Year 2, Day 125 (A Personal Memorial)

A couple months ago, my wife, Tikvah, did a little digging around in her family tree. She had already known that she, like myself, have Jewish lineage. This search, however, was for a different purpose: to find if she had any relatives who were victims of the Holocaust. She did find one, unfortunately not a survivor. Her name was Kristina Tawraschite. What really struck home with my wife was that Kristina was sent to the concentration camp in Dachau, Poland on November 18, 1943... my wife's birthday is also on November 18th (obviously not the same year). As a memorial, Tikvah decided to get a tattoo as a memorial to Kristina: the very number that she was marked with by the Nazis.

When she first went in to get this done (a few weeks ago), the tattoo artist was reluctant to do it... until she explained her reasoning. Having understood, he did a little research to get an understanding of what it would look like, realizing that it would be - during that time - not a carefully drawn piece of art, but hastily done.

Today, we originally went to get a bike for her as an early Mother's Day gift. Since Walmart doesn't have the widest range to choose from (and there are no real bicycle shops in this area), we went wandering around town. She then wanted to go to a tattoo shop (a different one) to get an estimate on an idea she had to build upon this memorial. When she shared the idea, the price was $75. She lit up at the price and asked if she could get instead of the bike for Mother's Day. Needless to say, she was VERY happy when I said yes.

As you can see, the artist was very involved in the job, and did a wonderful job on the finished product.

This is Tikvah's way to NEVER forget.

May you all be blessed and have a wonderful and joyous Sabbath!