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charleston jewish federation
May 2011 | Nissan 5771
REMEMBER PROGRAM FOR GENOCIDE AND HOLOCAUST EDUCATION
2011 Holocaust Creative Arts & Writing Competition
Charleston Jewish Federation Contributions In Honor Of:
Debbie Baker, a Speedy recovery: Janis & Kevin Ziman Terry Fisher, a Speedy recovery: Linda & David Cohen Edwin Pearlstine, Jr., a Speedy recovery: Linda & David Cohen Bubbles Ziman, a very Happy Birthday: Janis & Kevin Ziman Faye & Jack Brickman, Mazel Tov on your new home: Judi & Ted Corsaro; Jeffrey & Beth Buncher & family In Memory Of:
Mark Levine, beloved father & grandfather of Audry & Mark Mandel & family: Patricia & Paul Sykes Milton Hurtes: Virginia H. Rouse Above: Vivian Bui from West Ashley High School winning piece for Visual Arts.
PJ Library Fund
The REMEMBER Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education exhibited creative interpretations on the theme of “Resistance and Survival in the Holocaust” at the Charleston County Library during the month of April. We had 100 entries from area high school students. Their thoughtful expressions highlight the importance of remembering the Shoah and integrating the subject into the school curriculum. We are so grateful to Jerry Scheer, Mark Cumins, and TBonz Restaurant Group for sponsoring the competition. Jerry expressed the importance of studying the Holocaust: “I feel like to study the Holocaust is to be able to try to understand mankind’s collective potential for evil beyond anything we hopefully will ever experience, but also the study of triumph that we experience everyday when we see the daily contributions(medicine,art,technology) of a people that refused to let this atrocity define them as victims.” Thanks so much to TBonz and those who helped to organize the show, Denise Deveaux, Ruth Goldberg, Ruth Cox, and Jill Levy.
In Honor Of:
Mazel Tov to Samantha, Jason and big brother Harry Goldberg on the birth of Felix Reuben: Debbie, Greg & Truere Rothschild Mazel Tov to Marsha Kronick on being given BSBI Sisterhood’s 2011 A Woman Who Makes a Difference award: Rachel Kronick Rothbart Thank-You to Beth & Jeffrey Buncher for hosting CHAZA #143 at your beach house: Greg Rothschild & boys of AZA Special Thank-You to Mindy Odle for all she does in keeping BBYO on track: Greg Rothschild
Nat Shulman Endowment Fund In Honor Of:
Janet Kolender, a special Happy Birthday: Sydney & Billy Richman
Charleston’s Finest Catered Events • Bar/Bat Mitzvahs • Weddings • Kiddushes • Simchas of all sizes • Shiva Meals
Chef Marcie Rosenberg specializes in full service catering to meet all of your needs from an elegant Shabbat dinner to an elaborate affair with the utmost attention given to professionalism, creativity in menu planning and display, and delicious food.
Dining In, Inc.
