Yom HaShoah Holocaust Day of Remembrancenews.cypresscollege.edu/Documents/YomHaShoahProgram.pdfour beloved Jacob, Sarah’s Uncle. He was seventeen years old. Sarah was also sick,

Cypress College PondApril 26, 20177:00 - 8:30 PM

Out of the Darkness, We can all create Light

Yom HaShoah

Holocaust Day ofRemembrance

Cypress CollegeApril 26, 2017

7:00 - 8:30 p.m. - Cypress College Pond Area

Yom HaShoah exists as an annual memorial to over six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II. This evening, Cypress College pays respect to this Holocaust Day of Remembrance with a ceremony that promotes acceptance and

inclusion, diversity and justice, no matter one’s race, religion, color or creed.

Our tribute features an inspiring talk by Holocaust Survivor, Zenon Neumark, who will be joined by a specially composed musical presentation accompanying the haunting and spirit filled portraits of Survivors photographed by Cypress College Professor Clifford

Lester. At one time facing extermination, these survivors now express determination to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive. The portraits create an enduring voice for the survivors, a voice that speaks out against hatred, injustice, stereotypes, and anti-Semitism.

This message will be accentuated by Cypress College Dance students, who will present an original interpretive performance interconnected with music and photography.

Further heightening the impact of our event will be our candle lighting ceremony where those who survived will commemorate six million who did not. They will help us remember what no one should ever forget.

Program

Opening SpeakerProfessor David Halahmy

Moment of Silence

Dr. Holli Levitsky Loyola Marymount Director of Jewish Studies

Gerda Seifer - Holocaust Survivor

Dance to Survivors’ PortraitsMaha Afra, Dance Professor

Kati Angelov, Media Arts Design ProfessorMusic by: Gary Gopar Marcus McMillan

Zenon Neumark - Holocaust Survivor

Clifford Lester, Photography Professor

Musical CompositionMichel Klein, Gary Gopar, Marcus McMillan, Anthony Pena

Dr. Robert Simpson, Cypress College President

Kaddish PrayerRabbi Cohen

Lighting of Memorial Candles

Final Performance Shir La Shalom - A Song of Peace

Maha Afra, Dance Professor

I, Gerda Krebs-Seifer was born in Przemysl, south eastern Poland. I was an only child of Henryk and Edyta Krebs. In 1940 we moved to Lwow, to avoid being sent to Siberia. We lived under both German Russian occupation.

I spent several months in the Lwow Ghetto, 6 weeks hidden in a cellar, during a violent Akcjonen-round up in the summer of 1942. I lost my amazing mother during that roundup, while I was hidden in the cellar. My father desperately tried to save me. I then moved in with a Catholic family, acting as their illegitimate daughter, by taking the birth certificate of that child, who died in infancy. Out of about 40 relatives, there were only 2 survivors: a cousin 4 or 5 years older than I, and myself.

After the war I was lucky to go to England as a war orphan and join my relatives, who escaped in the nick of time from Munich. After learning enough English, I enrolled in Nurse training & became a State Registered Nurse in 1950. In 1951 I arrived in America, met my future husband at Mt. Sinai Hospital. We have lived in Long Beach CA. since 1951. We have 3 children and 4 grandchildren.

Gerda Seifer

I entered the German governmental school system in 1933, an interesting year for me. In January the Nazi party had become the majority in the Reichstag Parliament and Hitler had been appointed chancellor by the president.

To state that no anti-Semitism existed in my classroom would be false. The woman teacher, who proudly wore a Nazi party membership pin, took another Jewish boy and me and seated us apart from our classmates. During recesses and on our way to and from school, we were harassed, beaten, and sometimes cut.

My mom worked feverishly to obtain a transfer for me to a Jewish school, but it took about six months for that to be accomplished. I’m sure no kid felt as relieved as I did, on the first day at a new school.

My next upcoming “moment in the sun” was going to be my Bar Mitzvah. I had started studying, learning the many chants and prayers. All difficult stuff for a pre-teen to grasp. However, I wanted to do it well.

