The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Holocaust survivors

Four Winters Shines a Light on the Bravery of World War II Survivors Among the 25,000 Jewish Partisans

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Can you imagine climbing through an unlikely opening and hurling yourself off a speeding train (while your beloved family members huddle together, terrified and exhausted) to take your chances at surviving so that you can escape arrival of almost certain murder at the death factory, Treblinka?

Or of attempting to convince others to take that chance with you? So that you can both LIVE and one day tell the story? To tell what happened–a reason to live that Holocaust survivors collectively have shared in many documentaries.

To jumping anyway when others would not or could not?

In Julie Mintz’s riveting and inspiring documentary Four Winters, we learn of such unimaginable circumstances and also mind bogglingly courageous acts of Jewish resistance through the testimony of eight  survivors who were members of the estimated 25,000 Jewish Partisans in the forests of World War II Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. In Mintz’s discussion following the movie with Bruni Burres, the curator of the Jacob Burns Film Center Jewish Film Festival, we learn that only one of the survivors Mintz worked with to tell their stories and produce this film as authentically as possible, is still with us today for the film’s release. A takeaway reminder to me that the survivors are leaving us. A reminder that so are their stories. So we must honor them. And this film, honors them immensely.

Documentarian Julie Mintz discussing Four Winters with Bruni Burres, curator for the Burns Center Jewish Film Festival.

If I may go on. I also don’t consider these spoilers as you MUST see this wonderful documentary to understand its edge of your seat quality, and my own words aside, you MUST hear the stories from the survivors themselves to truly digest the Jewish Partisans story and the Four Winters theme of perseverance.

Can you imagine walking for miles in a weakened state in an expansive, eerie forest in the cold and the snow, with only the glowing eyes of wolves in the distance to guide you, without survival gear or survival skills per se, at different junctures being hunted down like animals for slaughter by the sick Nazi regime and its unholy web of spies and collaborators?

It was a story I was startled and almost embarrassed to have never heard before, or have heard about in snips and pieces, as more folklore. The survivor witnesses in Four Winters weave a tapestry of this most remarkable aspect of Holocaust survival, of Jewish survival. Julie Mintz has lovingly, painstakingly helped each of these dear souls revisit and recall details of those horrific times, so that the story, each story, the collective story, can be released into the world, and so that these survivors can be celebrated and embraced not for what they survived, but for their courage, for the lives they helped save, for whatever evil they conquered or thwarted too against all odds.

None of us really could imagine, and no doubt the survivors who describe their experiences never could have either preceding the horrific genocide that ensued. Or how they eventually banded together in groups and underground, camouflaged bunkers to form true fighting units sabotaging and killing Nazis at assorted opportunities, and surviving against all odds over four endless, brutal winters, often starving, often not knowing what day it was, or what the future held. Early in the film: footage of their happy and productive lives, vacationing in pre-Nazi invasion Poland.

As we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day tomorrow, I am grateful I had the opportunity to watch the pre-screening of Four Winters yesterday. As the subject matter never stops hitting too close to home (I am a child of Holocaust survivors; most of my family perished), the usual trepidation I feel watching the footage of crimes perpetrated against humanity by the Nazis never goes away. But this story was incredibly uplifting in that we much more rarely hear about the resistance efforts to the Nazi evil. The Jewish partisans collaborated with Polish and Russian partisan units in the forests too. I am eternally grateful to every astoundingly brave and moral person of every religion and race who courageously resisted and fought the seemingly endless atrocities to save innocent lives at grave risk to their own. I’m in awe of the courage it took to save themselves. I’m eternally heartened to learn and proud to know that included a sizeable number of Jewish persons, too.

 

A Summer Celebration for Holocaust Survivors at Young Israel of White Plains

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Approximately 70 Holocaust survivors enjoyed a summer celebration on Wednesday July 13 featuring lunch, live music, socializing, and a special address by State Senator Shelley Mayer on July 13, 2022, at Young Israel of White Plains. The event was hosted by Westchester Jewish Community Services, in partnership with UJA-Federation of New York.  The joyous and meaningful event  was a tribute to the hope, strength, and resilience of the survivors and the courage and determination with which they build constructive lives and families after experiencing the horrors of the Holocaust. 

Allison Danzig, Coordinator of Holocaust Services at WJCS, welcomed everyone to the event and shared how honored she is to know the survivors, have them share their past experiences with her, and trust her to be a “memory keeper of their stories.” (Click here to hear Allison’s welcome speech.)

New York State Senator Shelley B. Mayer told the survivors how inspired she is by them and of her commitment to ensure that Holocaust education is a mandated part of New York State public school curriculum. Rabbi Michael Goldman, Director of the Spiritual Healing Center at WJCS, led the guests in saying Kaddish for loved ones who were lost in the Holocaust as well as a prayer of thanksgiving for reaching this day. The festivities included joyous music, played by fiddler Ted Kessler, a second generation Holocaust survivor, beautiful singing by Cantor Daniel Mendelson from Congregation Kol Ami,
 a delicious lunch catered by Seasons, and words of warmth and passion by Halina Rosenkranz, who leads WJCS support groups for Holocaust survivors and members of the Second Generation. 
 
We are so grateful to UJA-Federation of New York and the Claims Conference for partnering with us on this wonderful event. As WJCS CEO Seth Diamond  said, “All of us in the county are tremendously inspired by all you have lived through, all you have taught us, and what you have done for all of our communities. The life you have lived and what you bore witness to inspires us to remain resilient and strong in the face of life’s challenges. You are a gift to all of us.”

