....11 family learned about the H eatherwood life-style... and now I'm living it!" p"My Survivors Are Planning First Return To Poland ALAN HITSKY ASSOCIATE EDITOR B Come in for a tour, have lunch with us & receive your complimentary gift basket! MONTHLY RENT • Meals served in our elegant dining room • Weekly housekeeping & linens • Cable TV accessible • 24-Hour emergency system • Library, game and card rooms INCLUDES: • Full activities program • Individually controlled heat & air • Scheduled transportation • Fully equipped kitchen • Putting green, walking trails • Beauty and barber salon /bC . 1- 6Ar17HERWOOD RETIREMENT COMMUNITY NO ENTRY FEES NO ENDOWMENTS r NAME ADDRESS STATE CITY L PHONE ( ZIP ) MAIL TO: 22800 Civic Ctr. Dr. Southfield, MI 48034 Or call (810) 350-1777 • Bloom co Bloom • • Registered Electrologists • Come and lefts remove your unwanted hair problem and improve your appearance. Near 12 Mile Rd. bet. Evergreen & Southfield 559-1969 Appt. Only. Ask For Shirlee or Debby DESIGNS UNLIMITED "THE FINEST IN CUSTOM CABINETS FOR HOME OR OFFICE" Because Of Your United Way Contribution, A Lot More People Can Read This. Showroom hours: Mon.-Fri. 11-5, Sat. 11-3 or by appointment. 624-7300 United Way endet Lewkowicz of South- field hasn't been back to Poland since the end of World War II. And for many years, the 71-year-old Holo- caust survivor had no desire to re- turn. Now, in part due to a trip to Poland and the Nazi death camps, sponsored by Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Michigan (CHAIM), that has changed. Mr. Lewkowicz will travel with his two sons in April on the CHAIM-sponsored visit to Prague, Cracow, Rzeszow, Lublin, Warsaw and Rome. The $2,100 tour has time built in to include the travelers' hometowns, the for- mer Jewish ghettos in major cities, as well as the Auschwitz- Birkenau, Majdanek and Tre- blinka death camps. - It was only in recent years that Mr. Lewkowicz began thinking about visiting his native Zdun- skawola, near Lodz in Poland. Al- though he and five sisters survived the Holocaust, he lost his parents, three brothers and other relatives to the Nazis. "But now I want to go back and see the streets where I walked as a young boy," he said. "I want to show my sons where I grew up." Mr. Lewkowicz is under no il- lusions. He doesn't expect to find people he knew. "The older peo- ple are no longer living and the younger people won't know me. There are not many Jewish peo- ple left there." The Nazis murdered more than 3 million of Poland's 3.5 mil- lion Jewish population. Commu- nist anti-Semitism after World War II forced most of the re- maining Jews to flee. The coun- try now has 3,500 Jewish citizens. Morry Levin, Jack, Bendet and Esther Lewkowicz. Mr. Lewkowicz was 16 in 1941 when he was taken by the Nazis. He was a slave laborer in a coal mine near Auschwitz, and also was sent to Buchenwald in Ger- many and to other camps. In 1946, while in a displaced persons camp in Germany, Mr. Lewkowicz found his sisters' names on a Red Cross list from Sweden. A friend of the sisters in Swe- den pretended she was his wife so that he could be reunited with them. The friend, Esther, and Mr. Lewkowicz later married. The couple moved to the United States from Sweden in 1954, and Mr. Lewkowicz worked here as a house painter. Their sons, Morry Levin of Farmington Hills and Jack Lewkowicz of Herndon, Va., are going to Poland with Mr. Lewkowicz. Esther Lewkowicz is not. "It's too hard physically and emotionally for my mother to go," Mr. Levin said. "But when CHAIM announced the trip, my father jumped at the opportuni- ty. This is where his parents died and many others in his family. "For myself, I have no ances- tors in the United States. I want to see how my father lived. I'd like to find a cemetery" where family members are buried. "I have no pictures," he said. Dr. Charles Slow, founder and president of CHAIM, conceived the trip, which was organized by CHAIM member Helen Cozzet- to of Mayfair Travel Service. Dr. Silow said time is getting short for many of the survivors. "Many have already passed away and some would never go back," he said. "But others see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." ❑ Et For information about the CHAIM trip, call Helen Cozzetto at Mayfair Travel, (800) 788-7633. When The Holocaust Becomes Humdrum DAVID ZEMAN STAFF WRITER 411 oshua Hearshen, a 17- year-old junior at Berkley High School, had grown impatient with the per- functory attention given to the Holocaust in school. As a sophomore last spring, he finally decided he had had enough after sitting through a history class in which students seemed distracted and even ap- peared to doze off during a lec- ture on the extermination of the Jews — a style of teaching Mr. Hearshen wryly refers to as "re- gurgitation education." So he approached a favorite teacher known for her uncon- ventional methods and offered this provocative proposal: allow him and his schoolmates to teach their own course on the Holocaust. "Students can teach students as well as teachers can teach students," Mr. Hearshen de- clared with characteristic brava- do. The teacher, Mary Jo Maples, recalls the sales pitch vividly.