EULOGY

MOISHE (MORRIS)  PEREL

Read by a friend Dr. Charles Ted Wormeli, on the burial date November 30^th, 1999. Rabbi Wineberg and Rabbi Baumol were in attendance

Morris (Moishe Aron) Perel was born in Mława, Poland, son of the late Chaim Leib and Sza­jne Chane (née Stupski). He died on Nov. 29, 1999. He attended Talmud Torah and public school and, at the age of 12, apprenticed as a tailor to Berl Soldanski. During his youth, he was an active member of Shomer Hatzair, where he developed his love for humanity and Israel.

When the Second World War broke out, Moishe fled to Russia, where he hoped to establish a new home for his family. Unfor­tunately, the Nazi invasion was too swift and his entire family, except for one brother, perished in Oświęcim / Auschwitz.

In November 1948, Moishe immigrated to Canada and, on Dec. 24, 1950, married Renia Sperber at the Scharei Tzedeck synagogue. He became a life member of Scharei Tzedeck.

Dr. Ted Wormeli, Morris's friend, delivered the following eulogy:

Moishe Perel was my friend and Moishe Perel was a short man. If I stood next to him, I could always see the top of his head. I met this short man about 31 years ago, in 1968. By that time, he had keen in Canada for 20 years and had lived through the horrors of the Second World War, the deaths of relatives and friends and the grisly aftermath of the war in Europe. He had absorbed socialist ideals, learned a trade and had seen his life up­rooted. By 1968, he had married and had a child, Sharon, with his wife Renia, and he had become a successful businessman in Van­couver with his family.

In 1968, he was a man who was the product of history but also a maker of his personal history. A lesser man might have been beaten by the trauma that he had endured in Europe, but not Moishe. Moishe planned, he saved, he sacrificed, he took con­trol of as much of his life as life could in order to make a safe haven for his family.

He never forgot his Jewish ori­gins; he was not only a success­ful businessman in Canada, but he contributed money and guid­ance to individuals and organi­zations, Jewish and non-Jewish. He protected those who sought refuge with him. He and Renia opened their house to all who would enter. Renia picked up strays and brought them home to Moishe who opened his heart and cherished them. As a grad­uate student, I was one such stray and, by the end of my first evening with the Perels, I felt I had known them for years and that they had known me. I knew that, if I was ever in a bind,  Moishe would help me. When I married, he and Renia took my wife under their wing as well and, later, our sons.

When I had little money, and Moishe saw one day that I need­ed a new lining for my coat, he made one for me at his shop and wouldn't take payment. I have outgrown my coat, unfortunately, but I won't give it away because he made the lining. I think Moishe gave a lot of things away because "it wasn't so much." Maybe it wasn't so much, but if all that he gave away were added up, I think that it would be a lot more than "not so much."

Moishe did so many different things that it is difficult to enu­merate them. He was a loving father to Sharon and a loving husband to Renia. He was a care­ful investor and businessman who achieved financial indepen­dence, but he was honest and car­ing to his employees. He was a friend to those who had no friends. He never lost the ideals of fairness and charity that he ab­sorbed in his youth. He was not despoiled by war as so many were. He picked himself up after the war and got on with his life, and he never forgot to do some of those joyful things - how many of us were entertained when be decided to learn how to play the organ. And he kept his financial success in perspective: "I know that I have money in the bank",  he told me one day, "but I don't feel well off unless I have a big bag of potatoes and another of flour in the basement."

He had powerful skills in analysis, and we had many dis­cussions about how to solve the world's problems; sometimes he wrote letters about these to the editor of the Sun; sometimes I helped him with the English because he did not have much formal education and always wrote in English with a certain accent. But his ideas were mar­velous. And for those of you who don't know - he also wrote poet­ry - not a lot, but I remember be­ing impressed by the images that he managed to construct with his less-than-formal English.

