The Wedding Gown That Made History
          
        Lilly Friedman doesn't remember the last name of the woman who
designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle
over 60 years ago.  But the grandmother of seven does recall that when she
first told her fiancé Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married
in a white gown, he realized he had his work cut out for him.

        For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, disease
and torture this was a different kind of challenge.  How was he ever going
to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person's camp where
they felt grateful for the clothes on their backs?

        Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who
walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make
a trade for his worthless parachute.  In exchange for two pounds of coffee
beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding
gown.

        For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes
of her fellow DPs, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a
simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied
in the back with a bow. When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover
material into a matching shirt for the groom.

        A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in
the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized
the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world
descended into madness.  Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah
observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father
was a melamed, respected and well liked by the young yeshiva students he
taught in nearby Irsheva.

        He and his two sons were marked for extermination immediately upon
arriving at Auschwitz.  For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first
stop on their long journey of persecution, which included Plashof,
Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen.

        Lilly Friedman and her parachute dress on display in the Bergen
Belsen Museum

        Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of
Celle on January 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig's wedding.  The town
synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been lovingly renovated by the DPs
with the meager materials available to them.  When a Sefer Torah arrived
from England they converted an old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron
Kodesh.
          
        "My sisters and I lost everything - our parents, our two brothers,
our homes. The most important thing was to build a new home."  Six months
later, Lilly's sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max Traeger. 
After that came Cousin Rosie.  How many brides wore Lilly's dress? "I
stopped counting after 17."  With the camps experiencing the highest
marriage rate in the world, Lilly's gown was in great demand.
          
        In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000
Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to
emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America .  Unable
to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the
next 50 years, "not even good enough for a garage sale. I was happy when it
found such a good home." Home was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington , D..C. When Lily's niece, a volunteer, told museum officials
about her aunt's dress, they immediately recognized its historical
significance and displayed the gown in a specially designed showcase,
guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.
          
        But Lilly Friedman's dress had one more journey to make. Bergen
Belsen , the museum, opened its doors on October 28, 2007.  The German
government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand
opening.. They initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the
following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended
families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress
made from a parachute. Lilly's family, who were all familiar with the
stories about the wedding in Celle , were eager to visit the synagogue. 
They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized.  But
when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find
that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched
as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors.  As Lilly stood on
the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand
beside her where she was once a kallah.  "It was an emotional trip.  We
cried a lot." Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling
before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home
and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.
          
        The three Lax sisters - Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survived
Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen - have
remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in
Brooklyn.  As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive a
monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the
country that had earmarked them for extinction. As young brides, they had
stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors
had been saying for thousands of years.  In doing so, they chose to honor
the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.

        Hinda
       
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        In Memoriam

        In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER

        It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe
ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six
million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, 1,900 Catholic
priests, and thousands of Gypsies who were murdered, massacred, raped,
burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking
the other way!

          
        Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran, and others, claiming the
Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never
forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
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