On Sunday evening 150 local youth from Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Congregation Oheb Shalom, Morrow United Methodist Church, and Congregation Beth El gathered for the third annual interfaith youth program on the Holocaust. The participants had the opportunity to hear from four Holocaust survivors who shared their stories and answer questions. Fred Heyman, one of the Holocaust survivors who lived in Berlin during the war, spoke to the young adults and reminded them that they are the last generation who will hear a survivor speak and learn the lessons of the Holocaust.
The youth were rapt in listening to the captivating histories of the survivors. Every survivor’s story is different, and while Gina Lanceter, Danuta Kozlowski, and Marsha Kreuzman, were all from Poland, their experiences shed light on different aspects of the Holocaust. Marsha Kreuzman was in five concentration camps and was close to giving up when Mauthausen was liberated by American troops. Gina Lanceter’s family was forced into a ghetto where they lived until they were herded onto a cattle car bound for a concentration camp. Her parents were able to squeeze her through a window and her survival is a tribute to local residents who hid her. Danuta Kozlowski is Catholic, yet her father was arrested and the family was sent to a Russian gulag in Siberia.
All four survivors left the youth with some wisdom and advice: be up-standers, not by-standers, one person can make a difference, be nice to one another, listen to one another, be tolerant and we are all God’s children.
The South Orange/Maplewood Holocaust Remembrance Committee sponsored this event and is organizing the 39th annual Interfaith Holocaust Remembrance Service to be held at Oheb Shalom on Sunday, May 1st, at 4pm. For more information on the service and the march that precedes it go to www.rememberandtell.org.
