Tisha B'Av Begins Tomorrow - Monday 8-8-2011

Tisha B'Av begins at sundown on Monday, August 8, 2011. I learned about it last week when I studied with my study partner, Dena, from Partners in Torah. She and others in her Orthodox Jewish community will celebrate the holiday by fasting. It is a sad day that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples.

Jews don't only think about the destruction of the two Temples, but they think about sad things, so Dena told me that, only on Tisha B'Av, does she read books or stories about the Holocaust.

I brought up the story of Ellen Burka, who is one of the most famous figure skating coaches in North American history. She is a Holocaust survivor. What is so amazing to me is that figure skating may have saved her life!

She survived life in a Nazi concentration camp (her parents and grandmother were killed there). Her skates were shipped to the camp so that she could skate and perform for the German officers. One of the German officers took a liking to her. One day, all the women in her barracks were sent to the Auschwitz death concentration camp; all the women were sent there except Ellen.

Burka believes that figure skating saved her life. Her daughter put together a wonderful documentary called Skate to Survive that I watched with interest.

After the war, Ellen Burka married and had two children. The family moved to Canada. She did not tell her children she was Jewish until they were almost grown. In fact, she raised her children in the Anglican church, but considered herself someone with "no religion." She stated her reasons for doing that was that anti-semitism was strong in Canada at the time and she wouldn't have been allowed to teach at some figure skating clubs if she had revealed that she was a Jew.

Only recently, with the publication of Skate to Survive, has her background been made public.

After seeing this documentary, Ellen Burka has become sort of a hero to me. She endured so much sorrow and pain, but God was with her always and she continues to touch the lives of figure skaters.