Part II
In Part I, we followed Hannah’s early life in Nazi Germany: her suffering at the hands of an abusive Nazi father and the traumatic events of wartime Europe.
One day, while waiting for a train, a young man asked Hannah for directions to a café. He introduced himself as Henry, and he was unlike anyone she had ever met. He was friendly, creative, and full of chutzpah. Henry was a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor who had experienced his own series of miracles. They connected instantly.
Wanting to continue the conversation, Henry took the train with Hannah. When they arrived at her home, he gave her his phone number and asked her to call him. She didn’t. But six weeks later, Henry knocked on her door. Because of the unusual circumstances of their meeting, Hannah had never mentioned Henry to her family and didn’t invite him in.
Later that night, Hannah quietly climbed out of her window and met Henry outside. They began seeing each other, though the topic of religion didn’t come up until much later. When it finally did, Hannah told him she was Protestant. Henry smiled and asked her to guess his religion. She hesitated.
“Catholic? Maybe Mormon?”
She certainly didn’t guess Jewish. “I thought Jews were people of the Bible,” she later said. “I didn’t think they existed anymore.”
Of all the religions she had heard of, Judaism felt the most real to her. When Henry confirmed that he was indeed Jewish, it struck a chord she couldn’t explain. Wanting to learn more, Hannah went looking for books about Jews but found nothing. The libraries held no information.
Before Henry left Germany for the US, after completing his military service, he gave Hannah a mezuzah necklace. She wore it every day. One day at work, a coworker noticed it and asked, “If you wear a mezuzah, why don’t you go to synagogue?” Hannah didn’t even know where to find one. But when she did, it felt warm and familiar. She started attending Friday night services. It gave her a sense of connection she hadn’t felt before.
Henry and Hannah stayed in touch through letters, and over time, he helped arrange her immigration to the United States. One of the men Henry worked with, a Polish Christian quadriplegic, offered to sponsor her. He agreed to take financial responsibility so Hannah wouldn’t be considered a burden on the system. To Hannah, this was another sign that Hashem was guiding her life.
In America, Hannah rented a room from a Russian Jewish family and quickly found work. Her connection with Henry deepened, and before long, they decided to get married. Henry’s mother, a survivor of Auschwitz, refused to accept the idea. The trauma she carried, combined with Hannah’s German background, was too painful. At one point, she pulled out a knife and said she would take her own life if Henry went through with the wedding. Hannah was shaken, but Henry stayed calm. “She survived Auschwitz,” he told her. “She’s not going to hurt herself now.” Eventually, his mother gave in and even hosted the wedding in her home.
The rabbi didn’t know that Hannah wasn’t Jewish. Henry didn’t want her to convert. In his eyes, she already was Jewish. He didn’t need paperwork to prove it.
Henry felt a strong connection to Israel but still worked on Shabbos. Hannah, on the other hand, wanted more. She wished to raise a Jewish family and formalize her Jewish identity. Henry eventually agreed.
“I converted not for Henry,” Hannah says, “but despite Henry.”
Their rabbi agreed to guide her through the process based on how she was already living: keeping kosher and celebrating the chagim. Hannah and her three daughters went to the mikvah. She and Henry married once again, and she received her second kesubah.
In 1971, the family moved to Denver, where they built a good life. But in 1979, just two weeks before her daughter’s wedding, a community rabbi raised questions about Hannah’s Jewish status. Until that moment, very few people even knew she had converted.
The rabbi asked about her conversion process and whether she had gone to the mikvah. When Hannah told him she had used the JCC mikvah, he explained that the conversion wasn’t halachically valid. The wedding couldn’t proceed under those circumstances.
Henry was furious. He suggested they switch shuls. Her daughter was devastated. She had always assumed she was Jewish. Now, just days before her wedding, she was being told otherwise. Hannah could have walked away. But she didn’t. Instead, she returned to the mikvah with her daughter by her side and completed a halachic conversion. She received her third kesubah, and with it, full acceptance as a Jew in every sense of the word.
Today, Hannah is the matriarch of a growing family. She has children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, 13 of whom are frum. She supports Jewish causes in both Israel and the US, including the Denver Kollel, where her grandson learns. Together with her family, she also donated a sefer Torah.
Looking back on her life, from her childhood in Nazi Germany to standing at the Kosel in Yerushalayim, Hannah doesn’t see luck or coincidence. She sees Hashem’s hand, a life of hashgachah pratis.
I asked her what message she would like to share from everything she’s lived through. She paused, then said: “Don’t give up. Hashem runs the world. Whatever you’re facing, He’ll get you through. It’ll be okay.”
We wish Hannah many more years of health, happiness, and Yiddishe nachas!
Suzie Steinberg, (nee Schapiro), CSW, is a native of Kew Gardens Hills and resident of Ramat Beit Shemesh who publishes articles regularly in various newspapers and magazines about life in general, and about life in Israel in particular. Her recently published children’s book titled Hashem is Always With Me can be purchased in local Judaica stores as well as online. Suzie can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and would love to hear from you.