Second generation of the holocaust

Second Generation of the Holocaust


SECOND GENERATION OF THE HOLOCAUST

In 2005 I showed a series called Holocaust Survivors and Liberators at the 6oth

anniversary of the Liberation of the Holocaust from German Concentration Camps.

I had had an epiphany while doing the project, when I learned that United States

Military pillaged a train that was left with all the wealth and goodies that had been

gathered by the Nazis from the roundup of the Hungarian Jews who were sent to

the concentration camps towards the end of the WWII.

The survivors fought for financial retribution from the United States Government

and won in about 2005. It made me think of The Ten Commandments especially

“Though shall Not Steal”.

Here the United States stole and those survivors fought to remind us of that God

Given Law. Thus I thought that the Jews were the first to give the World through

Moses the Law of Ethics.

Why did these people survive such a massive Holocaust? I believe that those that

survived are of the Jewish Faith and they are here to remind us of Ethics. Our

world since those times and in my lifetime has changed.

We are losing our sense of ethics of Do unto others as you would have others

do unto you. [Matthew 7:12] -


In the first series those Survivors and Liberators had witness to Life and Death

profoundly and they honored life and that is what I wished to present in that series.

The reason I am doing a second series Second Generation from the Holocaust

stems from the following experience and reflecting that in 2 years it will be the 70th

anniversary of the liberation.

I recently, in Sept 2013, went to Verona and visited the very beautiful Synagogue

on Rosh Hashanah and we were dumfounded that there were not enough men to

make a Minion. My friend Marvin Mordes was asked to come and remain in the

services so they could perform the service so we had to stay through the whole time

which gave me a very religious feeling.

The beautiful place was from Renaissance times (early 1500) and has been kept up

by the community but there are only 400 Jews left in the community. Because it sits

in valuable property in town the stores that are surrounding it have been keeping the

funds going by paying rent to the Synagogue. It certainly made me sad to think of

the devastation of the Jewish society by the Holocaust and secular times.

Next to me was a woman from Australia who was traveling with her partner

throughout Europe to visit Synagogues to enlighten herself about her heritage which

was lost since she was a second generation of a Holocaust survivor-her mother had

survived Auschwitz Death Camp and she talked of her upbringing of fear and not

knowing which pervaded her mother’s existence with her through her life.

It made me think that this Second Generation represents something that is happening

in our world of trying to understand life and not knowing, since we are losing our

history. Only through history can we learn to cope with the future.

They represent a lost family with very few grandparents who can teach about life.

Our world is getting older but we are throwing away history by” dumbing down of

education”. This woman again I feel represents a searching of who we are so

therefore, I wish to do a series of Second Generation Holocaust Survivors and what

is their search and what have they learned. Perhaps they can lead us back to ethics.

Wilma Bulkin Siegel, M.D.


Nancy Dershaw


Nancy Dershaw

Nancy is the Founder and President of NEXT GENERATIONS, a 501(e) (3) not for

profit organization of children, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and all those

who are committed to educate future generations by preserving the memories of the

past, carrying forward the message into the future by keeping our parents voices

alive.

When you lose a parent there is tremendous grief and anguish. However, when you

lose a parent who was also a survivor of the Holocaust there are many different layers

of feelings. As the President of NEXT GENERATIONS, I am in direct contact with

many children of holocaust survivors whose parents have passed away. We feel not

only did we lose a parent, but the magnitude of loss and pain is that much greater

due to the weight of our parents' past.

For many, our responsibilities and our appreciation of our families were different

than our peers. We often acted as a parent might. Our love for our parents included

keeping them safe and happy and not causing them grief. Taking away any hardships

making sure that ultimately they were as happy as they could be, and there were so

many joyous moments of happiness.

For many of us, as the "children," we were instilled with such a tremendous triumph

in being alive and therefore we felt intense gratitude towards our parents for anything

that they gave us. First, we are fortunate TO BE HERE! Our parents gave us strength

and resilience always striving for a better life. We are the witnesses to the eyewitness

and have a moral responsibility to take the lessons of the Holocaust to insure that

future generations will learn from the lessons of the past and stand up to any form

of social injustice in the future to say NEVER AGAIN!


Rositta Ehrlich Kenigsberg


Rositta Ehrlich Kenigsberg

Our parents' legacy is not about death and despair, but about life and life reborn,

despite their tragic and painful past, they once again dared to sing, dared to dance,

dared to dream, dared to shed tears of happiness and joy, and they even dared to start

new families in new homes they created. Their wondrous story of survival is a

testament of their inner strength, heroic defiance, and remarkable courage and

conviction.

