U saradnji sa našim “Partneri u Caringu” program koji finansira UJA-Federacija New Yorka, Y će sadržavati intervjue sa šest lokalnih preživjelih kako bi bolje razumjeli priču svakog pojedinca. Ovi intervjui će biti izloženi u galeriji Hebrew Tabernacle “Doživljavanje vremena rata i dalje: Portreti nadahnutih preživjelih u holokaustu”. Galerija će biti otvorena u petak 8. novembra.
Hannah Eisner worked at the Y for 18 godine, as an office manager for Project Hope and then as a program director in the senior center. She retired in 1987, but currently is the chair of the chesed committee, attends the Partner in Caring weekly discussion group, and on occasion teaches an origami class here at the Y once a week.
Hannah Eisner(skulptura Petera Bulowa: www.peterbulow.com)
Hannah Eisner was born in Offenbach, Germany on November 12, 1924. She grew up in Offenbach with both of her parents. Her father worked as the vice president of a Jewish owned private bank and her mother was a stay at home mom. After 1934, Jewish children were not allowed to go to public schools, so they were taught by the Jewish teachers who were also not welcome in public schools. This is how the Jewish school in Offenbach came about. Hannah describes, “I did not feel so deprived. We had our own community.” She remembers that Jews were not allowed to go anywhere in town. There were signs outside movie theaters and businesses that said “Jews not wanted.” She explained the treatment of the Jews: “they were treated like nothings. Like vermin.”
Before Kristallnacht, the super intendant of the building that Hannah’s dad worked in asked him for a favor, which Hannah’s father was able to help with. , Hannah and her parents believe that the reason that her father was not taken to a concentration camp and that her apartment was not demolished was because the super intendant paid this favor back. He protected Hannah’s family. Hannah recalls, “I felt almost embarrassed when everyone else’s father was taken, but he was safe. Still, whenever the doorbell rang, one was afraid one would be taken away. One lived in utter fear.” Hannah remembers mostly how much fear she and her family lived in. She states that there was no justice for Jews.
There was a small Jewish population in Offenbach, and during Kristallnacht, almost all of the apartments were ransacked and the synagogue was set on fire. After Kristallnacht, Hannah remembers the devastation that took place and how it affected her and her community. She remembers getting ready to go to school the next day and being told by one of her classmates to go home because there is no school left. Later on, she and one of her friends walked to the school, “we looked into the broken windows, we saw it all black and burned.” Jewish businesses were greatly affected. Their stores were empty, and no gentile dared to go in. She also describes that her father was pushed out of his position at the bank as the bank was taken over by someone else who was not Jewish. “After Kristallnacht, we knew we had to get out if we could.”
After the events of Kristallnacht, Hannah and her family waited their number to be called in order to come to America. She feared that their number would not be called because the American consulate closed over the summer; however, their number was called before the consulate closed. While waiting for their number to get called, Hannah and her family prepared for their journey by taking the little money that they had left and buying clothes so that when they reached America, they would have clothes and shoes. Hannah remembers that each day she waited to leave for America, she watched as the Jewish community shrunk.
One of Hannah’s most vivid memories involves her friend Lisel Strauss. When one would receive an affidavit to leave the country, often times the affidavit was not big enough to cover the whole family. The Strauss family did not have an affidavit that would cover all four of them. So the family split up. The father and younger sister, Ellen, went to American first. Lisel and her mother stayed behind with the hope that the father would soon be able to get an affidavit for the two of them. But Lisel and her mother never got out. Ellen married a man who was in the leather business, specifically handbags. The handbags that they made were called the Lisette, which was named after Lisel. (Hannah still has her original handbag, na slici iznad).
Many of Hannah’s relatives perished in Nazi death camps. She had a cousin who was imprisoned in one of the camps. Her cousin found a boyfriend at the camp. The boyfriend had an opportunity to leave the camp, but he decided to stay with Hannah’s cousin. They both ended up being murdered in the camp together.
The Eisner’s came to America in April 1939. Hannah had relatives in New York who rented a room for her family for a short period of time. She remembers, “to my surprise, the freedom here, the abundance…after relatives had picked us up, they rented a room for us until our few belongings did come…they wanted me to buy things in the grocery store. So with my best English I went down and I said ‘can I have an egg or two?’ They said ‘what? Why don’t you take a dozen?’ These were the surprises of an immigrant.” Hannah’s family would rent five bedroom apartments, which was bigger than what they needed in order to rent out rooms to other refugees who could not afford their own apartments. Hannah remembers, “I never had a room of my own. For a long, long time because we rented out two rooms. But I’m glad to be alive.” When they first arrived, Hannah’s father took a job as a door-to-door salesman. This was a tremendous step down from his position at the bank, but it was the only work he was able to get. Eventually, he was fortunate enough to get a job as a shipping clerk. Hannah’s mother worked very little from home; she stitched slippers together.
Hannah was 14 years old when she came to America. She attended junior high school and then George Washington High School. She was a bright student, but did not want to go to college because she would have to go to classes a night. After graduation, Hannah worked as a billing clerk in a slipper manufacturer.
Living through the devastation of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust affected Hannah in many ways throughout her life, but especially when it came to raising her children. She explains, “I was stricter with them because I felt that the others were killed and we survived so [my children] shouldn’t be so silly. So I was stricter on my boys, which I regret now.”
