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In a murder trial, the most valuable evidence is a credible eyewitness to the crime. Unfortunately, in less than 4 decades there will no longer be any living eyewitness to the harrowing, mechanized murder known as the Holocaust. There is a tremendous amount of documentary proof that tells the story of the systematic murder of 6 million Jews. Museums, textbooks, artifacts, and forensic evidence abound. No human evil has been researched and documented as thoroughly. Still, even with the tons of evidence, the true history of the Holocaust remains incomplete without the individual memory and testimony of the Holocaust survivor. A program was developed to secure a continuity of memory so that the personal horrors of the Holocaust will never be forgotten.

The “Adopt a Survivor” program by Irving Roth, Director, Holocaust Resource Center, instituted in 1998 is an attempt to capture and preserve the survivor’s experience. Students interact with survivors individually. Starting with his childhood, the survivor describes his parents, siblings, friends and teachers in prewar Europe. The journey continues through the war years and goes beyond liberation. The student learns of the survivor’s attitudes and feelings towards these events to understand precisely what the survivor experienced. Seeing and hearing an eyewitness makes history come alive. The events of the holocaust are no longer abstractions; rather they are the very real experiences of a very real human being. The successful student absorbs the survivor’s life, spirit and soul. He is able to retell the survivor’s story accurately and will do so for generations beyond the survivor’s life.

The Nita Lee Memorial Art project is part of a multifaceted program that resulted from the convergence of needs, desires and experiences in Holocaust education. It provides a concrete qualitative measure of the effectiveness of the “Adopt a Survivor Program”. The student’s artistic expression through graphic art, poetry and prose represent the student’s interpretation of the survivor’s experience. The creative process flows from the empathy and compassion the student nurtured from the special relationship he developed with the survivor. So far the program has met with great success and we hope that other Holocaust educational institutions will avail themselves of this powerful resource.

“ADOPT A SURVIVOR”
Extending the Life and Legacy of a Holocaust Survivor

By IRVING ROTH
DIRECTOR, HOLOCAUST RESOURCE CENTER
TEMPLE JUDEA OF MANHASSET

The objective of this program is to transfer the life experiences of a Holocaust survivor to a student by taking a joint journey through the life of a survivor. By this personal journey the student becomes one with a survivor absorbing his life, spirit and soul. He will be able to represent the survivor and tell his story with accuracy and feeling to any audience for at least another 50 years.

Value of Survivor Testimony in a Classroom:
History that is taught in a classroom environment is often presented as dates and locations of events and major figures that were the players involved in the events. While this is essential it does not provide a detailed portrayal of the conditions and circumstances of the people it affected. Modern technology, videos and CD’s are of great help in giving a dramatic visualization on the history of the Shoah as experienced by many survivors. However, producers and directors tend to give their interpretation of the event from their own perspective rather than an eyewitness account as the survivor remembers it and lived it.

Personal testimony by survivors has been extremely successful in transmitting and reinforcing Holocaust information to students. Seeing and hearing an eyewitness describe his experience makes history come alive. Students easily identify with a survivor and therefore with the Shoah itself. They have an opportunity to ask questions as to specifics of historical events intertwined with personal experiences over an extended period of time.

Unfortunately, Holocaust survivors are aging and dying and the availability of live eyewitness accounts are becoming less available and will not exist for future generations. In order to retain this personal testimony and memory, a program of “Adopting A Survivor” was implemented in ten schools in the last three years with high school, college and graduate students.

Program Implementation:
The program pairs a survivor with one, two or three students for an extended number of sessions (six to eight) where the students and survivor form an integral unit and absorb the totality of the survivors experience before, during and after the Holocaust.

To insure that the students absorb and digest the “total” survivor’s experiences the following topics, are minimums that must be covered in great detail:

• The history of the country where the survivor was born and lived
• The relationship between Jews and non-Jews in the 19th and 20th century up to W.W.II
• Life style of Jews in general and survivor’s family in particular
• Detailed knowledge of parents and grandparents, with specific anecdotes
• Religious, social, economic and educational life of Jews and non-Jews in community
• Details of life of survivor from earliest recollection to point of transition (1930s)
• Transition to 1945 (oppression, ghetto, hiding, concentration camps, partisan etc.)
• Liberation, return to home, DP camp, waiting to immigrate
• Life in the new land – housing, job, education, marriage, children
• Philosophy of life – relationship to others, prayer, religious observance, reconciliation

The student examines and absorbs the attitude, spirit and soul of the survivor. He becomes a biographer, an interpreter and the alter ego of the survivor. As he gains insight he will be able to represent the totality of the survivor’s experience with accuracy and feeling which he can then transmit today and fifty years from now to any audience. In effect, the specific survivor’s testimony becomes part of the student’s soul thus extending the testimony of the survivor for another 50 years.

The program has been implemented in areas where there are survivors available who can meet in person with students. For the past three years we have been conducting the program via Internet and video-conferencing. The results of the Internet/video-conference program has been extremely gratifying and successful.

Adopt a Survivor Program in Europe:
This program can be accomplished by inviting a survivor who once inhabited a particular city or town for 2 weeks. He would spend most of his time with students. During the whole period they would become familiar with every details of his experience before, during and after the Holocaust. They would absorb the survivor’s experience as well as spirit and soul. They could then be the spokespersons for the survivor now and for years to come.

This would also give the students an opportunity to see their town through the eyes of the survivor. The relationship of the students with a living survivor from their town would provide insight as well as a desire to probe and research into why the Jews are no longer living there and the contribution they made to their local environ. This experience would become part of their own history as well as the fabric of their town. The students will be able to hear a first hand testimony on the step-by-step process the survivor experienced from being part of the community, to being separated and shunned, to being evicted and taken to concentration camps and eventually immigrating to start a new life. They would be taking a journey through the survivor’s life and therefore represent him or her to their peers, parents, teachers and future generations.

Further information on the program can be obtained by contacting:

By E-mail: irving.roth1@verizon.net or IRoth@tjudea.net
By Fax: 516-621-4725
   
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