This is Hermine Orsi.
Recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations," she was one of the hundreds of non-Jews that I was introduced to while at Israel's Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. I could tell you all about the sadness that was felt in that place, but I would rather focus on Hermine and her light.
These are the Polish school children that Hermine sheltered in her home and helped reach refuge in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a French city safe haven for too many Jewish children.
I cried at her story, putting myself in her twenty-one year old shoes and imagining what it would be like to hide young children and smuggle them across borders...letting go of every young dream and plan that one could have.
Hermine was caught in her attempts to save their lives. She was sent to Auschwitz.
The day before its liberation, this sweet woman left, leaving a more than beautiful mark on this world. The few following lines are my thoughts about this dear woman and Moroni 7:45, for charity is what I learned most of from my visit with her at Yad Vashem.
She noticed need
and went
too kind to settle with
thoughts of concern for
her dreams
her health
her life
alone
She saw the
little hand
and gently held it in her own
ever patient
in the attempt
to open her heart and
heal
Her soul, it sang, as she pressed
into the soil the seeds
truth work love
She learned
She believed
She endured
through the search for justice
the sting of betrayal
the silencing of her voice for her faith
Let her life be lost in
her fight
The woman is Charity
Her light will forever live
Saddest day!
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