Music helped them survive the Holocaust. 70 years later, they started a band.
You have to live.
Quick! Picture a band in your head. What do you see?
This, right?
Image via Maarten/Wikimedia Commons.
Or this?
Image via Stuart Wood/Wikimedia Commons.
Maybe ... this?
(Dear God, not this, I hope.) Image via Dimitris Siskopoulos/Flickr.
Probably not this.
Image via The New York Times/YouTube.
But these guys? Oh. They're a band, all right.
Saul and Ruby are both in their 80s. They live in Florida. And they're both Holocaust survivors.
Their love of music got them through the darkest years of their lives.
And now, 70 years later, it's helping them reconnect with the childhood that was cruelly taken away from them.
Saul plays the drums. Ruby plays accordion.
They've been to hell and back. But when they play music together? Pure, unadulterated joy.
All GIFs via The New York Times/YouTube.
They didn't just survive. They thrived. And they continue to, day after day after day.
Saul and Ruby completed a remarkable exodus, and not just from darkness into freedom. They managed to take the extra step into rich, happy, joyful lives.
Take a moment to think of the people all over the world who lack the necessities of life, who struggle for their basic human rights, who are trying to make new lives in foreign lands where they may be greeted with less than kindness, or who are trying to move beyond unspeakable tragedy of any kind.
Surviving isn't easy. It takes guts and determination. Living after surviving is even harder. But it's so, so important.