Child Survivors Group 29th Birthday

Thank you Viv, for your introduction, and devoted work. We’ve been going since early 1990, for 29 years. We were mainly in our 50s. Now we’re in our 80s. I’m not saying this to depress you, but to indicate how precious and rare we are. We are a miracle of survival. Less than 100,000 of us around the world, <6% of those born between 1930 and 1945. We estimate that we have about 500 child survivors in Melbourne, of whom 267 are registered in our group. What have we been doing? Our mission was expressed well by the mission of the World Federation of Jewish child survivors of the Holocaust

“We are the Jewish children of Europe persecuted during the Nazi era in ghettoes, in camps, in hiding, on the run or forced to leave Nazi occupied Europe. Our objectives are to keep alive the memory of 6 million Jews, including the 1 ½ million children, murdered during the Holocaust, and to pass on our legacy to future generations. We pursue these objectives by telling stories of our survival, community interaction, education and conferences.”

I would add, that as well as passing on our legacy and telling our stories, which we have done in an atmosphere of mutual trust, we have tried to understand our stories, heal each other, and extend our understanding to others. We have given pools of frozen greyness shape, time, and words. Memories begin with words. Let us speak, so others will not need to remember the unspeakable. We have imbibed the words of others. We were privileged to have the two discoverers of child survivors visit usSarah Moskovitz in 1993 and Judith Kestenberg in1995. We heard Hedi Fried from Sweden, Edith Eger and Ervin Staub from America, Diane Armstrong and Ruth Wainryb from Sydney, Mirka Mora from Melbourne. There were many others, these are a few to jog our memories.

We’ve had many workshops on topics like Arrival in Australia, Growing up in a survivor family, Differences between sibling survivors, Children surviving hurt, Children remembering hurt, Transgenerational transmission of trauma, The Psychology of perpetrators, the last workshop in August this year was on Intergenerational Trauma. We have been aware of second and third generation children.

We provided words to others in our 4 anthologies, in the many of our members’ autobiographies, film Breaking the Silence, SBS documentary, and many stories told to the press, Holocaust Centre and Shoah Foundation testimonies, our regular newsletters, researchers, some of us are guides in the museum, and others lecture to school children.

We have provided artistically through art workshops, Daniel Kogan Holocaust painting Eva Marks’s wall hanging displayed, last year a child survivor portrait exhibition We have maintained contact with our Sydney sibling group, and with the head body of child survivors in New York. We took part in the Claims Conference efforts for compensation, and we reached out to other traumatised children- Aboriginal, and those in migrant detention. Perhaps I’m idealising our achievements, but that is an old man’s privilege, especially at our annual party. In that vein I recall other parties, and our willingness to laugh as well as eat.

With regard to eating, several Jewish women are having lunch at a restaurant. The waiter sidles up over to the table and asks, “anything right?’

I am nostalgic too; being a member of our hard-working committee of many years Danny Gross, Eva Marks, Eva Balogh, Floris Kalman, Bernadette Gore, Frankie Paper, Arie Kalman, Paulette Goldberg. Eva Balogh and Arie Kalman are no longer with us, among others. We remember them. I would like to thank Viv Parry who organised this meeting and whose devotion keeps us going.

Oh, and we have a future. Those of you who will be alive in 2064 will be able to peer into our time capsule and remember our doings from 50-80 years ago!

Dr Paul Valent