CHARLESTON’S FINEST CATERED EVENTS
Chef Marcie Rosenberg
Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Weddings, Culinary Institue of America Graduate,Kiddushes 1987, and Experienced Kosher Caterer
(843) 763-8160 Simchas of all sizes (Simcha specialists) n
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Experienced Kosher Caterers since 1988 Creative and delicious
The REMEMBER Program for Holocaust & Genocide Education would like to thank everyone who attended the annual Yom HaShoah program on May 1, and especially thank our funders, who make Yom HaShoah and all REMEMBER events, possible. • The InterTech Group Foundation • The Jerry & Anita Zucker Family Endowment Fund • The Oscar & Mona Sokol Foundation • The Saul Alexander Foundation • The Sol & Celia Cohen Endowment Fund • The South Carolina Council on the Holocaust”
I Am Human Rebekah Thomas Winning Entry of 2011 Holocaust Creative Arts Competition
Mother says the smell isn’t that bad. I say when I wake up in the mornings and inhale, I want to throw up. A dumpster follows me around. That hole in the ground they call a bathroom gags me with every step I take closer. My friend Sara died last week. And she’s still in her barrack. They don’t do anything to dead bodies around here, except thirst for more corpses after one is present. Her festering body is a stake in my nostrils that reminds me of where I am. The smoke coming from the chimneys is a rank, putrid, degrading thing that stains my memory with the smell of flesh. Mother says to smell the flowers often to remind myself of fragrances of home. Except there are no flowers. And nothing could ever hide or cover the all encompassing stench of my people dying. So I meditate on the burn of my nose. Mother says the noises are hardly noticeable. I say the screams of the children are the worst. We all pretend we can’t hear the screeching voices and the banging on the doors and the shuffling of bodies and the yelling for help. But I can. Ever since they called us out of our barracks in the middle of the night for their sick and bestial pleasure, the sound of their voices makes fire run through my blood. It boils with remembrance of that night, of the screaming women, of the girls barely older than ten. The obnoxious and distinguishable sound of their voices makes me cringe. Mother says to sing songs and recite rhymes to fill our ears with the joys of childhood. But I choose instead to meditate on the sound of night, and the sound of morning, and the sound of dinner time, and the sound of children wailing, and the sound of separated families, and the sound of breathing in the night at the barracks, and the sound of the voices, and mostly the sound of their thick accents. To make sure I never forget. Mother says the food isn’t that bad. I say the crunch of rotting potatoes and the chalky horrid taste of mashed bread against the roof of my mouth would barely pass as a gift to a starving animal on the side of the road on whom you took pity. I think even a hungry mutt would turn away. I ruminate on the fact that there is no water to chase the taste away. I dwell on the rumble of my belly and the extra room in my clothes and the ache of hunger that gnaws at my very soul. I lie in my bed concentrating only on the displeasure of being so ill, and I cling to the moments I am so depraved I think I will faint, for those are the moments I am most aware of just how hungry I am. Mother says to have a tea party with our bread so the overwhelming taste of imaginary tea can wash away the potatoes that aren’t that bad anyway. But I focus on the filth, and rot, and portion size, and absolute grotesqueness of the awful excuse for food they give us. I replay the tastes in my mind as often as I can. Mother says if we pretend our work suits are dresses, we can be the real princesses of our cabin. I say the burlap bag they give me to wear rubs my skin raw. I crawl into the thorny satchel every night concentrating on the way each part of my body feels as it is poked and scratched to a pulp by the material. The biting, freezing, crippling air of February chomps at my skin as they whisk me to work in the early hours of the morning. My skin is frozen and dead. And I isolate the sensations in my head. The feel of dirt in the wounds of my shoeless feet is engrained in my brain. I’ve never been hit by a car, but it was the first thing I imagined when the cold, hard, swinging, iron hand of the solider met my face for the first time. At first my cheek feels of fire. The fire melts away for a while, then returns as an entire pulsing pain and throb over my entire face. I’ve studied this sensation. Mother says the mornings are refreshing. But I commit to memory the agony my young body feels at the close of each day. Mother says if we pretend, and we dream, and we look on the bright side, this will all seem less tragic. Less full of death. I am enraged. I am angry. I am hurting. And I want to remember every second of it. I know that feeling every pain at every moment keeps me alive. To recognize pain is to feel. To feel is to have emotion. And to have emotion is to be human. I am human. I am still a life worth living. I have value. And in my value, I resist. No matter how worthlessly they treat me, I am human. I have value. And they cannot steal that. As long as I feel pain, I feel alive. It is all committed to my memory, because if I never forget the pain, I can never be less than human. I am human. I have value. They beat me, and hate me. And as long as I’m enduring the pain, I am alive. And as long as I am alive, they have not won. As long as I am alive, I can resist. I am human. I am alive. I have value. I feel pain. I resist.