Relatives from all over Germany arrived the day prior. There were a total of fourteen. Jews were forbidden by then to stay in hotels so somehow my parents had to squeeze all visitors into their small apartment. Whoever was sufficiently fortunate to grab a blanket or bed sheet, and an unoccupied few inches on the floor, was considered fortunate.

The next morning turned out pretty dreadful for all of us. Most had not gotten any sleep, either attempting to rest on the wooden floor or standing in line to use the facilities. Anyhow, some sort of breakfast was prepared. When everyone was ready, we marched off to the synagogue.

My Synagogue was only about four blocks away. Imagine everyone’s dismay to discover, upon arriving there, that it had been occupied by an SS cavalry unit. Hay had been spread all over the ground, and horse manure covered much of the area. Obviously we could not enter, so teary eyed we returned to my parents’ home.

That was my first Bar Mitzvah.

My real Bar Mitzvah occurred several months later. The rabbi, who was supposed to preside at the original event, also served as spiritual advisor to a Berlin Jewish Hospital, arranged for the ceremony to take place at the hospital’s chapel. I recited the prayers, although being unable to read that week’s Torah portion. Thus, with no relatives present other than my parents, and in front of a few people sporting various illnesses, I became an adult Jew.

Harry Lester

Sarah B. Schweitz was born in Trikala, Greece in 1940 to Abraham and Alice Barouh. When the Italians invaded Greece, her father was drafted into the Army and sent to the Albanian Front. After a year the German Air Force came to Trikala and destroyed almost every building except

the Temple and some very nice homes that they intended for their use. Sarah’s childhood home was located next to the Temple, and it was spared. It was occupied by the Germans.

After the Germans arrived in Trikala food, medicines, and other necessities were hard to find. Travel was restricted. A Typhus epidemic broke out at that time and many people died including our beloved Jacob, Sarah’s Uncle. He was seventeen years old. Sarah was also sick, but survived. Sarah’s father was captured at that time and was sent to a Concentration Camp in another town in Greece with his co-workers from the Agrarian Bank of Greece. Sarah’s father was Vice President of the bank in Trikala.

On March 23, 1944 Abraham Barouh was released from the Concentration Camp and joined his family in Trikala. It was a happy reunion. On March 24, 1944 at 4:00am the Germans went to the Jewish Quarter in Trikala and captured everyone except those few who escaped. Sarah’s family escaped because of the kindness of a Righteous Gentile, George Kalogerometrou. Because of the courage and generosity of our friend George and the Greek farmers hospitality, Sarah’s family remained in hiding in the high mountains of Greece until the end of the war in 1945.

Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Sarah’s family lost fifty beloved members, her Grandfather, Great Grandmother, her mothers sister Jolie and three brothers, numerous cousins, aunts and uncles. Sarah’s father lost two married sisters together with their husbands, children and their extended families.

From 1945 to 1948 Civil War broke out in Greece. It was Greek against Greek. The Civil War brought a lot of pain and suffering to everyone in Greece. In 1948 the State of Israel was born. Sarah’s brother Matthew (Matias Barouh) was born in 1948. His birth was a blessing to the family. In 1952 a devastating earthquake destroyed Trikala. The United States Government allowed some victims of the earthquake to come to the United States. Sarah’s family decided to come for religious freedom. In 1956 Sarah and her family came to the United States and settled in Columbus, Ohio, home of The Ohio State University. Sarah graduated from High School in 1957. That same year, Sarah was a Freshman at Ohio State University. She took courses in science and liberal arts. She was seventeen years old. In 1962 Sarah graduated from Ohio State with a degree in Pharmacy. A month later she married Dr. Bert Schweitz a graduate from the Ohio State College of Medicine. A month later they arrived in Los Angeles so that Dr. Schweitz would start his graduate studies at UCLA in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Three years later he completed his Graduate Studies and also received a Masters Degree in Public Health and Hospital Administration.

The family moved to Anaheim, California with their two children David and Linda. They joined Temple Beth Emet and later moved to Tustin, California where they joined Temple Beth Shalom. Sarah continued working as a Pharmacist and joined Sisterhood, Choir and became Manager of the Gift Shop. She joined Jewish Organizations such as ORT, and Hadassah and was a volunteer in the Public Schools where her children attended. Sarah worked as a Pharmacist at UCLA and later in retail Pharmacy in Orange County. She has managed Dr. Schweitz’s

Medical Practice for the last forty years. David served in the Air Force for four years and attended Cal State Fullerton where he earned a Degree in Business Administration. Linda is an Attorney and a Psychologist. She and her husband David, an Attorney, have three daughters.

