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The "1939" Club
E-Mail
Newsletter
October 1, 2005 Volume
1, Number 2 |
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Inside
Dr. Robert Krell
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Anniversary ………....4
Survivor Videos……..5
Photos ………………… 6
William Elperin
President
Michael Bazyler
Vice President
Susan Golant
Vice President & Secretary
Sam Rubinfeld
Vice President
Steve Hitter
Vice President
Rosemary
Elperin
Financial Secretary
Mike Zelon
Treasurer
The “1939” Club
8950
W. Olympic Blvd. #437
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 491-7802
Email
the1939club@aol.com
Web Site
www.1939club.com
Copyright
The “1939” Club, Inc.
2005
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"Holocaust Survivors: The Indestructible Spirit"
Ambitious
Photo Portrait and Biography Project Begins
The “1939” Club is participating in an ambitious and important
project under the auspices of The Sala and Aron Samueli
Holocaust Memorial Library at Chapman University. Titled
“Holocaust Survivors: The Indestructible Spirit” the project
encompasses the taking of photographs of 100 Survivors and
exhibiting them along with a synopsis of each Survivor’s
biography. The project will first be exhibited at Chapman
University and may, in the future, be made available for exhibition at other appropriate venues. A book of the photo-
graphs and biographies is also planned. The project honors Sol
and Fay Chase and was made possible by a generous gift from
Irving M. and Nancy Fainbarg Chase.
Directing the project is Professor Marilyn Harran, whose students
will review and help edit the biographies. “By sharing
individual histories, members of The "1939"
Club are giving Chapman University students an
extraordinary opportunity to learn and to themselves become
active contributors to ‘remembrance and witness’”
Professor Harran said.
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Sam Steinberg with Torah saved from
destruction |
The
photographer for the project is Bill Aron. Mr. Aron is a
world-class photographer known for depiction of Jewish life
around the globe. He has traveled the “four corners” of the
world with his camera. He described his feelings about the
project as follows: “I anticipate, look forward to, each shoot
much more than I have with any other project I’ve worked on. I
am thrilled to be part of this effort and hope the images live
up to, not only my expectation, but those of others as well.”
Steve Hitter is in charge of the project on behalf of the Club.
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Page
…….2 The
“1939” Club E-Mail Newsletter
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"I swore never
to remain silent
whenever and
wherever human
beings endure
suffering and
humiliation. We
must always take
sides.”
Elie Wiesel
Websites of interest
Jews in America
Forward Newspaper
Holocaust Chronicle
Claims Conference
Jewish Federation
Survivors of the Shoah
The Righteous
Yad Vashem
USHMM
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Een Hollands Jongetje Komt Terug
(A Little Dutch Boy Returns)
by Robert Krell, MD
From an Address delivered for the Child Survivor Gathering in
Amsterdam, August 21, 2005.
Copyright Robert Krell, MD, 2005
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I
arrived in Holland this past Friday, August 19th, a date
never forgotten in my family. It was August 19, 1942
that we were to report for “resettlement to the
East”. Now we all know what that meant. My
family did not obey. Instead I was placed with
Christians through a series of miracles, my father hid
in an attic, my mother elsewhere on false papers. We
were all in The Hague but could not see each other for
nearly 3 years. What happened in those terrible
times has never left our lives.
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And
now that we are all 60 years older than we were at
“liberation” and I use that word, liberation, with
caution, the 5, 10, and 15 year olds of 1945, are aged
65-75, give or take a few years. But we are forever the
“child survivors”, no matter our chronological age. Perhaps
we should remind ourselves that only 7% of Jewish
children in Nazi-occupied countries escaped death.
Counting the 2-3% who fled prior to the war, one in ten
survived, nine in ten were murdered. So we are
regretfully, a rather exclusive group. And our post-war
existence has been for many, exceedingly complicated for
liberation proved to be not so liberating for us
children. We were scattered to the winds. Our fate was
in the hands of others who decided whether we would go
to orphanages, kibbutzim, or on transports of various
kinds to countries that would accept us. Sometimes we
were returned to a surviving family member, or perhaps a
parent, but even that comparatively good fortune did not
always answer our prayers. The initial joy of reunion
was frequently lost in the realization that both child
and parent were suffering from the prolonged
separations, the multiple losses, and the effects of
physical and emotional trauma. |
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Page …….3 The “1939” Club E-Mail
Newsletter |
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Visit Child
Survivor’s
Web Site
The
Holocaust Art &
Writing Contest
This
year’s winners:
Marissa Moonilal
Mater
Dei High
Irina
Dykhne
Univeristy High (L.A.)
Mathew
Adam White
University High (L.A.)
Monique Becker
Lakeside Middle
Gabriella Duva
St.
Anne School
Kim
Ngai
Fulton
Middle School
VIEW ENTRIES
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My
mother once told me, perhaps as long as 40 years after the
war, that when she dropped me off at my Christian hiders
and left me, I tried to follow her dragging my little
suitcase behind me. I was two years old. She said she
could see in my eyes that I would never forgive her. I
denied that because she had saved my life. What courage!
