Betty and Cantor Isaac Goodfriend

It was in January 1945. The war was over. And for us it was the beginning of the death march—the last march that the Nazis organized to take the living people, Jewish people who were still in the concentration camps, and march them in January in Poland, with high snow, and 30-below zero, without food or proper clothing.

We stopped in one place and we saw a village, and a friend of mine and I decided to go out in the village to ask for some food. My sister was with me and I thought maybe I could get some food for her. Coming back, the camp was gone, the group that I was with from the camps was gone. And I wasn’t the only one. There were about 18 girls who felt the same way—that they’d take a chance and go out and ask for food from the Polish farmers. Many of them said, ‘Well, my mother is there, my sister is there, I’m going to run after the camp.’

And I said, ‘If this was a happening to keep me away from where the rest of the people, the majority of the people with me, should be, we should go away and I should stay here. This was a sign of God.’ We call it in Hebrew etzba elohim, the finger of God was pointing to me. That if I broke away from the big group, I’m going to stay here; I am not going to run after, and whatever will be will be. Maybe in the morning we can go back to the village and find somebody who will take us in. Three other girls stayed with me, and all three of us survived. I’m not going to go into a detail which was really the finger of God because there was a German soldier with a big rifle looking for us. He couldn’t find us, and we survived.

So I came home [from yeshiva, college] for Pesach [Passover] and it was a day before Pesach. My father was searching for chametz, for the unleavened bread, the night before Passover. And so he said, ‘Let's start Maariv; let's do the evening prayer.’ So I see that it's not like any other Pesach; no matzos in the house and my mother’s not cooking. My father started to cry when he recited the Amidah [main prayer]. And he didn’t have to say much, I felt it. So he squeezed my hand, I squeezed his hand, and of course I started to cry as well. And my tears were genuine.

And I said, ‘Please, please God, don’t disturb the festive feeling of Pesach. Festival of freedom. Let us celebrate Pesach like we used to.’

So what happened? Next morning, my father opened the store, a dry goods store and a customer from Galitzia was waiting for us, a cash customer. And he gave a very nice order for merchandise; paid cash. After half-hour my father was back home smiling from ear to ear. ‘Yontif, it’s yontif, the festival. And with cash it was no problem getting food. So I believe wholeheartedly this prayer helped. God heard it. ’Cause I’m sure we’re not the only poor people in the world. [God] probably heard from many other poor people. But it’s not the point. The point is that we were helped. And we believed, yes. He didn’t give him a telephone call [to say]: ‘Go, go to Goodfriend’s store.’ No, no. He made it happen. Just so happens he [the customer] came. He didn’t go to Goldberg’s store, to Greenberg’s store, to Rosenberg’s store.

There was one merchant after the other, the same merchandise; he came to our store. You have to zero in, yes, this is the reason. This is the reason why we had Pesach. Because of the prayer.