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Left: Anneke Burke-Kooistra, whose parents hid
Jews during the Holocaust, speaks at the annual
Christian Holocaust Memorial Service at the
National Shrine of the Little Flower

Above: Esther Al. Posner of Southfield recounts her
experience as a hidden Jew during the Holocaust.

Below: Deacon Brian Carroll of St. Regis Catholic
Church, Bloomfield Hills, and Rev. William Stenke,
pastor, Hope Lutheran Church, Farmington Hills,
participate in some readings as part of the service.

XelftWtn:

Esther Posner hid in one
during the war years. She was'oten
o
alone and
frightened.
Beginning in 1943, when Posner was 6, she and
five family members spent one year hidden in a
home of a family whose two children were unaware
of their presence.
Posner, who now lives in Southfield, said her
father conducted regular drills to ensure they could
quickly pack up all their belongings and move
behind a false wall of a bookcase, to a cubbyhole
measuring only 2 by 8 feet. The drills ensured they
would never become vulnerable to the sudden and
pervasive searches by the Germans, Posner said.
In the spring or summer of 1944, Posner's father
determined that she would no longer remain hid-
den. She received a new identity and moved from
one home "to many, many homes, some with no
children, where I was not happy, to another home
owned by a school principal with six children,
where I was very happy."
Every Sunday, with the help of the underground's

3/15

2002

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tell my p*t.ts w
said. "But one time,
me, I broke down and to er
After the war, Posner Said, she learned that
she was one of only two students in her school
whose mother and father had both remained
alive." ❑

One of the children who had been hidden by
Anneke Burke-Kooistra's parents in the Netherlands
during World War II was Ellis Lehman-Cohen
Paraira, who now lives in Jeruslaem.
She remembers the daily meals prepared for 15
people, the washing of clothes and the secretive
admissions into the "front room" from the "back
room" after the Kooistra children were asleep each
night.

.

JILL DAVIDSON. SKLAR
Special to the Jewish News

n a tradition gaining community
acceptance, the Ecumenical Institute
for Jewish-Christian Studies hosted the
third annual Christian Holocaust
Remembrance Service on Sunday afternoon at
the National Shrine of the Little Flower
Catholic Church in Royal Oak.
The service, a.creation of the Southfield-
based institute, was founded in 2000 as a way
for Christians to acknowledge the losses that
occurred during the Holocaust and the lack
of action the Christian community took as
their Jewish neighbors were killed by the
Nazis.
"We started it simply because I felt that
there are issues that arise out of the Holocaust
that Christians need to deal with. Specifically,
[the church] did not stand up to Hitler and
his program of anti-Semitism and genocide,"
said David Blewett, institute director. "This
service sets in stark contrasts what some

