jews d
on the cover
in
the
A Caring
Community
Program for Holocaust Survivors
and Families marks 25 years by
honoring founder, Dr. Charles Silow.
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS
ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ABOVE: Dr. Charles Silow, center, with local survivors Ernie
Kappel and Abram Shain at a recent Café Europa event at
Prentis Jewish Senior Life Apartments in Oak Park.
I
’m from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.”
That was Dr. Charles “Charley” Silow’s
tongue-in-cheek greeting to Ben and Ida
Moskowitz. The couple had arrived for the
February edition of Café Europa at Prentis
Jewish Senior Life (JSL) Apartments in Oak Park.
“So am I,” said a smiling Ben. He appeared
to be enjoying an exchange he’d had before
with Silow, founding director of Program for
Holocaust Survivors and Families (PHSF). It’s a
service of JSL, based in West Bloomfield.
Café Europa is among the activities PHSF
brings to Holocaust survivors living in Metro
Detroit. Risa Berris of Jewish Family Service
estimates their number at between 650 and 750,
including about 350 Russian-speaking “child”
survivors.
“They fled Nazi-occupied areas and went with
their families to the East to get away from the
Germans,” Silow explained.
The Moskowitzes and other survivors look
forward to Café Europa, lively parties offering
them entertainment, refreshments and social-
izing with friends.
“I was clapping the whole time,” survivor
Nancy Fordonski said about music provided by
Russian keyboardist Yuri Avenasov. “The musi-
cian was terrific — out of this world!”
On March 19, Jewish Senior Life will honor
Silow and celebrate the program he started 25
years ago to support Holocaust survivors. The
Concert of Hope & Unity, an annual fundraiser
for PHSF, begins at 7 p.m. in the DIA’s Detroit
Film Theater.
SILOW’S EARLY LIFE
An only child born in Brussels, Silow, 68, grew
up “always aware of and recognizing the pain of
my parents.”
His mother, Sara Parzenczewska Silow, sur-
vived the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-
Belsen concentration camps. Sara, who died
in 2008, lost everyone except a great-aunt by
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March 15 • 2018
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