Of all the stories to have come out of the terrible World War II years, among the most poignant are those of children who were saved from death by going underground – literally. These young children spent formative years buried beneath a barn floor or confined to an attic, without toys, books, or writing materials, let alone an iPad, to occupy their time. What did they do? How did they play and learn? Were they immobilized by fear? Did they emerge emotionally stunted for life? Here are the stories of three such child survivors with a Baltimore connection.

Knowing that I am always on the lookout for a good story, my eldest son Shimon grabbed my attention in a dramatic way: “Ma,” he began on that fateful day, four years ago, “I have an amazing hashgacha pratis (Divine providence) story to tell you. This will make a really good article!” He then broke the to-me-earthshaking news of his intent to move to Eretz Yisrael. He was right about the article, though it was not the one he was thinking of. I called it “Sweet or Bittersweet? – When Children Make Aliya,” and appeared in the January, 2011 issue of the Where What When, (See www.wherewhatwhen.com/authors/view/margie-pensak/page:4.)

I remember the feeling well, although it has been a while – that feeling of being torn, as a young mother, between wanting to go to shul on Rosh Hashanah but not knowing when I should, or even if I should. Although I am not much of a shul goer, it just didn’t feel like Rosh Hashanah if I couldn’t hear shofar blowing in a shul setting or the heartfelt Musaf melodies of my youth. Some years, a neighbor and I would take turns watching each other’s children, giving us both a chance to daven in shul for a short while. To shed light for those women who feel conflicted, as I did, I turned to some of the inspirational rebbetzins with whom Baltimore is blessed for their valued opinions.

“Who made the dessert?” the rebbetzin whispered to me from across the crowded sheva brachos table. We were in the middle of the main course. Did she want to know if it was kosher? I wondered. Little did I realize that she was asking because the dessert was missing! None was to be found in the kitchen! Recognizing an emergency, I quickly checked the text message history on my cell phone to shed light on the subject. It indicated that dessert for the 40 guests had been delegated to a woman sitting at the other end of my table. When I consulted her, she said that the job was originally hers but was then given to someone else. She was not sure to whom.

I’m a born collector. You name it, I’ve probably collected it at one time or another. This lifelong activity started when I was about five years old. I have vivid recollections of digging mica from the dirt surrounding the towering maple tree in our front yard. That experience, no doubt, led to my avocation of collecting gemstones. Around the same time, I started collecting seashells. I couldn’t (and still can’t!) tear myself away from the ocean – most probably because I was spoiled by weekly Sunday family trips to nearby Long Island Sound, where I’d comb the beach for Hashem’s fascinating marine creations. After that, there were collections of butterflies, stamps, coins, autographs, baseball and football cards, record albums, charms, and soda bottle caps, to name just a few. And I can still feel those highly polished chestnuts, abundant each autumn, that I gathered in a large brown paper bag in the nearby park.

 As I sit in my terrarium-like cubicle at Star-K Kosher Certification, trying to think how to best describe working here before Pesach, I can’t help but think of a beehive. Although the first Seder is just three weeks from tonight, and a lot of you are just now seriously cracking down on preparing for the “P-word” (with the exception of one fellow who came to sell us his chometz on February 18, because he was heading for Israel and staying through Pesach!), here at work, we have been preparing for Pesach 5774/2014 since a week after Pesach 5773/2013. And we will continue to help our Kashrus Hotline callers, emailers, and texters to the last minute possible, even past candle lighting (but before shkia, sunset) on the first Seder night.