JULY 6 • 2023 | 23

ing its 60th anniversary this year, with 2022 
marking the 80th anniversary of Czech Jews 
first working to preserve their Torah scrolls. 
Currently, there are 1,400 scrolls in circula-
tion, Roman said, with the collection dating 
from the 1200s to the early 20th century.
“
All of the scrolls you see here today have 
this shared legacy, but each has a unique 
backstory, written for a specific Jewish com-
munity in a small town or a large city that 
was lost in the Shoah,
” she said. “Today is 
not just a reunion of Torah scrolls — it is 
a commemoration of dozens of lost Jewish 
communities that were vibrant and active 
before the Holocaust.
”

TELLING THE STORIES
Asking who would tell the story of the 
Holocaust to future generations as more 
first-hand survivors pass away, Roman said 
current generations must continue telling 
the story of “the biggest tragedy of the 
Jewish people of our time.
”
“We have an obligation to retell the story 
in the same way we retell the Passover story,
” 
she said. “We have an opportunity to use 
these scrolls, which are themselves, survivors 
of the Shoah, to teach future generations.
”
During Cole’s talk, he spoke of how 
Nazi ideology categorized Jews as “culture 
destroyers,
” which served as motivation for 
the widespread theft of everyday Jewish 
items and religious artifacts. Using Jews 
only for what they were deemed useful for, 

Cole said item and property theft can be 
described in three phases — street level, 
state/national level and generalized wartime 
plunder as a way to further economically 
impoverish Jews.
Cole also referenced the proposed 
Furhermuseum, an unrealized art museum 
within a cultural complex planned by Adolf 
Hitler for his hometown of Linz, Austria, 
which would’ve been a display of art bought, 
stolen or confiscated by Nazis from through-
out Europe during World War II. 
“While the Nazis wanted to eradicate 
Jews and Jewish culture from the face of the 
earth, what we’re experiencing and what 
we’re seeing right now is maybe the best 
antidote to that,
” he said. “This is what we 
see as a success. History was not changed. 
The narrative was not ultimately changed. 
We see millions of dollars of artifacts still 
missing, but we’re slowly finding the rightful 
owners and giving them this stuff back … 
This thriving Jewish life, both in the United 
States and around the world, is the last great 
testament.
”
Holocaust survivor Erika Gold of 
Beachwood also detailed her survival of 
the Holocaust as a young girl in Hungary. 
Born in Budapest in 1932, she was only 5 
months old when Hitler rose to power in 
Germany. She recalled wearing a yellow star 
on her clothes, the confiscation of their fam-
ily home and non-Jewish housekeeper, her 
father losing the family business and being 

sent to a labor camp, and her and her moth-
er’s lives, living and working in a factory that 
made military uniforms. After being taken 
with 300 other women and children from 
the factory by Nazis, Gold said she and her 
mother jumped from the transport vehicle 
and ran, and were then hidden by their 
former housekeeper and her daughter for 
several months.
After the Soviet Union liberated Hungary, 
Gold and her mother were reunited with 
her father and eventually traveled to Cuba 
in 1948. They made it to the United States in 
1950, eventually settling in Cleveland.
“If anyone found out she saved us, all four 
of us would’ve been shot,
” Gold said of the 
former family housekeeper that hid them in 
her apartment. 
Upon their return to their Budapest apart-
ment, she said there was no gas, water or 
electricity, but “we were free.
” 

This article first appeared in the Cleveland Jewish News 

and cjn.org. Reprinted with permission.

ABOVE, L TO R: Holocaust survivor Erika Gold details her experiences as a child survivor 
of the Holocaust. The Temple member Ed Magiste, who also spearheaded the Torah scroll 
reunion and celebration, reads from one of The Temple’s scrolls alongside The Temple’s 
Rabbi Jonathan Cohen. RIGHT: Cleveland State University professor Mark Cole delivers 
a lecture about “Aryanization and Plunder,” discussing widespread theft of both everyday 
and high-value items from Jews throughout the Holocaust.

CLEVELAND JEWISH NEWS/CJN.ORG

