The 27th of Nisan (May 2) marks Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In a package of stories running throughout this issue, we talk to survivors, preview
commemorative events and provide an overview of related cultural offerings.
"They listened, they cried and
they ran after me. Then I decided
it was time for me to do some-
thing."
She began to tell her story to
anyone who would listen.
"At first, perhaps, it was a
catharsis emotionally," she said,
"but little by little, I felt almost a
duty to my mother and to all 86
members of my family who died.
And I've been doing it ever since."
Elizabeth, in 1969. He worked as
an interpreter for the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society in Rome
for 1'/2 years, before his sister and
family who had come here before
the war, helped him immigrate to
the United States in March 1971.
Judikovic, 80, has addressed
school groups with his story; he
began speaking at the Holocaust
Memorial Center only two
months ago.
"In one way, it's hard. At one
time during my speech the other
day, I had to stop. But in the end,
when I finish, it makes me a good
feeling," he said. "It's very impor-
tant for survivors to talk. Because
from my experience, when they
hear from me and others, it's a les-
son and will remind them that it
really happened. When they read
about Holocaust deniers, they will
know it's not true because they
have heard from living persons.
"God was holding his hand
over me through the war, and
through 20 years in a communist
country," he said. "As a partisan, I
was in danger every hour. I want
to give back a little to my religion
and to God."
Persuasive Docent
Mike Judikovic of Southfield said
a fellow Adat Shalom member
who was a docent at the
Holocaust Memorial Center in
West Bloomfield convinced him to
start talking about his experiences
living under an assumed Christian
identity in Slovakia.
Coming from an extended fam-
ily of 40, Judikovic lost his par-
ents, brother, sister and her family
— a husband and two small 'chil-
dren.
Brought up religious, he went
to cheder for eight years.
He worked in a Slovakian labor
camp from 1940-1942, and when
his brother was sent to the
Auschwitz German killing center
in Poland, Judikovic and his fami-
ly went into hiding.
When the German front was
approaching Slovakia from
Ukraine, they tried to escape to
Hungary. Within two years, his
younger sister was sent to the
camps.
In 19445 his father bought ille-
gal papers and registered the
remaining family members — his
mother and sister — under
assumed identities.
"My name was Juraj Banko," he
said.
When his father was caught and
sent to Auschwitz, Judikovic then
became a partisan in the Slovakian
underground.
He lived under communism in
Czechoslovakia after the war
before escaping with his wife,
Bearing Witness
Top to bottom:
Anne Eisenberg, Erna
Gorman and Mike Judicovw.
Opposite page, top to bottom:
Concentration camp uniform,
a woman's shoe and a siddur
used secretly in Auschwitz.
Anne Eisenberg of Farmington
talks about her Holocaust experi-
ence because she believes she and
other survivors must "bear wit-
ness."
"There is so much talk about
that it never happened," said
Eisenberg, who. has told her story
for 20 years. "We have to talk
about it and persuade people."
She began to talk at her chil-
dren's school, but said she has
always talked about her experi-
ences with other survivors.
"When I get together with my
friends, somehow the subject seems
to find itself," she said.
Eisenberg was born in
Czechoslovakia to a religious fami-
ly of eight children. The family
moved to Romania before the war.
In 1941, Hungary occupied Romania, and
made a pact with Germany. Her father and two
brothers went into forced labor, and the family
house was taken over by Hungarian officers and
then the Germans.
"Right before Pesach, we were gathered and
taken to Auschwitz," she said. "We were separated,
but after a few days, I found my sister. We were
like Siamese twins after that."
After six weeks, Eisenberg and her sister were
sent into a small town in Germany to clean up
and rebuild a bombed-out oil refinery.
"On a Monday, the factory opened and on
Monday night we started to get bombed by the
Allies," she said. Though their tent was surround-
ed by barbed wire, "we started to run into the
fields, and 500 girls died, and lots more were
wounded."
Eisenberg's story moves along from one work-
place to another, all filled with slave labor condi-
tions, little food and clothing, regular beatings - by
Nazis, but always she was together with her sister.
At the close of the war, she found herself on a
death march after an allied bombing destroyed the
WITNESS on page 20
he 1-folocaust Meniorial Center will tf,
remember the six million Jews who
died in the Holocaust and Israel's
victims of terrorism during the communi-
ty's annual Holocaust commemoration.
The program for Yoni HaShoah begins at 1
p.m. Sunday, April 30, at Congregation
B'nai Moshe in West 13loomfield, followed
by a prayer service and ceremonial candle
lighting at the eternal flame inside the
Holocaust Meniorial Center, adjacent to
the Jewish Cominunity Center. -A. -,,,-,,
This year's memorial academy mar
55th anniversary of the end of the
Holocaust and the 57th anniversary of the
Warsaw Ghetto uprising. U.S. armed ser-
vice units, representing Selfridge Air
National Guard Base under the command
of Brigadier General Thomas Cutler, will
participate in commemorating the libera-
tion of the concentration camps. All four
branches of the service will join the memo-
rial academy, whose committee chairmen
are Saul Waldman and Salan Zekelman.
The program will begin with a candle-
lighting ceremony conducted by Holocaust
survivors and children of Holocaust sin-
HOWCAUST on page 21
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4/28
2000
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