He was not a particularly Or­thodox Jew, but I believe that he was profoundly Jewish. His life reflected that of the shtetl in which he had experienced childhood and early adolescence. Before his daughter, in her early teens, told him that he had to keep a kosher house, he might have been less observant, but my adult memories of the Pesach celebrations at the Perels are among my most vivid. When he sang at the Pesach table, he would stamp his feet or crash his hand on the table top and sing melodies I had never heard. Thanks to Moishe I do the same around our own Pesach table.

One of the attractions that drew me into his family was the immense pride that he had in Renia and Sharon. I remember across the evenings how his eyes twinkled when he spoke of them, and he would regale me with their exploits. Even when things did not go well, he would never give up hoping that circum­stances would improve and he always did his very best to change these circumstances for the better. He never, ever, quit.

When beset by personal chal­lenges, he would always try to find something positive in a situation or make light of the prob­lem. A while back, he was ruminating to me about the difficulty that he was having taking care of himself medically, but in a typical "Moishe" fashion, he fol­lowed up that complaint with a story about how, during the war, he had been eating bread that was adulterated with sawdust - they did that, he told me, to stretch the wheat a bit, and sometimes the bakers would add quite a lot of sawdust - and it was causing him to bleed. He went to the local doctor who examined him and asked him what he was eating; when he told the doctor about the bread, the doc­tor replied, "Well, what do you expect? Get out! I've got more serious problems than yours to see."

Moishe is survived by his beloved wife Renia, daughter Freda Sharon (Szajne) Perel and brother Jack (Itzchak) and family. Burial took place on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999, at the Schari Tzedeck cemetery. Chevra Kadisha was in charge of services.

Renia and Sharon would like to thank Chevra Kadisha, Dr. David Thomson and Kenneth Gin and all their friends for their support and kindness during  Moishe's  lengthy illness. If desired, donations may be made in memory of Moishe to: Cardiac Care Unit, V.G.H., 855 West 10th Ave., Van­couver, B.C., V5Z 1M9; the Jew­ish National Fund or Schari Tzedeck synagogue.

Renia Perel (née Sperber)

From Ashes to Hope

Herded on the platform on the final day

The Mława Yishuv was sent on its way

To the place of plunder

To the place of death

To the place of ashes made of human flesh,

There they sorted left and right

This way and the other...

Some to live

Some to die

Among them my mother.

Shayne Chane was her name

A goldene neshame.

"Shema Israel..." she cried out

Before they killed my mame.

I see the flames in which she died

Remember her passing

Recite the Kaddish often

Calling out the blessings.

Mława Yishuv now destroyed

Remnants try to cope

Valiant spirit leads them on

From ashes to hope.   

Canada, February 1996

      In Memoriam    

NAMES INSCRIBED AT VANCOUVER HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

 http://www.vhec.org/index.html 

MORRIS  MOISHE ARON PEREL

1. Morris in July 1948. Photo taken in D.P. Camp Backnang bei Stuttgart, Germany

2. Morris's dedication to his sweetheart Renia, on back of photo above it reads as follows in Yiddish:

"I dedicate my picture to my beloved little Renia." Signed in Hebrew

Backnang bei Stuttgart was a D.P. (Displaced Persons) Camp in Germany where he met his future bride, Renia Sperber.  This photo presen­tation was Morris' expression of love for me and a kind of vague en­gagement as Renia was leaving for Canada and he was hoping his turn would come when he could join his brother in Canada also, who left a few months earlier.

PHOTOGRAPHS

In front of the Perels' home - Moishe Perel in the center (with navy shirt). Renia Perel is second from the right.

Morris (Moishe) Perel & Renia Perel: 45th wedding anniversary, December 14th, 1995	The daughter: Frida Sharon in Engliah and Shayne Fryde in Yiddish
Morris Perel & Moshe Peles, chairman of the Organization of  Former Jewish Residents of Mława in Israel
Moishe and Itzhak Perel with Moshe Peles

Return to the Memorial Web Site of Mława, Poland

Last updated May 18^th, 2009