Rositta Ehrlich Kenigsberg is the daughter of Holocaust survivor Henry Ehrlich,

who was born in Miedzyrzec, Poland. When the Nazis came, he was in the ghetto

and then was interned in several concentration camps, including Majdanek. He was

transferred to Starachowice, the largest ammunitions factory in Poland. From there

he was sent to Auschwitz-Bixkenau and then to Buna. In January 1945, he was on a

death march and ended up in Dora-Mittelbau where V-2 rockets were made. Finally,

he was liberated in Mauthausen in May 1945; after liberation, he married, and his

daughter Rositta was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria. The family then

immigrated to Montreal, Canada in 1951.

Because of the political situation, the family left Montreal and moved to South

Florida in 1979. Currently, Rositta serves as the Executive Vice President of the

Holocaust Documentation and Education Center, Inc., the organization she has been

a part of in various capacities for more than twenty-four years. She always has been

inspired by her father's words: "As long as there is someone to tell the story, there is

life. And as long as there is someone to listen, there is hope."


Helen Friedman


Helen Friedman

Helen Friedman's parents fled Poland to Russia during the thirties. Her father left at

age 18 to flee the Polish Army but he regretted leaving behind his youngest brother

who begged to go with him, and he ended up perishing in the Holocaust. Helen saw

her father cry when he told her of this tragedy. Her father survived in a work camp

as a shoemaker. Her parents met in Russia and returned to Poland then Germany

where I was born before going onto Israel. They came to America in 1951 and settled

in Brooklyn. Her father worked seven days a week for 25 years and her mother

worked in a bakery. They wanted their children to grow up without problems and

sacrificed for their education. She and her brother grew up in a neighborhood where

people were of the holocaust so the backgrounds were similar and they did not see

themselves as different. She became a sculptor but made a living in real estate and

banking. She was married to a man who was from a family of displaced persons

from Bergen Belsen. She lived in North Dakota before coming to Florida where she

aligned herself with Next Generation group. She now has a relationship with a

Canadian philanthropist who gives injured Israeli soldiers respite. She lives part time

in Montreal and part time in Florida.

Her parents talked to her about their experiences but many of the specifics, such as

times and exact location, had been forgotten. They were wonderful parents and they

gave all of themselves. As part of the Next Generation group her parents would be

proud that she has aligned herself with this group which is so passionate about telling

the story of anti-discrimination.


Terry Golden


Terri Golden

I was born in Bergen Belsen which after the Nazi defeat became a displaced

persons camp. I believe that children of Holocaust survivors carry the pain of their

parents who greatly suffered under the Nazi regime. My parents lost most of their

family in the death camps.

We arrived in Canada with no family, no money and could not speak English. My

parents had to struggle to earn a living in a foreign country, where even the

Canadian Jews were not all that receptive to the refugees.

As a child of survivors, I always felt different. I was not a carefree child for I

always worried about my parents. I just wanted them to be happy and therefore I

needed to obey them and not cause them and grief.

My Mom who is nearing her 95th birthday still screams in her sleep and relives the

horrors of the Holocaust. And I still wish I could see her happy.

As many children of survivors I have established a successful life for myself. I am

proud to say that I am active in NEXT GENERATION of Holocaust Survivors as

treasurer, an organization involved in helping elderly survivors in need and

educating future generations in the fight against prejudice, bigotry and bullying.


Sylvia Kahana


Sylvia Kahana

Sylvia is passionate about carrying on the message of her Holocaust Survivor

parents. She believes that we are in a state of ignorance about the future that there

will be a nuclear Holocaust and we must be wary of Iran and its nuclear armament.

Her father was a survivor of 14 and knew of the coming disaster of the Holocaust.

Today people are ill informed and act as sheep. Now we have low moral standards

and ignorance of history with increasing hate crimes. Bullying, and bigotry and she

feels it is the same as before with the Holocaust in the Second World War.

The Iranian Khomeini threat is not understood by us and she fears ego is in the

way above spirituality. Her family survived in Ubekistan and Tashkent. Her

parents came to Philadelphia. Growing up she felt different as "greenees". She has

been promoting Gen Z for the NEXT GENERATION, born after 1985, to tell

stories of the Holocaust Genocide through technology, multi-media, and social

media.


