One day when leaving grade school, some of the local children threw stones and rocks at him and spat at him. At first, he thought the incident was inconsequential – children tend to fight sometimes – but slowly he began to understand that something much more sinister was afoot.

In September 1935, the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws were enacted, and the following year Henry's school was closed. Life became very difficult for him. His parents couldn't even allow him to play outside, it was too dangerous.

November 9, 1938 was a night that is etched into Henry's memory. The Nazis unleashed a series of riots against the Jews in Germany and Austria, damaging and destroying thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses in just a few hours. Henry recalls Kristallnacht ("The Night of the Broken Glass" – when the Nazis unleashed a series of riots against the Jews in Germany and Austria) as an unbelievable crescendo of people smashing and breaking windows, screaming, and the smell of fire. The synagogue that his family regularly attended was burned to the ground.

Three years later, in 1941, his family was deported to the Lodz ghetto – the second largest ghetto in German-occupied Poland, with some 164,000 Jewish internees.

Henry's family lived in a small room in the ghetto, which they had to share with 14 other people. The conditions were awful, with no toilet facilities or running water. Hanz was put to work maintaining the fence surrounding the ghetto, and Lisbeth labored 14-hour days at a military factory. Henry worked in agriculture, plowing fields and planting vegetables. He survived by stealing some of the vegetables he grew. He ate so many carrots that his skin turned yellow; he feared that the Germans would want to kill him – it was extremely dangerous for anyone to look sick in the ghetto.

Some three months after the family arrived in Lodz, Hanz Oster passed away in his sleep as a result of starvation. Henry didn’t even have the opportunity to give his father a proper burial. 

Despite all these hardships, Henry remembers that Jewish culture was secretly upheld in the ghetto. At night, people would gather to pray, and sometimes they celebrated the bar mitzvah of children who lived in the ghetto. Shortly before Henry's 13th birthday, he began practicing to read from the Torah – not knowing where or when his bar mitzvah would be celebrated. Sadly, this never came about.

In August 1943, Henry and his mother were deported to Auschwitz. Immediately upon arrival, Henry was separated from Lisbeth and interned with no work or actual activity: "You just had to await your fate." The conditions were awful with small daily food rations of a slice of low-grade bread and watery soup. There were no beds; they had to sleep on the floor.

One day, an SS officer asked for volunteers. Henry remembers that he raised his hand without even thinking. He was taken to a barrack and his arm was tattooed with the number B7648. He was then taken with about 130 juveniles to Birkenau, where his conditions were somewhat better: at least now he didn't need to sleep on the floor. Henry and another German-speaking boy were sent to take care of the horses. They worked 16-18 hour days. Henry was able to survive by eating some of the horse's food, who he noted were fed better than the prisoners. Henry even was able to drink the horses' milk, which was a nutritional bonus most people didn't have.

A while later, Henry was forced onto a cattle car bound again for an unknown destination. The car was packed with so many people that everyone had to stand the entire time. Six days later, he arrived at Buchenwald, where several months later he would be liberated by General Patton's 3rd Division. Henry was the only one from his family to survive the Holocaust. 

Recently Henry visited Yad Vashem together with a group of over 50 people from Los Angeles, California. The group was in Israel with their synagogue to celebrate Henry Oster's bar mitzvah more than 70 years after the end of the Holocaust. This was Henry's first trip to Israel, which was made possible thanks to the kindness and creativity of his 17-year-old friend, Drew Principe. Henry has devoted the last 70 years to speaking to groups from all over the world, retelling his painful story . Drew met Henry at a school assembly, where the two forged a special friendship. The high-schooler decided to fundraise money for the Holocaust survivor in order to help him finally celebrate his bar mitzvah and to meet his last living relatives in Israel.

The moving ceremony at Yad Vashem was attended by Henry and his wife Sara, Drew's family and friends, Holocaust survivors, and members of the Valley Outreach Synagogue from California, including Rabbi Li Paz. 

Family and friends lit six candles, representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The candles also represented six forms of remembrance: the destroyed synagogues and desecrated cemeteries in Europe; the millions of Jews murdered in ghettos, labor camps, shooting pits, death marches, extermination camps; the children who were cruelly murdered and massacred by the Nazis and their collaborators; the Righteous Among the Nations, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust; the Jewish resistance fighters; and finally, the "Candle of Life," in honor of the survivors of the Holocaust whose precious testimonies teach about the past and help build a better future. Henry received a certificate from Yad Vashem marking this seminal event in his life.

"I never expected to be fortunate enough to have a bar mitzvah this late in life," said an emotional Henry at the ceremony. "Coming to Yad Vashem for the very first time makes this even more special. It's hard to describe the emotion and depth of feeling of accomplishing something I delayed for so many years. Especially as a survivor, to be honored and recognized makes everything much more complete." At the end of the ceremony Drew said, "Henry has changed my life forever."

Many families choose to mark their bar/bat-mitzvah at Yad Vashem and honor those whose lives were cruelly cut short. Yad Vashem's Twinning Program partners Jewish boys and girls coming of age with a child that was murdered in the Holocaust and did not have the chance to celebrate their own bar/bat mitzvah, giving Jewish families the opportunity to commemorate them in a unique and moving way. For more information on Yad Vashem's Twinning Program, please visit our website: www.yadvashem.org