04/13/2026
If not for the Holocaust, what would he have been?
If not for the Holocaust, what would she have been?
Reflections from the heart of a granddaughter, third generation during Holocaust Memorial day.
Baba, Hillel Cohen, was a carpenter.
For fifty years, every morning,
he opened his furniture shop in Netanya.
A lifetime of building, creating, being present.
But his creativity went far beyond the shop.
Pinecones became birds.
Yogurt bottles became a sukkah for the classroom.
There was nothing his hands couldnโt turn into beauty.
And always, a Hasidic story or a rhyming song of his own.
If not for the Holocaust, what would he have been?
A writer?
An artist?
A storyteller?
And Nana, Hanna Schwartz Cohen,
her hands never stopped.
They sewed, designed, cooked, held, healed.
Every Purim, a magical costume.
Every winter, a sweater woven with love.
Strong hands that had seen horrors,
yet always knew what you needed
before you spoke.
If not for the Holocaust, what would she have been?
Perhaps a fashion designer
in the beautiful Budapest of the 1930s.
We donโt know. We never will.
But this I know:
They built a life from nothing.
A home, a family, a community
and filled it all with love.
When I was born, their first granddaughter,
I was their world.
They raised me with a love
without conditions, without limits.
And when I became a mother,
they gave my children the very same love.
Because love like that doesnโt run out.
Today, my grandson Atlas turns 11 months old.
And I sit with him on the floor, just like you did, Baba.
We build, play, imagine.
Just as you once did with us.
They were seventy. I am fifty.
They lived through the Holocaust.
I only carry their stories.
But what they planted in me
this endless loveโ
is not a memory.
It is alive.
It breathes.
It lives in me,
as a mother,
and now as a grandmother.
Baba and Nana, Hillel and Hanna Cohen,
today I remember you as you were for me,
and thank you for the love you planted in me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Your first granddaughter.
In the first photo, Budapest, perhapsโฆ if not for the Holocaust.
In the second, they are 70, at a family event.
Tom is 11 months old then
and Atlas, today, 11 months.
