In Her Name: Lidia Budgor z”l

Lidia Gryngras Budgor z”l, devoted mother and grandmother, activist, balabusta, friend, Jewish communitarian, mensch, pillar & steward of Holocaust memory, died on the 8^th night of Chanukah, Tevet 2 5782, December 5, 2021. She died peacefully, well loved by family, friends and beloved caregivers, in the home she built overlooking the broad and expansive views of the San Fernando Valley, after a lifetime of ingenuity, drive, and hard work at, she liked to say, ”75 cents an hour.”  For anyone who knew her life story, the idea that her extraordinary life spanned 96 remarkable years, was itself a miracle.

Lidia’s early life in Lodz, Poland was tender, loving and dignified, wrapped in Jewish wisdom, tradition and ritual. We can only imagine this early fortification strengthened her for the unfathomable brutality and heartbreak that would come next after the Nazi invasion of Poland, imprisonment in the Lodz Ghetto and ultimately deportation to Auschwitz where she lost her entire family in one day. She watched them taken away from life, taken from becoming and possibility, taken from this world. Lidia carried the image of that moment all her days and would often share the image of her precious younger sister Bluma z”l running from the line bound for death to where she stood in the line bound for work and, perhaps, survival.  She would recall with a quiet, stoic faraway gaze how her baby sister reached her little child arms out and wrapped her tiny body around her and asked “will it hurt?“  Moments later her sister was gone and Lidia knew things that no one could ever imagine surviving or knowing. What ultimate barbarism and cruelty look like up close. What innocence, vulnerability and tenderness look like in chiaroscuro. What love and loss feel like, a living wound in the heart and soul that can never be soothed.

What happened after that can be said to be nothing short of a miracle of destiny. Lidia survived, finding ways to nourish herself and her “sister” prisoners. Finding ways to fortify her emotional stamina to endure. To move forward. To become a wife and mother and businesswoman. To become a community leader. To hang photos of herself with presidents and world leaders on her breakfast room wall alongside her prized commendation from the Pope which made her radiant with pride and delight. But it was her precious son Beno ( Aaron ), his wife Kandy, and her grand-children Adam and Mindy who really made her heart sing. The family she built. Her response, born of love and resilience, to the Nazi’s failure to erase her family was to rebuild a world of love and connection and mitzvot in the place of the one that was taken.

Long time friend, Cheryl Zoller, daughter of Holocaust survivors herself, remembers when she and  Lidia attended the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.“She knew what this meant for survivors. All her years of hard work and unwavering support culminated  in the success of this moment with every head of state in attendance. We walked up the White House lawn holding hands with our heads held high and Lidia said : we really accomplished something important.“

Rabbi Michael Berenbaum, in his eulogy, wrote: “When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum needed to be built, we turned to Lidia. When the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors wanted to come to Los Angeles, we turned to Lidia. She was a doer. She could make things happen. Her elegant home was open to all, willing to embrace all. Her commitment to the Jewish people was boundless. Her love and pride in her family limitless.”

Randy Schoenberg , former Board Chair of The Los Angeles Museum of The Holocaust (now Holocaust Museum LA) remembers “while we were building our new museum in Pan Pacific Park, Lidia Budgor was a stalwart presence on our board.  Her poise and elegance, combined with a steadfast sense of purpose helped guide us… Her passing reminds us of our duty to carry forward the enduring legacy of all those who perished in the Holocaust.”

Eva Brettler, the sole Holocaust survivor at her funeral and graveside, knew Lidia from her tireless work with the Holocaust Survivors Advisory Committee that worked, in tandem with the Claims Conference and Jewish Family Services to meet the urgent needs of the local  survivor community as they aged. Eva, doing what she has always done since she survived, as a child, the murder of her mother and the pillage of her family and childhood, showed up and prayed for Lidia. She offered comfort to Lidia’s family, representing and standing for all survivors who, in the words of Elie Wiesel, “are no longer here to speak for themselves.”

In Lidia’s memory, may we go from strength to strength and from dreams to dreams of a world that is more humane, dignified and compassionate than any world we have ever known before. Amen.

Samara Hutman is the former director of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust under E. Randol Schoenberg and director of Remember Us and the Co-Founder/Director of The Righteous Conversations Project which is where her friendship with Lidia began but not where it ended.