With Passover coming up next month, it seems appropriate to revisit an important part of Jewish history, and also learn about exciting events that are currently happening in Israel.
Many Holocaust survivors have written about their experiences, but perhaps none quite so poignant as “All But My Life” by Gerda Weissman Klein. It is a memoir about inner strength and courage; WWII as seen through the eyes of a young Polish girl.
Gerda is plucked from her comfortable life in Bielsko; a slow journey into the depths of anguish that began in September of 1939. It’s amazing what she went through as a Jewish prisoner: backbreaking slave-camp labor, starvation, and a three-month death march in sub-freezing temperatures. Not only did she survive, she reached out to other women throughout their ordeal to lighten the load of their enslavement.
She was among the few women left in her group who were liberated by American soldiers in 1945. She was the sole survivor of her family, and grieved for her parents and older brother. The story ends well, though; one of the liberators was an American officer named Kurt Klein who would become her husband. Klein’s book was turned into an HBO special, “One Survivor Remembers,” that received an Oscar for Best Documentary-Short in 1996.
Besides first-hand accounts of the Holocaust, others like photojournalist Ruth Gruber documented the tragedy of Jewish oppression and slaughter during WWII. Gruber was born in Brooklyn in 1911 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. At the age of 19, she won a scholarship for graduate study in Germany, and personally experienced the rise of anti-semitism there when Hitler came to power.
As a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, she was the first foreign correspondent to go to Siberia and interview Jewish prisoners in Stalin’s Soviet Gulag. Now 102, there is an exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum celebrating her dedication in recording the experiences of Jewish refugees. “Ruth Gruber: Photojournalist” presents her documentary work spanning five decades.
Gruber fought for the citizenship of 1,000 Jewish refugees from Naples, Italy, who were granted permission to visit America by President Roosevelt. She personally accompanied them on the long voyage across the Atlantic. She wrote about their survival stories in “Haven, the Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees.” She continued as a foreign correspondent, with first-hand accounts of Jewish prisoners on Exodus during the trip back to Germany.
After marrying at the age of 40, she documented new waves of immigrants into Israel: Iraqis, Yemenites, Romanians, Russians and Ethiopians. She has received humanitarian awards, including the NA’AMAT Golda Meir Human Rights Award.
Another award-winning journalist advocates for the Jewish people today. Dr. Mike Evans is a minister and heads several prominent international nonprofit organizations in the U.S., Netherlands, and Israel. He has produced 18 documentaries, and has appeared on “Good Morning America” and headline news on all the major networks.
Evans founded the Jerusalem Prayer Team in 2002, and has been integral in the planning and execution of the Friends of Zion World Heritage Center.
“For the 30 days of April, I will be spending time in prayer and fasting each day for the financial miracle we need to complete Israel’s first Christian museum,” stated Evans.
The Center will employ cutting-edge technology, similar to the 9/11 Museum in New York, so visitors can record their own experiences of being blessed by Christians. Much like Israeli General Yossi Peled, whose life was saved by a courageous Christian family during the Holocaust. Peled is now the chairman of the Center’s board of trustees.
JPT is also reaching out to Holocaust survivors at the Jerusalem Community Center, where the hungry are fed, and food is bused to 2,000 Holocaust survivors in Haifa each week. The organization also refurbishes apartments for homeless Holocaust survivors. To help with this effort or for more information, visit http://jerusalemprayerteam.org.
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