Starlight that has shone upon our community for the past 68 years or so has not only begun to flicker, but slowly one by one the light of each star is disappearing.
Some among us are completely unaware, but those of us who are associated with Holocaust survivors understand that soon these amazing people will no longer be a part of us.
Holocaust educators and staff members of Holocaust museums and education centers have been aware of this eventuality for some time. Many have been making plans concerning how to perpetuate the history and lessons of the Holocaust once survivors are no longer able to tell their stories.
After all, teaching the numbers and statistics of the Holocaust is very cold. But when one person explains their own path of persecution to another person, a meaningful connection to the Holocaust and the humanity of its victims is developed.
In Milwaukee alone, the survivor speakers of the Speakers Bureau of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center (HERC) spoke to thousands of individuals just in the past year.
Every survivor who dies leaves a hole in the hearts of not only their family members, but also within those of us who are committed to transmitting their histories. Unfortunately, we are stricken with these empty gaps at an increasing pace.
Having served as the director of Wisconsin’s only Holocaust center, I must admit that one of these losses hit me particularly hard. This happened upon the passing of a particular survivor, Sylvia Blasberg, in October 2012 .
It wasn’t only that Sylvia was always emphatic that young people needed to know what happened to her and her family and the almost 6,000,000 European Jews who did not survive Nazi brutality and murderous policies.
Greatest fear
Like most Holocaust survivors, her greatest fear was that what happened to them would be swept under the rug. We had countless discussions during which I had to reassure her that the activities and programs HERC was developing and sponsoring were meaningful ones.
Sylvia was also a leader among the community of Eastern European Holocaust survivors. She exuded a love for her fellow survivors and their children, and maintained a passion for the culture of her and her family’s past.
Sylvia was born to a Jewish family in Lwow, Poland, in 1925. She was the oldest of four children.
In 1939, after the war broke out, Sylvia’s family moved to a small town to be close to her grandparents. One day when she was doing volunteer work with other teenagers on the outskirts of town, Russian soldiers took them away on trucks as the bombardment began.
She spent the next three years constantly moving through Russia to stay one step ahead of the advancing German army. Always terrified, Sylvia survived hard and dangerous work, starvation and harsh conditions.
In 1944, she returned to her hometown in Poland and learned that not one single member of her family had survived. Brokenhearted and alone, Sylvia met Harry Blasberg. They were married and lived in several D.P. camps until they were able to move to Milwaukee in 1949 and build new lives.
Sylvia and so many Milwaukee survivors are now gone and continue to be missed. It is important to remember them and to cherish each and every Holocaust survivor who still walks among us.
We need to continue to collect all of their stories, either in written or electronically recorded formats. Teachers need to be taught about the value of these stories so that they can help to connect their students to them.
It has been an honor and privilege to count many of these precious Holocaust survivors as colleagues in the quest to “Never Forget” and, more than that, as friends.
As I leave my position as the director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center after almost eight years, I know that the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and other community professionals will carry on this legacy of remembrance and help to move it forward.
I also hope that many others will join the effort to preserve the starlight that has shone in our community and make sure that we continue to bask in its brilliance.
Bonnie Shafrin in February retired as director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center.
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