When the California Assembly convened yesterday, all 80 Assembly members received a booklet with short biographies of 10 Holocaust survivors from the South Bay.
Compiled for the week of Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day that took place Tuesday, the booklet was initiated by Assemblymember Rebecca Cohn (D-Saratoga).
Calling the work a “labor of love,” she said, “There are so many survivors that are getting up there in age and may not be around much longer. I wanted to do my part in capturing their stories.”
But rather than have members of her staff interview survivors from her district, she turned for help to Jewish Family Service of the South Bay. The agency put her in touch with Helaine Green, teacher of “Generations to Generations,” a class for high-schoolers at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga.
Students from the class were matched up with 10 survivors — all of them members of the South Bay Holocaust Survivor’s Group — whom they interviewed, writing up excerpts of their stories.
“When it comes to meeting the person in person, the Holocaust takes on a different face,” said Green. “They learned a lot about hope and survival.”
They also spent several classes learning about art produced during the Holocaust, in many cases by children. After learning about it, they created their own.
The interviews were then compiled into a booklet, with the students’ artwork on the back.
Adam Cole, a junior at San Jose High Academy, had never met a survivor before.
He was matched with Chaja Ash Fuhrman, a Romanian survivor who was an actress in the Yiddish theater.
“I was a little nervous, but I’m pretty good at talking to people I don’t know so I was more excited than nervous,” said Cole of San Jose.
Cole said he was struck by the fact that “horrible things happened to her, but she could still smile and she just made it through. That kind of inspired me with my own life. As bad as things can be, they could never be as bad it was for her.”
Though Cole had visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and Yad Vashem in Israel, he felt his meeting Fuhrman was completely different.
“You can ask any question you want to, and that was really special and made it more personal and real,” he said. “Not that it hadn’t been real before, but this was just more so.”
Marni Swedroe, a junior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, had a similar experience.
The Saratoga resident interviewed Helena Smith of Los Gatos, a Czech-born woman, who doesn’t classify herself as a survivor since she was not in a concentration camp.
Nonetheless, Smith was in and out of several prisons, and was constantly on the run in various countries. She also was part of the underground and helped with the bombing of a bridge when Germans were crossing it.
Swedroe was struck by the fact that Smith didn’t consider herself a victim of the Holocaust. Nevertheless, hearing her story was profound.
“You take a good look around you and realize you’re so much better off,” she said. “It makes you really appreciate what you have.”
Green said that the connection between the students and the survivors will continue, with many of the students inviting the survivors to their homes for Shabbat dinner.
“I think they got that personal connection, as well as a better understanding of what it was like to live through it,” said Green. “And the connection with Rebecca was wonderful. She is a great role model and taught them a lot about leadership.”
On Thursday, Cohn was to distribute the booklets to every member of the state Assembly.
Cohn had already sponsored concurrent resolutions calling for the Assembly to observe Yom HaShoah and a week of remembrance. In fact, Gov. Gray Davis declared April 27 through May 4 “Days of Remembrance.”
Earlier in the week, Cohn said she would recommend that all members of the Assembly follow her lead and do the same project in their districts, “so that next year this booklet is substantially larger.”
“The project was worthwhile because the stories are so moving,” she said. “It’s different to comprehend that there are people in this society that went through these experiences, but it’s also important that people know they are very real and people don’t repeat the same mistakes.”
Last week, some of the students and survivors drove to Sacramento, and Cohn took Fuhrman on the floor of the Assembly.
Cohn also sponsored another resolution that was to be voted on Thursday, calling upon the International Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims to quickly pay survivors what they are due.
“This is not just a resolution about remembering the Holocaust and survivors but doing something about it,” said Cohn. “We need to remember the stories but we need to take care of the survivors too.”