JANUARY 2003 VOLUME 16 NUMBER 3 THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM TO PAY TRIBUTE TO HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS IN NOVEMBER 2003 WASHINGTON, DC--Once a dream for send a message to the American people preserved, will be open. There will be honor the living,and offer hope for the many survivors, The United States about the importance of remembrance for presentations about the photo archives, future. The ceremony will be broadcast live Holocaust Memorial Museum is now a the future. survivor programs on the Website and on the Website, where visitors can post reality that reaches millions of Americans curator-led tours of the Museum’s special messages of honor and remembrance. from all walks of life every year, with its A Unique Living Legacy exhibitions: Hidden Children and American mission of remembrance and education. “Survivors Day at the United States Responses to the Nazi Book Burnings will Remembrance and America The Museum approaches its 10th Holocaust Memorial Museum” be offered continuously. President George W. Bush and Prof. Elie Anniversary when the world still faces Wiesel will be invited to speak. There will be deadly dangers, and the lessons of the brief remarks prior to a candle-lit procession Holocaust become ever more critical. Now to the Hall of Remembrance, where there will more than before, the mission of the be a memorial candle-lighting. Museum becomes urgent. As a token of gratitude to the U.S., The Museum’s sacred obligation to survivors will present the President with A preserve and transmit the legacy of the Living Legacy, a one-of-a-kind book of survivors, and their enthusiastic support photographs of themselves and their and involvement with the survivors, has descendants, now in the fourth generation, made the Museum an extraordinary success. who are symbols of the post-war renewal Therfore, on the occasion of its 10th made possible by America’s acceptance of Anniversary, the Museum will honor the them. survivors on a special day devoted to them. The book also serves as the basis of a It will be, perhaps, one of the last times special presentation on the Internet. (Long that the eyewitness generation will convene before the event, families will be able to send on such a scale. The Tribute is envisioned the Museum an intergenerational family as a reunion of Holocaust survivors, their photograph with a brief message about rescuers and liberators and their what America and the Museum mean to descendents. To underscore the importance them, along with a wish for the future.) of America’s role in winning World War II, The Museum will also seek timely the Tribute will be held on Veterans Day passage of a Congressional resolution to Weekend, Saturday evening, Nov. 8, after mark the 10th anniversary milestone by Shabbat is over, and all day on Sunday, Nov. recognizing the contribution of survivors 9, 2003. to American life. Survivors participating in The survivors succeeded in building new the tribute will be given a commemorative families and new lives, in making important For an entire day and into the night, the Preserving Memory copy of the resolution. contributions to their communities and their Museum will be open to survivors and other The Museum is in a race against time to After the candle-lit vigil, the evening will nation. As new citizens of the United States, eyewitnesses and their descendents. This reach survivors and other eyewitnesses in conclude with a tented buffet reception they developed intense loyalty to and love day is made possible by a special order collect and preserve artifacts, personal across from the Museum at Raoul for their adopted country and the ordinary declaration of the Presidentially-appointed papers, and oral testimonies. Reunion Day Wallenberg Place. Areas will be set up so freedoms of American life. The Reunion will U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and is will offer a unique opportunity for the staff that individuals from various communities, be designed to recognize the accomp- unique in the history of the Museum. to work with each person and showcase camps or ghettos, will be able to reconnect lishments of survivors as they made Survivors’ Day will be a day to bear witness activities like the Meed Survivors Registry, with one another. America their new home, and recognize how as a community those connected by history, the Jewish Communities project, the America served the survivors and the memory or family, to the Holocaust. All Memoirs project, the Geographical Fact Educational Outreach survivors served America. exhibitions, archives and memorial spaces Finder and NameSearch. The intent is to help The Survivors Day will reach those who Among the survivors’ greatest will be open to participants and the survivors, their families and other cannot attend by launching special accomplishments is the role they played in Museum, for the first time, will provide eyewitnesses to preserve memory, trace Internet programs on the Museum’s the creation of the Museum on the Mall in curators, educators, and scholars around families and leave a legacy for the future. Website and feature activities in the Washington, DC and their continuing role the building who will tell the survivors about Museum’s member publication and other in working with the Museum to preserve their programs and answer questions. A Moment of Silence materials. The entire day will be the survivors’ legacy. The Reunion will Special behind-the-scenes tours of the At noon, a special program in the Hall of photographed and filmed for use on the provide a forum where survivors will be able Museum, including the conservation lab Witnesses will call everyone together for a the net at www.ushmm.org and in other to express their gratitude to the U.S. and where artifacts donated by survivors are moment of silence to remember the dead, Museum programs. American Gathering of NON-PROFIT Jewish Holocaust Survivors U.S. POSTAGE PAID 122 West 30th Street, Suite 205 NEW YORK, N.Y. New York, New York 10001 PERMIT NO. 4246 TOGETHER 1 A SURVIVOR RECALLS TOGETHER by BENJAMIN MEED Those of us who survived the years of Nazi DECEMBER 2002 VOLUME 16 NUMBER 3 terror in the ghetto and death camps, in hiding and in the forests, live with the memories of c•o•n•t•e•n•t•s those who perished and by their cry to Holocaust Museum to Honor Survivors......................................cover remember them. These memories are always A Survivor Recalls by Benjamin Meed.............................................. 2 with us. We try to share these memories with Perspectives from the Material Claims Conference others. Share them we must, if our story and by Roman Kent.........................................................................3 the lessons of the Shoah are to live beyond World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors us. by Stefanie Seltzer.................................................................. 4 For me, the most painful memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Hungarian Survivor Wins Nobel Prize............................................... 4 is not only the fire, the blood and smoke, but the “normal” News from Alumni of the Teachers Program on Holocaust and atmosphere on the other side of the wall, on the Aryan side. While Jewish Resistance.....................................................................5 the guns and grenades were thundering and the buildings and Jews Zeidman Opens HUC Exhibit remarks by Fred Zeidman................ 6 burning inside the ghetto, on the outside, life went on as usual. It About the Survivor’s Organization of Pittsburgh is the sense of normalcy that made me so angry. I recall being on by Isabel Alcoff....................................................................... 6 the other side of the wall, in front of a church, watching a carousel The BergenBelsen Story by Sam E. Bloch........................................ 7 whirl with peals of laughter from the women and children on the Israel Singer by Jeanette Friedman...................................................7 horses, in total oblivion to the slaughter of Jews and the sounds The Talmud and Holocaust Survivors by Dr. Alex Grobman........... 8 of their death coming from the other side. I wondered then and I Henry Taube by Michael Berenbaum................................................ 8 have continually asked since: How was it possible to be “normal” Bergen-Belsen: The End and the Beginning in the face of what was occurring to neighbors? To fellow human by Menachem Rosensaft........................................................ 9 beings? It is the memory of the bystanders that troubles me. We were In Memoriam:HiramBingham..............................................................9 so abandoned, we felt so alone, and we were so lonely. The Son of Survivors Organizes Relief for the Hungry Nazi murderers wanted to kill us twice – spiritually and physically. by Syd Mandelbaum..............................................................10 It is the sounds of the death throes of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Auschwitz: Repair, Preserve or Let It Go?.......................................10 mixed with the music of the normal life on the other side of the Restitution of Jewish Properties in Poland wall, that almost drove us into desperation and despair. It was by Kalman Sultanik............................................................... 11 only the thought and hope that somewhere on the outside – Holocaust Bookshelf......................................................................... 12 perhaps in free America – there was a Jewish