Agencies help Holocaust survivors age ‘with dignity’

COLUMBUS — As Holocaust survivors grow older, there is an effort by social service agencies and nonprofits to keep them aging in place in hopes of preventing further trauma if they were to move into an assisted living facility or nursing home.

“Really our goal is to have them live independently, with dignity,” said Garett Ray, chief program officer at Jewish Family Services ( JFS) in Columbus.

“For a Holocaust survivor to go to an assisted living facility or a nursing home can sometimes be very traumatic — not having that independence and relying 100% on somebody else and being in a place they’re unfamiliar with,” Ray said.

As the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day — designated as Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-birkenau in 1945, and held to recognize the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis — there are this year about 200 survivors living in Greater Columbus, according to Ray.

JFS started to advocate for local survivors with a program in 2015, as officials saw the group’s needs increasing with age. Funding came from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, commonly called the Claims Conference, a nonprofit that offers compensation from the German government to survivors of the Holocaust.

Much of the money from the claims conference goes to home health care, Ray said, and JFS offers local providers a training to work with survivors to ensure they don’t accidentally trigger their past trauma. JFS also receives support from the Holocaust Survivor Initiative at Jewishcolumbus.

That’s essential because of the unique experiences of the group, said Masha Pearl, executive director of The Blue Card, a national nonprofit based in New York which has been helping Holocaust survivors for decades.

“During the war, Holocaust survivors were rounded up and taken from their daily lives and taken from their families and put in a position where they were not subject to their own decision-making,” Pearl said.

JFS has been working with The Blue Card locally for about 10 years, Ray said, and helps local survivors apply for assistance through the organization.

Assistance for survivors, many of whom live in poverty, includes help with basic needs and emergency assistance when survivors might be facing eviction or utility shutoffs.

The Blue Card, which has a vitamin program survivors can enroll in, also can help with costly dental or healthcare needs and sends survivors a birthday card each year with a $100 check.

Locally, many survivors came from the former Soviet Union as adults in the 1980s and 1990s, Ray said. Many remain isolated, staying in a pocket of the community that became a Russian village of sorts.

It can be hard for these survivors to speak about their experiences, according to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, as they lived for years in silence in the former Soviet Union.

Fanya and Ilya Goyzman, both 83-year-old survivors from the former Soviet Union who now live in Cleveland, were just toddlers when their families fled Nazi persecution during the war.

They came together, with their three children, to America in 1990. Fanya Goyzman, speaking Russian through a translator, said the couple applied for help through The Blue Card about five years ago.

Her husband needed dental work and the organization helped to pay for it, and they enjoy getting birthday cards from the organization each year.

“It’s a big help, and we appreciate what they do for us,” Fanya Goyzman said.