For Sima Mattel, it was a rich and wonderful life

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Last week, my dear mother-in-law, Sima Mattel (Sari), a”h, passed away. She had been in the hospital since right after Sukkot.

Ten days into her stay, which we usually called her “tune ups” due to congestive heart failure, my brother-in-law Seme and I were sitting with her, when Seme said, “Mom, you have 10 beautiful great grandchildren, and G-d willing in two months you will have an eleventh.” She responded, “I am grateful to have seen 10 great grandchildren, and if Hashem wants me to see an eleventh I will be very happy, and if not, I am satisfied with what he has given me in my lifetime.” That in a nutshell, was my mother-in-law.

I never heard her complain about her lot in life. This was a woman who was taken from her home when she was 14, lived in a ghetto with her parents and seven siblings and watched her mother die of cancer. She ended up in Auschwitz, where four of her siblings and her father were sent to the gas chamber. She also walked on the death march and was in Bergen-Belsen. Her sister and she would spit on each other’s hands to “wash negel vasser” in the mornings and she fasted on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur. She stole a potato whenever she could, while unloading them for the Germans. She would insist on cutting it into 22 pieces and sharing it with all the girls in the barracks that came from her hometown of Lazi. There was no way she would have not shared, not even when she was starving. She would always say, “You have no idea how good a raw potato can taste.” Out of the 22 girls from her hometown that were in her barracks, four survived; my mother-in-law was the last one to pass away.

While sitting along side Jerry during shiva week, I was touched by all the wonderful things that were said about his mom. Everyone shared how they were touched in one way or another by her.

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