Sarah has committed herself to working so that the memory and legacy of the precious human lives lost in the Holocaust will not be forgotten. She lectures to students as well as different organizations to help overcome intolerance, indifference, through learning and remembrance.

Sarah B. Scheitz

Holocaust survivor Zenon Neumark avoided the horrors of the death camps by escaping from a Nazi Labor Camp and then living and working in Warsaw and Vienna as a fugitive under a false identity as a Catholic Pole. To share his unique story, he authored a book, Hiding in the Open.

“Such a life was not easy. Each day as a fugitive presented the risk of being discovered and killed,” Neumark says.

He credits his survival to some daring and some luck, but mostly, to the help he received from many righteous people: Poles, Jews, and even some Germans. “In occupied Europe, especially in Poland, anyone caught helping a Jew with lodging, food, or work could be killed on the spot,” says Neumark. Thus, he is forever grateful to those who risked their own lives to save him as well as thousands of others. He refers to them as the true heroes of the Holocaust.

Zenon is a quiet and gracious man who is very thankful for the many successes he has had in his life. In particular, he feels gratified not only for his own survival, but also for the opportunities he has had to help others survive.

Zenon Neumark

Piri KatzPiri Gross Katz, a Holocaust survivor, was born November 18, 1927 in Tibiva, Czechoslovakia, a small town in the Carpathian Mountains. She was the seventh of 11 children, the daughter of Volf Hersh and Chaya Blima Gross, orthodox Jews who owned acres of orchards and land, and two mills.

In 1943, at age 15, she was taken to the Munkatch ghetto, during Pesach, and later was in the camps of Auschwitz, Geislingen, and sent to Dachau, where she was liberated by the Americans in May 1945. After the war, she was in a Russian prison for having more than one passport in her possession, and later was in displaced persons camps in Germany for two years before coming to the United States of America to her sister Roselyn and brother Sydney in Detroit, Michigan in November 1949. She went to night school in Detroit to learn English, worked as a seamstress making drapes, and later met the love of her life, her husband, Dr. Milton Katz. They were married in June 1956, and moved to California living in Merced, Torrance, and settling in the tract of Rossmoor in Los Alamitos, in November 1960. Milton was Chief of Staff at several hospitals and had a private practice. He was killed in an airplane crash in August 1968.

Piri and Milton spent years trying to bring Piri’s brother Zalman, sisters Sheindl, Ruchel and their families from behind the Iron Curtain to America. After Milton’s death, Piri continued in her efforts, and the families arrived in the United States in the early 1970s. Piri helped all of her family for years when they came to this country. Piri was a homemaker and was left to raise her and Milton’s four daughters, Cherol, Randi, Simone, and Michele. She took some real estate classes at Cypress College, hoping to get her real estate license, but had to drop out. Unfortunately, she needed to work to support her family, and owned a small old age home with her sister, Sheindl where they cooked, cleaned, bathed and took care of a dozen elderly people in a kosher home in Los Angeles, California.

Piri worked tirelessly to put her children through college and graduate school. Cherol, an alumnus of Cypress College is a Professor/Attorney at Law, Randi is a cosmetics account executive, Simone has her Masters in Public health, and Michele has her MBA. Piri has eight grandchildren, Cherol”s son Mitchel (in high school); Simone’s 4 children, Malcolm (in law school) Mori (graduating dental school); Joshua (in law school) Darci (in college); Michele’s 3 children Ellie( in high school) Sophie (in high School) and Noah (a Bar Mitzvah and in Middle School).

Piri will be 90 years old on November 18, 2017. She continues to speak to young people about the Holocaust, and hopes that children will appreciate freedom, and be tolerant of others regardless of their race or religious beliefs. She continues to go to synagogue, is a staunch supporter of the State of Israel, and is thankful and proud to be an American.