January 27, 2010
49 Grove
We thank all who took part in launching “WEDU” (We Educate) – our new initiative to empower grandchildren of survivors to bring the stories and lessons of the Holocaust to school classrooms.
We offer a special thanks to Sara Greenberg, a grandchild of survivors, who screened her family documentary “B-2247: A Granddaughter’s Understanding”
On the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we were happy to see such an amazing turnout at this celebration of life.
December 4, 2009
92YTribeca
Thanks to all members and supporters of 3GNY for joining us at what was a moving Shabbat dinner. Guest speaker and Holocaust survivor Bernard Gotfryd shared his story.
Mr. Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland, and became interested in photography at an early age. When World War II broke out and schools were closed to Jewish students, Gotfryd found work as an apprentice in a photography studio. While working in the studio, he began aiding the Polish underground by passing on photographs taken by Nazi officers of war atrocities. After an unsuccessful escape attempt in October 1943, Gotfryd was apprehended and shipped to Maidanek. By the war’s end, Gotfryd had survived six concentration camps.
In 1947, Mr. Gotfryd emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a photographer and studied photojournalism. After being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1949 and going through basic training, Mr. Gotfryd was assigned to the Signal Corps as a combat photographer. In 1952, he married his wife, Gina. They settled in Forest Hills, Queens, where they raised two children, Howard and Eva.
Mr. Gotfryd joined the staff of Newsweek in 1957, where he worked for more than thirty years, photographing some of the most influential figures of the 20th century. It was while working for Newsweek, covering the Holocaust Survivors Gathering in Washington, D.C., in April 1983, that Mr. Gotfryd was moved to write about his own experiences. First published in Newsweek, his stories were eventually published as a collection, titled Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust.
Copies of Anton the Dove Fancier are available by calling 1-800-537-5487 or visiting this website.
October 25, 2009
JCC in Manhattan
We were happy to see everyone at our Third Annual Intergenerational Brunch. It was a beautiful day, with so many of all generations meeting, connecting and commemorating their family history.
The event featured a presentation by 3GNY’s leadership, and guest speaker Amira Kohn-Trattner, C.S.W Amira is an Israeli-born psychotherapist/psychoanalyst in private practice in New York. Amira works with individuals and couples and has extensive experience with survivors, 2nd and 3rd generation.
She has been a consultant to the German government in restitution cases as an advocate to survivors and volunteered at international conferences for the US Holocaust Museum and the Shoah Foundation.
Amira presented an excerpt from her forthcoming documentary film about an unusual small group of Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, who emigrated to South America after the war. The film explores the lives of these close, life-long friends and the new threat they face.
June 14, 2009
Thanks to all the volunteers who came to the Coffee House in Washington Heights. It was a successful program. We were pleased with the turnout and with the noticeably positive effect we had on those with whom we spent time.
This Coffee House is a program of Selfhelp (http://www.selfhelp.net/index.shtm), which is the oldest and largest provider of Nazi victim services in North America. Selfhelp wanted to convey their gratitude for our presence and our efforts.
June 3, 2009
Thanks to everyone who came to our Happy Hour. We are proud to report that we raised $400 to benefit the June 14 Coffee House for survivors.
April 24, 2009
We thank Mrs. Claire Boren for being our guest, and telling us her story.
Claire Boren was born in a small Polish town that is now part of Ukraine. She was only five years of age when the Germans came and forced Jewish families into a ghetto. News of the Nazis’ liquidation of the Jews quickly spread and Boren’s father arranged for his wife and daughter to hide with a Christian family nearby. When the family they were staying with began fearing for their own lives, Boren and her mother retreated into the forest with several other Jews.
From there, they found a farm family that was willing to hide them in a hole they had dug beneath the ground. Boren describes this time as a living in a grave and it was there that she retreated into a silent fantasy world. Eventually they relocated once again in to the attic of another home until they were finally liberated by the Russian Army in 1944.
Boren was just a child when the Holocaust began and had repressed most of her memories of the war. It wasn’t until well into her adult life that memories began emerging. They were channeled through her art. Boren today is an accomplished artist, with some of her works’ themes evoking images and memories from the war.
March 18, 2009
David Gewirtzman was born in Losice, a small town in Poland in 1928. He was one of 16 out of 8,000 Jews to survive the Holocaust from this shtetl. 50 members of his extended family were murdered in Treblinka.
Jacqueline Murekatete was born in a small village in southern Rwanda in 1984. She was not yet ten when her immediate family was murdered, as well as most of her extended family, in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Jacqueline was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 1995, placed in public school and quickly learned English. One day David came to her school to speak. Listening to him, she was one of many kids who ended up weeping as he described his experiences. But she also saw a connection. She sent David a letter, which read in part:
“At one time I, too, like you, had a feeling of guilt for being alive. ‘Why was I left?’ I asked myself. I never really got an answer to that, but now I’m thankful that I was left because maybe I can make a difference in this world if I try, and maybe I can do my part in making sure that no other human being goes through the same experience as I did.”
David and Jacqueline have since teamed up to speak about their experiences, with the hope of preventing such acts from happening again.
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We thank Mr. Gewirtzman and Ms. Murekatete for telling us their stories. We also thank the Center for Jewish History for hosting us.
January 23, 2009
We listened to Rosa Sirota, a Holocaust survivor, and an aunt of one of our steering committee members.
Mrs. Sirota was born in Lvov, Poland. She escaped from the Lvov Ghetto with her mother, and they went into hiding under assumed names with Christian Ukrainian peasants, who did not know that they were Jewish. Rosa and her mother were the only survivors, as her father and the rest of her family were killed by the Nazis.
After being liberated by the Russians, they moved back to Poland, where her mother remarried and had another child. The family then moved to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France, and Venezuela, and eventually settled in the United States. After receiving her Masters degree, Rosa taught Spanish at Farleigh Dickenson University and then in Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, NJ. After retiring, she became an accomplished sculptor, and she recently won first prize at a juried art show.
Some of Rosa’s Holocaust experiences are summarized in Jane Marks’ book: “The Hidden Children – Secret Survivors of the Holocaust”.
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We thank Mrs. Sirota for being our guest and sharing her story with us.
