BDE: Mrs. Yenta Malka (Yenya) Reich, a”h

 YS Gold

We regret to inform you of the passing of Mrs. Reich, a Holocaust survivor and a regal and brilliant woman who dedicated her life to Torah and Chessed. She was 91 years of age.

 The nifteres was born in the Polish town of Czarnow, near Krakow, to Reb Ephraim and Shprinza Greenberg.

The war broke out when she was only a small child. Blessed with Aryan coloring, she braved many adult terrors to serve as a messenger for her Jewish-featured parents despite being only seven years old. In a childhood filled with the tribulations of war she exhibited tremendous fortitude and strength that would be a trademark throughout the rest of her life.

A grandchild relates the time she blended in with the gentile population during one of the aktions at the ghetto. “They sat in the trolley above and watched, laughing, as the Yidden below scurried, attempting to hide. She thought to herself, soon all the Yidden will be gone, and I’ll be left with these brutish peasants for the rest of my life… I’d rather die together with the Yidden. And with that, she slid back into the ghetto.”

In Sweden, following the war, she and her parents cooked heimishe food for Jewish refugee tuberculosis patients who would not eat the foreign Swedish fare, bringing the soups and stews into the sanitoriums despite the terrible risk of contagion.

As a child of war, she had learned to speak five languages before arriving in America, where she mastered English (and memorized the French dictionary) to excel in the education she had been denied during wartime. But her true priority was to build a Torah family. So she enrolled in courses on teaching Chumash in the evenings so that she could teach her children Torah. For the rest of her life, she would continue to learn and self-educate. (Her greatest relaxation was to read Malbim).

She married Reb Ephraim Reich, and together they indeed established a family, l’sheim ulitiferes.

“Her family was her entire life,” recalls a grandchild. She was a very busy woman who applied her brilliance and intellect toward the family’s business—but her family and her chessed activities trumped everything.”

A grandchild who took leave of her beloved grandmother in recent weeks expressed to her what a role model she was for her entire family who emulates her fearlessness, her fierce ahavas Hashem, His Torah, and His People. ..

The nifteres departs this world, leaving behind an incredible legacy and a beautiful Torah family.

The levaya will take place in Shomrei Hadas at 4:30 on Monday afternoon.

 Yehi zichra baruch.