Jeanette Malca


Jeanette Malca

Jeanette's mother, Ella Messing, was a survivor of Auschwitz. Jeanette read to me

her eulogy. Her mother had been a teacher in Poland. The Nazis offered to take the

best and brightest children and teachers in her town and to send them to freedom in

another country in exchange for German prisoners-of-war. Ella was one of the

teachers chosen. She accompanied the children, thinking that the children were on

the train for survival but instead, the train arrived at Auschwitz and the children were

sent directly to the gas chambers. As Ella would say, "We saw the smoke and knew

that it was our children burning." Ella escaped from Auschwitz during the Death

March. When the Russians came in after the camps were liberated, Ella called out to

them in several languages. She was so relieved to see them after the Nazis had been

defeated. The Russians thought she was a spy since she knew so many languages. A

firing squad stood her up, ready to shoot her, until one of the soldiers understood

and called off the guns. Jeanette's parents moved to France after the war. They

became directors of an orphanage sponsored by HIAS. They cared for and taught

orphan children and subsequently escorted them to Israel to settle them in Kibbutzim

and in Youth Aliyah villages. From France, Jeanette, her sister and parents moved

to the US. Her parents worked hard in a neighborhood grocery store and in raising

their family. Jeanette's mother, Ella, also devoted herself to helping Israel. She

became a leader in many local Jewish organizations. Among her many

accomplishments, she set up a scholarship program to send American children to

Israel and she was chairman of the Women's Division of UJA in her town. Ella's

destiny was to help and save others. She lived and often quoted the famous saying,

"If you save one life, it is as though you have saved the entire world." She lived the

affirmation of LIFE. In Jeanette's early years, her mother did not speak about her

experiences. Jeanette learned of her mother's bravery and heroism while visiting in

Israel with her mother's friend who had survived Auschwitz with Ella. Jeanette later

told her mother what she had learned and her mother then began to talk of her

experience. Jeanette learned about compassion from her mother and devoted her

career to working with at-risk youth, helping them get job-training and jobs and

turning their lives around. We met in her home, which was a happy place, because

her grandchildren were staying with her.


Paula Stevens


Paula Stevens

I met Paula through the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale. She is co-chair of the

Membership Development committee, as well as a fund raiser for NEXT

GENERATIONS. Passionate in her efforts, she supports both entities. Both of her

parents were Holocaust survivors who lost their immediate and extended families.

After liberation, they made their way across allied lines to Munich, Germany

where Paula was born. The family had to wait two and half years for the United

States to grant the family visas.

Nothing was ever discussed or revealed to Paula as a child regarding her parent's

horrifying experiences and personal losses. She never understood why she didn't

have grandparents, aunts or uncles. The death of her mother at the early age of 11

yrs., forced her to mature early and become independent.

Being connected with other SECOND GENERATION survivors has given Paula

the opportunity to engage in meaning dialogue as well as establishing an unspoken

bond. Her having three children was the greatest gift to her parents who have

produced six grandchildren.

"I am here for a reason and I will never forget. My departed family will live on

through my children and their child.


Elizabeth Stux


Elizabeth Stux

My story is a difficult one because I was born to two Holocaust Survivors. I have always lived with my mother's memories and have also had my bouts of survivor's guilt. The human will can be broken and controlled through severe and humiliating mistreatment. My mother's spirit never broke.

Daily life in our home in Melbourne, Australia was filled with ghosts and my mother conjured up a world of starvation and death. Every piece of food was to be eaten because my mother no longer saw a little girl in front of her but rows of emaciated hollow-eyed children that looked like me. Among all the horrific images, the killing of children had the hardest impact on me. The world as I knew it had been colored by my mother's description of her experiences. My mother told me so many tales that after many years I realized that we are born into our mother's emotions, and within these parameters we are raised.


Ron Stux


Ron Stux

Ron is the husband of Elizabeth Stux. His future mother and father lived in Vienna

where his father worked in the clothing business. In 1938 after they married, his

father remained in a cellar because of the danger to Jews at that time. They decided

to leave for Shanghai because it was still possible to go there. After the war they

learned that living in the Shanghai ghetto was very different from the other ghettos

of Eastern Europe because they were free to roam the city and conduct business.

Ron’s father worked for a Swiss import and export company until the end of the War

after which he worked as a manager of a PX for the US Army that occupied

Shanghai. Like everyone else they wanted entry into the US but could not so they

settled in Melbourne, Australia.

Ron and his family left for Melbourne, Australia when he was three so he remembers

very little about that time but he does remember his Ama. In Melbourne, he grew up

in a middle class neighborhood with other survivor of the Holocaust. He was a good

student and became a research chemist. He met Elizabeth and they married.

