Remembering the horrors of the Holocaust

Central Synagogue marked a solemn Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, on April 15, with prayers, songs and speeches from the adult children of Holocaust survivors.

The three main speakers, all congregants at local temples, spoke about how the atrocities that happened to their parents echoed through their own lives. The temple had the children of survivors speak because as the survivors age, it becomes the responsibility of their children and grandchildren to tell their stories.

The first speaker, Joanne Lewin-Jacus, is a chef who teaches pastry classes at CUNY City Tech and a congregant of Temple Am Echad in Lynbrook. Her parents both had to leave Germany at the age of 13. Her mother fled to the United Kingdom on the Kindertransport, a rescue effort that brought Jewish children out of Germany, while her father was in concentration camps for two years.

Lewin-Jacus spent some time working as a chef in Germany in the 1980s. While her parents were wary, they encouraged her to learn all she could in Germany. When they visited her, she said they “found a different Germany and kept their Jewishness and past experiences quiet on the backburner.”

She also spoke of attending High Holidays service in Germany with her mother, visiting her uncle’s grave in East Berlin and the fear that made her keep her sometimes keep her faith a secret.

“I realized the profound impact of my parents experiences when I looked at my son sleeping in his crib and felt a strong primal need to get him a passport as soon as possible,” Lewin-Jacus said. “Just in case we ever needed to leave in a hurry. The Holocaust took a toll on our family and our faith, but it made us a strong, close-knit, albeit small family.”

Next to speak was Martin Schepsman of Congregation Beth Emeth. His Polish parents were in concentration camps in their late teens and early twenties. His father lost all of his nine siblings, while his mother lost eight of her 11 siblings. Three sisters survived.