She gave me up in order to give me a chance to live. But
she was right. At some deep level in my soul, I never did
forgive her for leaving me. Her insight was far greater
than mine.
And I
certainly cannot forgive those who forced her to make such
decisions. Millions of Jewish mothers and fathers were
making life and death choices, where even the wisest and
luckiest ended in death for it took only one misstep, one
mistake, one failure of luck, one betrayal and it was
over. Did Otto Frank not do almost everything possible to
save his family? Had the allies been quicker to reach
Holland, he would have succeeded. Had they not been
betrayed, success would have been theirs.
This is
not the first time I have returned to Holland. We left for
Canada in 1951. In 1961 I came to visit my Christian
angels, Violette and Albert Munnik and my “sister”
Nora who is ten years older. I knocked on the door one
flight up at Loenenschestraat 147 and the neighbor opened
his door. “Robbie?” he asked “Here to see your
Moeder?” “Yes, meneer de Vries.” “Robbie, I’ve
always meant to ask you why you never thanked me for not
betraying you.” So from ages 2-5, I had lived next door
to death, a neighbor with the thought of betrayal in
mind. Fortunately, he did not act on it. Thousands of
Dutch men and women did. And Jews and neighbors died
because of them.
My
parents both survived in hiding. Their own parents,
brothers and sisters, were all murdered. My first cousin
lost his family and chose to stay with his hiders rather
than join us.
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(Because Dr. Krell’s speech is so compelling, we have produced
it in its entirety on our Web Site.)
Click here to continue
reading
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Page …….4 The “1939” Club E-Mail
Newsletter |
Yiskor
Bikker
Holocaust
Memorial
Books
Now on line
The New York Public Library in partnership with the National
Yiddish Book Center has digitized Yiskor
Bikker. They are available on line and many have been translated
into English.
Yiskor
Books
Click Here
Holocaust/Jewish
Studies Programs
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Special Guest
Robert Persinger |
The “1939” Club
cordially invites you to celebrate our
53rd Anniversary
and
the
60th Anniversary of Liberation
Sunday, October 30, 2005
12
O’clock Noon
The
Beverly Hills Hotel
Reservations: (310) 276-5401
Dietary laws observed
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Anniversary Celebration Honors American
Liberators
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On a beautiful,
warm sunny day, May 6, 1945, Platoon Sergeant Robert Persinger
of the 3rd Platoon, F Company, 3rd
Squadron, drove his tank into Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mathausen
concentration camp, Austria. “They [camp inmates] were singing
and crying and so were we. They were so glad to see us. They
wanted to get on our tanks and reached out for us to show their
appreciation.”
One of the
inmates liberated that day was Dr. Sam Goetz, who was only 16
years of age. This event will reunite the American sergeant and
the boy inmate for the first time since that fateful day in May
of 1945.
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Read the
Liberation Stories of Members of the Club
CLICK
HERE
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Page …….5 The “1939” Club E-Mail
Newsletter |
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Save the Date
Sunday
February 26, 2006
53rd
Installation
Guest of Honor
Judge
Edward
Korman
Presiding Judge
U.S. District Court
Eastern District of
New York
*
Presided over the Swiss Banks
Litigation
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Club Provides Survivor Video Testimonies
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The “1939” Club
has donated a set of 60 video tapes, recorded in the early
1980’s at UCLA, to the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial
Library at Chapman University and to the Jewish Studies Program
at CSUN. The tapes were converted to the DVD format so that they
would be accessible on personal computers. These videos are
especially interesting and import-
ant because
they were taken when most of the Survivors were in their
fifties. Both the technical quality and content are exceptional.
Within the coming months, the Club intends to post these videos
on our web site so that students, and all those interested,
will, in effect, be able to have Survivor videos on demand
streamed to his or her computer.
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BILL
ARON
“A visionary with a camera, a
recorder of the glimmer of light and shade of the hidden
life...”
Chaim Potok
Mr. Aron is the author and
photographer of From the Corners of the Earth:
Contemporary Photographs of the Jewish World and
Shalom Y’all:
Images of Jewish Life in the American South.
To see his images from these books,
CLICK HERE
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Page …….6 The “1939” Club E-Mail
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Donate Your
Books
Donate your books relating to the Holocaust to the Sala and Aron
Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library and dedicate them to family
members who perished in the Holocaust.
Call
(310) 491-7802
Become a Member
You don’t have to be a Survivor; you don’t even have to be
Jewish!
Membership Form
Click Here
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Sam Steinberg |
Sig
Halbreich |
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Dr.
Sam Goetz |
Isabelle
Szneer |
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Images from the Lens of Bill Aron
Sam Steinberg shown on the
first page and above is a survivor of Auschwitz; Sig
Halbreich is 95 years young and a survivor of many camps
including Auschwitz;
Dr. Sam
Goetz was liberated from Ebensee at the age of 16.
Isabelle Szneer was in hiding in Belgium.
Photos Copyright Bill Aron,
2005
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