Elizabeth’s mother moved in with them and insisted on them moving to the US and

they did. He found work with a company in the Boston area that made chemical

instruments. He worked with that company for twenty five years followed by another

five years with a software company after which they retired to South Florida.

He believes in and is profoundly proud of his Jewish Heritage and it should go

onto Perpetuity.


Phil Wilner


Phil Wilner, MD

Wilner is a psychiatrist at NY/Presbyterian Hospital. He is the son of Holocaust

Survivors. His father is living at age 90 and since his mother died he has become closer

and more proud of his optimistic and creative personality. His father was born in Debica,

Poland. At age 16 He and his brother were pushed off the train in which their family

perished to the Death Camp Beldec by their mother. His father lived as a Pole and

protected his brother. He ran to a family protecting Jews and they were given false

papers. That woman was honored later in Israel as "Righteous Jew". He worked in the

Polish Underground serving as a Polish fireman always hiding his brother. After the

war they were liberated to Paris and his brother settled there marrying a French woman.

In 1951 his father spoke French and had married with children they came to US. French

speaking led him to Import Export in French Africa so he was away much of the time.

Phil was raised by his mother who in later years developed Parkinsonism and died 5

years ago. His father was always brave and loving and positive.

His mother was born in Jaslo, Poland and transported to Siberia and talked of the extreme

survival needed because of the environment. They were however not persecuted. She

went to Russian Schools but family was together and later after war they were in DP

camps together. They came to the States. The families were together with other Holocaust

survivors in the Bronx, so Phil grew up in that environment and he always felt not part

of the negative overlay of the survivor families. He always wanted joy in his life and

he attributes this to the inheritance of his father's optimistic viewpoint which led him

into Psychiatry since he was always the listener of bad stories, He states he is “an

eavesdropper". His parents wished him to understand Judaism but despite that they were

nonobservant, Phil went to the Yeshiva and Ramaz and he has become an observant

modern Jew. His children, too, have gone to Ramaz.

He requested that I also paint his father since it would honor him.


Henry Wilner


Henry Wilner

What a pleasure to meet Phil Wilner’s father, Henry Wilner. He is a 91 years old vibrant

soul. His life work was multi involvement and a life of optimism always. He was in

export business of old clothes to the needy in French speaking Africa. He grew up in

Debica, Poland and went to public school but was not accepted into the gymnasium so

family sent him to Jewish tutoring for high school. The Germans came into Poland in

1939 and life changed for all the five hundred Jews and all became laborers. He worked

in a milk factory and by his wits he got milk products to distribute to the poor Jews. One

day he and his lady boss were arrested by the Gestapo. He told his boss to pay them off

and she did and they were both freed. He became a ghetto worker and learned how to drill

holes for the brushes used by the Nazi army. He was to be sent to concentration camps to

build barracks. He jumped off the train and ran into the river back to the ghetto. By

1941many were sent to the camps for extermination. His mother and father perished. His

mother threw him off the train and he survived by his wits, saving and protecting his

brother. Henry looked like a Pole, not a Jew, and so he imitated the Pole and was admitted

as a firefighter receiving a uniform. The uniform made him respected. His brother

worked in the post office. They both went onto Warsaw in an apartment where there

were 40 people hiding. By 1943 there was the ghetto uprising, where he was a member

of the Polish Underground. The Germans captured him and gave him the choice of

concentration camp or prisoner of war. He chose the latter and was sent into Germany.

As a prisoner of war he was treated badly and the Geneva Convention laws were

questioned when the Red Cross came to investigate. All the prisoners were afraid to tell

them of the poor conditions. He told them to come with him to the graveyard where he

showed them the inhumanity of so many dying. Subsequently, the prisoners were all

treated better and fed well. Finally in 1945 they were liberated. His brother was hidden

with the Russians on the Russian side. At liberation he walked three days to Dutch

border, then found his way to Paris and finally met up with his brother who had been

hidden by the Russians during the conflict. In Paris he lived well working for the Polish

embassy. Because the Polish ambassador was a Jew he was favored and found himself

going to United States where he had relatives who lived in New Orleans and he settled there

taking care of a hotel in Eunice, Louisiana. Finally, he ended up in NYC met his wife and

he went into the export business. Because of his fluency in French, the business took off in

French Africa which meant he travelled frequently. They had three sons. Dr. Wilner is

one of them.


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Second generation of the holocaust