Six Survivors Share Lessons of the Holocaust at Joint 100th Birthday Party

MIAMI (VINnews)- It was a 100th birthday celebration like no other, with six Florida survivors discussing how they managed to evade death during the Holocaust, and describing the lives they built after living through the ultimate horror.

CBS News (cbsn.ws/44XaG85) reported that Helen Diker, Lucy Blicker and Chaim Greenberg commemorated their 101st birthdays at Goodman Jewish Family Services in Broward County, while Elaine Lefkowitz, David Sroka and Rena Reiter, the babies of the bunch, marked their 100th birthdays.

A Facebook post by Jewish Family Services said the July 26th party was a testament to the resilient spirit of the honorees, who combined ages totaled 603.

Each of the survivors had a chance to share their stories, their personal histories providing a very real lesson of strength and resilience for the future.

Reiter remembered being pushed off the cattle car that brought her to Auschwitz in 1944, and watching as the young, healthy people were sent in one direction, while the elderly and children were directed to the other side.

“Never see them again,” said Retier, who was ultimately sent on a death march in Ravensbruck until she was liberated in Hungary by American troops. “Children, never. Gone.”

Asher Weissman described how his mother Lucy Blicker was put to work after the Nazis invaded her home town in Poland.

She spent more than three years in Auschwitz, and instead of being killed when she tried to escape the death camp, Nazi soldiers forced her to entertain them by singing. While she and her sister survived the war, the rest of her family wasn’t as lucky.

“They took her mother and put her in the chambers, the gas chambers, same for her father, same for other members of her family,” said Weissman.

With hate crimes becoming more prevalent, Randy Colman of Jewish Family Services emphasized the importance of hearing from survivors, especially now that fewer than 50,000 remain.

Lefkowitz, who escaped a death march and spent the war years in hiding in Czechoslovakia until she was liberated in 1946, recalled an important lesson her father shared with her before he was killed by the Nazis, words she has tried to live by in the many decades that have passed.

“Do your good deeds today because you don’t know what tomorrow brings and live as though you will live forever,’” said Lefkowitz.