SORGER: Why the Special Interest?
I have autism. One of my special interests is the Holocaust, specially studying the lives of Jewish teens and children who either survived or died during the Holocaust. It’s hard enough to study them without getting too deep, or getting too emotionally attached. With the Sorger (Serger) Sisters, I have done just that. To me, they are quite mysterious and I’m not entirely sure why? I know they were both murdered, but the way that they died, was intriguing to me. You know the term “Buried alive”- well, Donia was literally “buried alive”. She was injured after being shot, and she was holding her sister, who had just been shot dead. She told the Nazis, “Please don’t bury me! I’m still alive!” They didn’t listen obviously and she was buried under the Earth. She suffered so badly. The way that these girls have taken up so much of my energy and time (which is perfectly fine by the way), I want to make sure that they are remembered for who they were, not by the way that they died.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like I’ve been let down by so many “living” people, that when I turn to them, It feels like I’m getting everything out of my life that I want to do. To me, I want to keep these girls alive. Have I met them in real life? (Kinda, it’s kind of a complicated story and that will be another post at some point when I’m ready). But for me, these girls won’t seem to “leave me alone.” I want them to bother me, if they need to .
As an autistic person, it’s hard to let things “Go” or to stop “obessing” over something. I don’t know that a pair of teens (or in Donia’s case, Young Adult), would be something that I wanted to study, or just take an interest in.
You might ask, “Kate, how did you find them?”
In these cases, they seem to “Find Me” and in this case, that was exactly what happened. It was 2016 and the election in America had just happened, and I, of course, trying to find out what to do, being a Jewish woman and being a Holocaust historian, I was looking for answers. On Yad Vashem’s website, I see this photo:
The caption said this:
“Obertyn, Poland: Sonja Shulamit, Donia, and Esther Sorger during the holiday of Sukkot. Pre-war.
Shulamit, Donia and Ester were born in Obertyn, Poland. During the war they were moved to the Kolomyja Ghetto. Donia (left) was buried alive in the Kamionka Forest on 18 February 1943. Ester (right) was also murdered on 18 February 1943. Their parents Eliasz and Golda nee Schleimer were murdered in the local cemetery after their hiding place had been discovered. Their sister Shulamit (center) survived the Holocaust. She submitted Pages of Testimony in their memory and donated the family album containing this photograph to Yad Vashem.”
This was news to me. I don’t know what it was, but it seemed that Donia and Ester literally took hold of my heart and never let it go. Sometimes, as an autistic person, I like how people “look”. It’s really weird to explain, and with these teens and children, the same thing applies. I don’t know what it was about Donia and Ester that really made me want to read more about them, but I wanted to learn more. So, of course, Yad Vashem was very helpful in telling me what happened. I ended up buying the book that their surviving sister wrote and I read exactly what happened to them. The thing about Donia, is that she screamed for mercy. The thing that hurt me more than anything, was reading on how these girls died. Ester, was shot and she died almost instantly, but Donia, was not yet dead, but she suffocated under the Earth. How could someone have done that to her? She was only 21, still a young adult. She was scared, and those men killed her.
The thing that really makes me angry is that how could these Nazis look at these girls, or any Jewish child for that matter, or teen, kill them, and then go home to their own kids? HOW IS THAT LOGIC? They just killed Jewish teens or children, think nothing of it, and then just go home to their own families and act like it was no big deal? How? That’s something this autistic brain of mine can’t wrap it’s head around? It’s so hard to understand, and it’s so hard to figure out. I find that logic to be used now: These people who want to hurt the LGBTQ community will look at these kids in the eyes and know that they’re hurting them, and then go home to their own kids like it’s no big deal.
But back to the Sorger’s:
In my docent training, I have to come up with a tour to give to people. For me, I see the 6 million Jews as people, not as a number. I want to tell people’s stories, particularly the Jewish teens and children. So, of course, I included the stories of the Sorger (Serger) girls. I was thrilled, because in my own way, I can feel them. They don’t leave me. I wish more people who studied this topic of the Holocaust, felt the way I do, but I’m autistic, so I take this more seriously than the average person.
I want to fight for these girls and “save” them, like they did for me. They didn’t walk away from me, when I tried to walk away from my own life.
For me, these girls mean so much, but why? To be quite blunt, I guess it’s because they found me and I guess I want to share their stories. I’m learning new things about them as time progresses.
For example, I learned that both girls wanted careers. Ester was studying nursing and Donia was studying business (or economics, as their surviving sister said in her book).
I am grateful that photos of them, and I do mean many photos of them, have survived over 80 years. I always wondered how they managed to survive the ruble and the war, because so many of these photos are in such PRESTINE condition and it’s amazing to see them now.
I have picked out quite a few of them as my favorites, but it’s amazing that they were saved.
For me, it gives me a way to talk about them to students or to adults who come to the Holocaust Museum.
As for me, the search for information continues and I will do everything I can to keep these girls alive.
