REFLECTIONS OF A SURVIVOR

Artwork by Michael Smuss

at

The Holocaust Memorial

Resource and Education Center of Florida

April 10-May 31, 2007

The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, 851 North Maitland Avenue, Maitland is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Reflections of a Survivor artwork by Michael Smuss on April 10, 2007. It will remain until May 31, 2007

Michael Smuss did not begin painting until 1995, when he was in his early 60’s, but his works still vividly reflect his experiences as an underground courier, weapons smuggler, and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. His highly detailed paintings are his eyewitness accounts of scenes from the War, many of which have not been commonly recounted.

His recollections often portray disturbing detail, with commentary and sometimes-critical indictment of the society that induced mass destruction. After decades of silence during which he barely ever mentioned his experience, Smuss began to paint scenes from the darkest areas of his memory, such as “The Day God was Absent,” “Fence of Life,” and “Mutzen Up,” all recounting concentration camp life and death, all in vivid color and compelling human figures.

Born in Danzig, Poland, Michael moved with his family to Lodz, Poland, in 1938. His work reflects his fond memories of those with whom he lived and faced death there. His work — indeed, his life — is a testament to the tenacity of life and strength of spirit. Michael Smuss has chosen to be defined neither by his victim hood nor his persecution. His work shows what is forever ingrained in his heart, his belief in the survival of the human spirit and the freedom of his soul.

Reflections of a Survivor is organized and circulated by the Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida.

This program is supported through generous grants from the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and the Darden Restaurants Foundation. This project is also funded by the United Arts of Central Florida. Inc, State of Florida, Department of State - Division of Cultural Affairs, Florida Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts.

Hours at the Center are Sunday 1pm to 4pm, Monday – Thursday 9am to 4pm, and Friday 9am to 1pm.

To schedule field trips for students or groups and for additional information call 407-628-0555.

Chief Rabbi at Funeral of Murdered Holocaust Survivor

By Hillel Fendel

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, visiting in Australia at the invitation of the local Jewish community, attended the funeral of an elderly Holocaust survivor who was inexplicably murdered in her home.

The 81-year-old widow, Katherine Schweitzer, was found brutally murdered outside her apartment last week. She was the only one of her family to survive the Nazi regime.

The last moments of her life, reported the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, “were cruel and abrupt, but a small measure of respect was returned to her today when Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger attended her funeral service.”

pictured: Hungarian Jews arriving at a Nazi concentration camp.

Rabbi Metzger had been invited by the Jewish community in Sydney to attend the dedication of a new Chabad yeshiva and to deliver several lectures. “I heard about this tragic case,” he said at the funeral, “and I changed my plans to come and give her the honor [due] a survivor of the Holocaust.”

He said that though she had no living relatives, “all the Jewish nation are her kids from today.”

The officiating rabbi, David Rogut, told the 80 people who gathered for the funeral, that “this senseless murder of a gentle, saintly and elderly person should never have happened… The truth is she leaves behind an entire city and country mourning for her tragic death, and honoring her for her outstanding life.”

Referring to this week’s Torah portion, he said, “The Book of Genesis concludes informing us of the passing away of Jacob and Joseph and that entire generation. But the Torah makes it clear that life goes on and that faith that links the generations one to another, breathes the life of the spirit into each succeeding generation…”

Police have no clue as to any motive for the murder, other than possibly a “thrill killing.” Mrs Schweitzer’s home was not ransacked, nothing was stolen and there was no sign of forced entry. Police know she had been in bed with the flu and waiting for a doctor to visit after phoning him in the afternoon. Her corpse was found a few hours later.

Katherine Go was born in Budapest in 1925, and spent her teen years working in the Hungarian resistance, hiding in the small Hungarian town of Vac forging birth certificates so that fellow Jews could escape the Nazi concentration camps. Her father and brother were poisoned with arsenic after being dragged from their home by German soldiers, and her mother and other siblings were also killed. In 1948, Katherine married Paul Schweitzer, and they later moved to Australia, where she worked as an accountant.

“She was a generous benefactor to many good causes,” Rabbi Rogut said.

Students seek 13 million pennies to honor Holocaust vicitms
The Associated Press
Published: January 1, 2007

AKRON, Ohio: Students in a Hebrew class are hoping to collect 13 million pennies — one for each person killed in the Holocaust.

Laura Hood, who teaches the class at Temple Israel, told the Akron Beacon Journal that the project will help students grasp the Holocaust’s. The 14 students have collected 65,000 pennies so far and are seeking donations from residents citywide.

“I want anyone who donates to hold a handful of pennies and imagine that they are holding the terrified hands of the humans who were marched into the gas chambers,” Hood told the newspaper.

Money raised in the effort will be donated to Temple Israel, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.

The project was inspired by a Tennessee school that set out in 1998 to collect 6 million paper clips — representing each Jew who died in the Holocaust — and received several times that number.
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The Tennessee students collected paper clips because they discovered that paper clips were invented by Norwegians, who wore them on their lapels as a silent protest against Nazi occupation during World War II.
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Bill to aid poor Holocaust survivors passes in committee
By RUTH EGLASH

A bill aimed at improving the status of Holocaust survivors passed its second and third readings on Monday at a session of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs.

The bill was submitted by MK Yuri Shtern (Israel Beiteinu).

“This law brings justice to needy Holocaust survivors in Israel and will provide them with an assured income,” commented committee chairman, MK Professor Michael Nudelman (Kadima).

“Our aim now is to bring it to the Knesset plenum Tuesday for a closing vote,” said a spokeswoman for Shtern following the meeting. “We hope that very soon this will be a new law in the State of Israel.”

Shtern’s representative added that the new law would become a reality as soon as July 1, 2007, providing many victims of Nazi atrocities living in Israel with a range of benefits to improve their daily living conditions.

The benefits package outlined in the new law includes an additional 10 percent in rental assistance from the Housing Ministry as well as priority status for public housing; an annual allowance of 15 percent of the average salary to be received each August; and a total exemption from the annual television license fee.

The additional income and tax exemptions will allow many elderly Holocaust survivors to live the last years of their lives in dignity, said Shtern’s spokeswoman. She said that a survey by the JDC-Brookdale Institute into the living conditions of the country’s Holocaust survivors found that more than 2,000 people, most of them over the age of 85, would benefit from the new law.

A 2005 study by the Fund for the Welfare of Holocaust Survivors in Israel found that more than 40% of Israel’s estimated 260,000 survivors live below the poverty line.

While the government of Israel provides NIS20 million for Holocaust survivors and the Claims Conference (the conference on material claims against Germany) a further $35 m., some Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel over the past 15 years from the former Soviet Union receive little or no social benefits