Category
Remember This
Heirlooms, Antiques Keep Shoah Testimony Alive
A belt. Sheet music. A miniature 18th century Megillah scroll, its parchment worn and browned. People hung onto whatever they could through the Holocaust, hiding items in walls, in attics or burying them in the ground. Many gave valuable heirlooms to non-Jewish neighbors for safekeeping, hoping to reclaim them one day should the nightmare ever end.
Lisa and Alan Stern — Preserving Links to a Rich Heritage
When Nazi officials confiscated the faded white Torah covering, they stamped the Reichsadler — the emblematic German eagle and swastika — onto the inner fabric. The valuable 1868 piece, stitched in Transylvania, was intended for display in the Central Jewish Museum in Prague, what Nazis conceived as the “Museum and Historic Archive of the Extinct Jewish Race.”
Eva Klein David — Clandestine Crafts That Saved Lives
Working in a factory at the Reichenbach labor camp, Eva Klein David manned a soldering iron, fusing wires together to make parts for radios. The dexterous teenager was good at what she did. That, she believes, is why the Nazi soldiers didn’t kill her when she began fainting at work due to hunger and stress.
The Rev. John Neiman — Honoring Anne Frank’s Memory
As a fifth-grade student, the Rev. John Neiman couldn’t fully grasp the significance of Anne Frank and her diary. It took a second reading and repeated trips to the library a few years later for him to form a bond with the text that would change the course of his life
Rachel Arazi — What They Wore
Rachel Arazi gathers the blouse in her hands and brings it to her face. “I wonder if it’s still possible to smell my grandmother’s scent,” she muses.
Donald and Robert Novack Reviving a Composer’s Lost Legacy
The Chosal Farm seemed like a safe place to Boris Zeltzman — it was located in Vichy, France, and owned by a Christian family. In 1941, he took two ammunition boxes, and, in secret, buried more than 3,000 manuscripts penned by Russian cantor and composer David Nowakowsky.