‘Without memories there is nothing left’
JEWISH CARE residents, tenants and members of the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre which it administers have been supported to commemorate HMD.
With the help of volunteers, the charity distributed 750 parcels containing memorial candles to older community members.
Among those lighting them was Holocaust Survivors’ Centre member Harry Olmer, who said: “It’s important to remember the Holocaust.
“Without memories there’s nothing left.” An online ceremony was held for care home residents.
Survivor Manfred Goldberg shared his story with more than 100 people as part of a Young Jewish Care and March of the Living digital event.
And Ivor Perl, a survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz and a Jewish Care tenant, has given words of encouragement to Bushey Synagogue barmitzvah boy Joseph Shaw, who is twinning his ceremony with a Yad Vashem programme to remember a young Polish Shoah victim.
In an online exchange, Mr Perl told the JFS student: “May you grow up to be proud and a credit to your Jewish heritage, the Jewish people and especially to your parents”.
May you grow up to be proud and a credit to your Jewish heritage’
Joseph said afterwards: “I am really honoured to receive a blessing from Ivor and spend time talking to him.
“It is important to make sure that our future generations never forget. I will try my hardest.”
HSC member Zdenka Husserl — whose mother was a Holocaust victim and who arrived in the UK at the age of six — was interviewed by the BBC’s Fergus Keane.
“It took me 50 years and I kept on and on — I wanted to see a photo of my mother,” she told him. “Then I looked at this photo and I said: ‘Who is this woman?’
“Imagine you didn’t know what your mother looked like.”
Jewish Care chief executive Daniel Carmel-Brown thanked staff and volunteers for assisting survivors during the pandemic. “Many are now participating in a huge array of online programmes and activities. That we honour their bravery and their legacy at this time is so important.”