The event was a huge success. Survivors, many of them accompanied by aides or family members, were thrilled to be together, especially because many have felt so isolated since the pandemic began. Here’s what one attendee wrote:

“Everything at today’s luncheon was just perfect. The food  was delicious. The chance for all of the survivors to get out and interact with each other was priceless. I can’t thank you enough for putting it all together. Bravo! My uncle has been raving all day long about how thankful he is for all the support and help that WJCS offers.”

State Senator Shelley Mayor speaks during a summer celebration for Holocaust survivors at Young Israel of White Plains.
A fiddler performs for Holocaust survivors at the summer celebration.
Holocaust survivors Eliezar (center) and Gesya Raninobich (right) enjoying the summer celebration.

Brothers from Princeton and Armonk Open Up about Late Father’s Oral Testimony Recorded by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

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As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum prepares to lead America’s annual national commemoration of the Holocaust during the Days of Remembrance from April 4-11, the Museum continues its race against time to collect and record oral history testimonies before the last generation of Holocaust survivors is no longer with us.

While the Museum’s doors have been closed to visitors during the coronavirus pandemic, the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, one of the largest and most diverse collections of Holocaust testimonies in the world, experienced one of its most productive years in 2020, conducting 181 remote interviews in Europe and the United States with survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust. In 2019, 148 interviews were conducted. The increase in interviews last year is attributed to expanded reach through virtual platforms, whereas previously most interviews were conducted in-person.

Lubcher Family in Vienna

One of the oral testimonies that the Museum recorded in 2018 was that of Frederick Lubcher, who passed away two years later on November 29, 2020. Lubcher was an attorney and retired partner and chair of the Trust and Estates department of Fried, Frank, Harris Shriver & Jacobson, LLP in New York – and he was also a child Holocaust survivor who went nearly his entire life without talking about his Holocaust experience – until he recorded his oral testimony with the Museum at the age of 87.

“He hardly spoke about what happened to him in the Holocaust – we never really knew until the Museum recorded his oral testimony,” said his son Jeremy Lubcher, who resides in Princeton, N.J., with his wife Amy. “I am so grateful my father recorded his experience because we not only learned so much that we would have never known, but we now have a living memorial of him and when I need my dad, I watch it.”

Jeremy, his brother Howard Lubcher, and their spouses and children are grateful to have their father’s and grandfather’s Holocaust survival story, and the specific details of how he escaped Nazism in Poland and Austria, forever preserved by the Museum and accessible on the Museum’s website as an educational resource, and evidence of Holocaust history.

Howard and his wife Mari Lubcher, of Armonk, N.Y., stated, “We are so incredibly proud of who our father was, and thankful to the Museum for preserving the memory of his struggles and accomplishments. We hope that in some way these oral testimonies will help keep the memories of the survivors, and the histories of their endurance and perseverance, alive.”

A private foundation just made a $250,000 gift to the Museum’s oral history archive to honor the memory of Lubcher, who was a longstanding trustee of the foundation, and Shirley Lubcher, his wife of beloved memory, who passed away two months after Frederick.

“I think it’s great that the foundation is making a gift in honor of my father and the oral testimony archives, which mean so much to me,” said Jeremy Lubcher. “If people start seeing these oral testimonies, they will have a better understanding of the Holocaust.”

To date, the Museum’s oral history archive contains more than 25,000 interviews produced and acquired from individuals, institutions and organizations.

“We know there are many others who can relate to the Lubcher family’s experience, and we hope that the Lubchers’ meaningful story will encourage others to contact the Museum to record their oral testimonies with the profound understanding of how precious time is,” said Andi Barchas, director of the Museum’s Northeast Regional Offic

About the Museum

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.

 

News Courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

 

Reception + Film: L’dor Vador, From Generation to Generation

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Date: Wednesday, June 13th
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Location: Mamaroneck Library
136 Prospect Ave
Mamaroneck, NY 10543

Free and open to the public

Please RSVP HERE

L’dor Vador is being presented by Seth Harrison, a photojournalist with The Journal News/Lohud. Harrison and his team created this film highlighting families of local Holocaust survivors as they discuss how a lifetime of hearing the experiences of their parents and grandparents has affected their own lives. An accompanying photo exhibit will be on display June 7- 30.

Jacob Breitstein, 93, and his daughter, Grace Bennett, 54, of Chappaqua, photographed April 25, 2015. Breitstein was 17 when he arrived at Auschwitz with his brother in 1943. His brother was killed a short time later; Breitstein remained there until the camp was liberated in 1945 at the end of World War II.                                                    Photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News
Helga Luden, 81, of New Rochelle, photographed May 11, 2015 with her daughter, Anita Greenwald, 57, of Armonk. A native of Germany, Luden was six years old when she crawled under a barbed-wire fence to escape the Nazi concentration camp in Gurs, France. She was rescued by French partisans and eventually reunited with her parents, who also survived concentration camps.  Photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News

 

 

Seth Harrison at Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester

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Seth Harrison’s L’Dor Vador will be aired on Sunday at Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester, I am moved and honored anew by this ‘worth a thousand words’ pic Seth Harrison took of me and my dad. If you haven’t had a chance to view L’Dor Vador, it is a series of interviews with survivors and their children (living in Westchester) and an exhibit of many such touching photographs of us.