“Hitler made me proud to be a Jew. Hitler made me Jewish.” Hannah was married in 1950 to an Austrian man that she met in America. She has two sons and three grandchildren. Her middle grandson was just accepted into the Israeli Army. She is tremendously proud ofhim.
Ovaj intervju je vodila Halley Goldberg iz Y's Partners in Caring inicijative i pripada YM&YWHA iz Washington Heightsa i Inwooda. Upotreba ovog materijala bez pismenog pristanka i Y i sagovornika je strogo zabranjena. Saznajte više o programu Partners in Caring ovdje: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebrejski tabernakul Armin i Estelle Gold Wing Galleryu ponosnom partnerstvu saYM&YWHA iz Washington Heightsa i Inwoodapoziva vas na našunovembar/decembar, 2013 Dokaz“Doživljavanje vremena rata i dalje: Portreti nadahnutih preživjelih u holokaustu” sa fotografijama i skulpturama: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW i ROJ RODRIGUEZ. U kombinaciji sa posebnom uslugom u memorijiof the75godišnjice Kristalne noći - Noći razbijenog staklaUsluge i prijem otvaranja umjetnika, Petak, 8. novembar, 2013 7:30 p.
Izjava Y : ” Decenijama je bio Washington Heights/Inwood Y, i nastavlja da bude, raj za one koji traže utočište, poštovanje i razumevanje. Mnogi koji ulaze na naša vrata i učestvuju u našim programima prošli su kroz iskušenja i nevolje koje ne možemo ni zamisliti. Za neke, ko će biti deo ove izložbe, jedan takav horor postao je poznat svijetu jednostavno kao "Holokaust" – sistematsko ubistvo šest miliona Jevreja Evrope.
Mi u Y pamtimo prošlost, odati počast onima koji su živjeli i umrli u to vrijeme, i čuvati istinu za buduće generacije. Zbog nas samih i naše djece, moramo prenositi priče onih koji su iskusili zla rata. Postoje lekcije koje treba naučiti za budućnost. Intervjue je dokumentovala Halley Goldberg, supervizor programa “Partneri u brizi”.. Ovaj vitalni program je omogućen zahvaljujući velikodušnoj donaciji UJA-Federacije New Yorka, dizajniran da poboljša odnose sa sinagogama u Washington Heightsu i Inwoodu. “
Naša zajednička umjetnička izložba sadrži portrete i intervjue preživjelih Holokausta, Hannah Eisner, Charlie i Lilli Friedman, Pearl Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel i Ruth Wertheimer, svi koji su članovi Hebrejskog tabernakula, jevrejska kongregacija da mnogi njemački Jevreji bježe od nacista i imaju sreće da dođu u Ameriku, pridružio se kasnih 1930-ih. Osim toga, također ćemo odati počast Gizelle Schwartz Bulow koja je preživjela Holokaust- majka našeg umjetnika Petera Bulowa i preživjelog Drugog svjetskog rata Yana Neznanskiy - oca glavnog programskog direktora Y's, Victoria Neznansky.
Posebna subotna služba, sa zvučnicima, u znak sjećanja na 75. godišnjicu Kristalne noći (Noć slomljenog stakla) prethodi otvaranju izložbe Gold Gallery/Y:Usluge počinju odmah u 7:30 pm. Svi su pozvani da prisustvuju.
Za radno vrijeme galerije ili dodatne informacije pozovite sinagogu na broj212-568-8304 ili vidihttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgIzjava umjetnika: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion je rođena u Minneapolisu, MN i odrastao u Izraelu. Diplomirala je na Općem studijskom programu Međunarodnog centra za fotografiju. Ben-Zion je dobitnik raznih grantova i nagrada, nedavno od Puffin fondacije i od NoMAA, a njeni radovi su izlagani u Sjedinjenim Državama i Evropi. Objavila je dvije monografije o svom radu. Živi u Washington Heightsu sa suprugom, i njihovi dečaci blizanci.
Izjava umjetnika: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Moja majka kao dijete, krio se tokom Holokausta. Tokom godina, njeno iskustvo, ili ono što sam zamišljao da je njeno iskustvo, je imao veliki uticaj na mene. Taj uticaj se ogleda i u mom ličnom i u umetničkom životu. Rođen sam u Indiji, živio sam kao malo dijete u Berlinu i emigrirao u SAD sa svojim roditeljima u dobi 8. Magistrirao sam likovne umjetnosti iz skulpture. Također sam dobitnik granta koji će mi omogućiti da napravim ograničen broj bronzanih bista preživjelih Holokausta. Javite mi ako ste zainteresirani da budete dio ovog projekta.
Izjava umjetnika :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Moj radni dio odražava moje putovanje iz Hjustona, TX – gdje sam rođen i odrastao – u New York – gdje, izložena svojoj etničkoj, kulturnu i socioekonomsku raznolikost i jedinstven pogled na imigrante– Pronašao sam obnovljeno poštovanje za svačiju kulturu. Učio sam kod renomiranih fotografa, putovao je svijetom i sarađivao sa mnogim vrhunskim profesionalcima u ovoj oblasti. Od januara, 2006, moja karijera nezavisnog fotografa postala je proces preuzimanja ličnih fotografskih projekata koji proizlaze iz mog vlastitog razumijevanja načina na koji dijelimo svijet i ispoljavanja naše kreativnosti u cjelini.
