Getting together with other Holocaust survivors once a month is one of the highlights of Helen Weingarten’s life.
“It’s a time when you meet old friends and make new ones,” says Weingarten, a survivor of the notorious Auschwitz death camp in Poland. “We have a good time.”
She’s one of perhaps 250 Holocaust survivors who live in the Atlanta area, and one of 40 or so who attend monthly luncheons of Café Europa at Beth Jacob Synagogue in the Toco Hills area.
They are treated to a catered lunch and entertainment under the auspices of Jewish Family and Career Services, an organization that provides health, career and human services to people of all faiths, cultures and lifestyles.
But Café Europa, which is for Holocaust survivors, provides something that may be more important — camaraderie, a chance to meet others who lived through Nazi horrors that resulted in the murder of some six million Jews. The survivors are volunteers, too, because they show up to share.
Amy Neuman is program manager for Holocaust Survivor Services, and Café Europa is seen as a heroic undertaking by Weingarten and other regulars. “They make you feel you are somebody, you are important,” she says.
Neuman and her staff provide all sorts of help, such as advice about medical, health and financial issues.
“We all wear multiple hats,” Neuman says. “We provide social outlets and help them live independently. There can be a sense of isolation, because only other Holocaust survivors know what people went through in the camps.”
Café Europa is financed by funds from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany due to the efforts of survivor Herbert Kohn, 85, of Atlanta. He escaped Germany in 1939, came to the U.S., joined the Army and went back to fight.
“I’m on the committee that helps oversee the activities that help Holocaust survivors,” he says. “I’ve been involved for 35 years.”
He says Neuman and her team have their hands full to track and find, survivors, whose numbers are dwindling fast. Survivors receive help, and JFCS helps some cut through red tape so some can receive funds from Germany.
But most, like Weingarten, who entered Auschwitz in 1944, married and built successful lives in the United States. Her mother, father, brother, a sister and other relatives died in Auschwitz.
At the monthly meetings, she says, most people don’t discuss the past.
“You can’t live in a hole,” she says. “You have to crawl out.”
She has a daughter who lives in the Atlanta area and a son, born in Germany, who lives in Florida, plus three grandchildren and “one itsy-bitsy great-granddaughter.”
She credits Neuman and her personal caseworker, Anat Granath, for making sure all her needs are met.
“We try to address all of the needs — social, emotional, physical and in some cases financial, to give them a good quality of life,” says Neuman, who stresses that “what we do is a team effort. We feel very strongly about helping the survivors in our community and we are always trying to reach out to make sure that survivors and their children and grandchildren know about our services.”
Kohn says “Café Europa is a very important piece of keeping survivors mentally healthy. Our message is, ‘not to be bystanders’ because people can learn from the Holocaust. We cry and hug together. This is good.”
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