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.
Ruth Wertheimer has been a member at the Y for over a decade. You can find Ruth at the Y for special events and programming, especially at Sunday concerts at the Center for Adults Living Well @ the Y.
Ruth Wertheimer(photography by Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com)
Ruth Wertheimer was born in Mannheim, Germany on June 6, 1931. At the age of one, her father died. Her mother raised her and her older brother in Mannheim, Germany. Ruth’s mother owned a thrift shop in town. Growing up in Mannheim was difficult. She remembers having very little schooling as a child. Ruth recalls experiencing anti-Semitism from a very young age. She recounts being called a dirty Jew as well as being beaten up in the streets. The anti-Semitism was so rampant that Ruth’s brother used to take her to their grandmother’s house. They would avoid main roads to prevent being beaten up. Their mother could not join them because she was busy working at the family’s store.
In Mannheim, Germany, Kristallnacht began on November 10, 1938. Ruth recalls the events of Kristallnacht, “we lived in this place with an Orthodox synagogue that had a rabbi and a cantor. There was an office there for social workers and a Jewish school. These buildings surrounded a schoolyard…It started at 6 in the morning, you heard the noise of the burning buildings…it was terrible. There was a lot of noise and I was scared.” Ruth’s synagogue, The Haupt synagogue, was destroyed that day.
Once the destruction was finished, Ruth remembers her family’s store being completely ruined. “We had a beautiful photograph of my brother in color and they took it and put it out in the street…and wrote underneath ‘dirty Jew.’ Dirty Jew! It was a beautiful picture.” After seeing the destruction, Ruth’s family decided that they should leave the building they were living in. Her grandmother was a diabetic and she used to receive her injections from nuns so the family decided that it would be best to seek refuge with the nuns. The entire way there, they were followed by teenagers who were calling them ‘dirty Jew’. Ruth was able to find protection with the nuns for a while. From there, she and her family left to stay with relatives.
Sosúa 1940, Ruth’s brother celebrated his bar mitzvah in an Orthodox synagogue in Mannheim. Three weeks after this joyous occasion, she and her family were rounded up and brought to a camp called Camp Gurs in France. Ruth remembers “we had one hour to pack and we didn’t know where we were going. We were put in some kind of recreation hall overnight, I’m not sure anymore, and the next day we were put on a train and we did not know where we were going. I had a grand aunt that was there too and she was with us and she brought sugar cubes and lemon to eat. We had nothing to eat. Finally we arrived in the camp. It was horrible: you had mud up to your knees, you were in a barrack with 20 people maybe. Rat, mice, lice, you name it. You slept on the floor with straw.” After being in Camp Gurs for a year, someone from the organization OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) came to the camp. OSE is a French- Jewish organization that saved hundreds of refugee children during the Holocaust. The representatives from OSE asked the parents in the camp if they wanted to give up their children. Ruth recollects that her mother never wanted to give up any of her children, but with great difficulty, she did. Ruth was given up first. From Camp Gurs, Ruth was taken to Chabannes. After being in Chabannes for some time, Ruth remembers that it was not safe there anymore and some of the older children were taken to Auschwitz. After this, OSE felt that it would be best to move the children.
Ruth was placed with a Jewish family for four months. She was then moved to a gentile family. Ruth remembers, “…my name was not Ruth anymore. I was Renee…I wasn’t Jewish then.” In France, children went to school on Saturdays instead of Thursdays. Ruth went to school on Saturdays. One day at school, the police came and began to question Ruth, “I was always told to tell the truth. So I told the police everything.” She informed the family that she was staying with and that night, social workers from OSE came and took Ruth and placed her in a convent in 1943. She changed her name again to Renee Latty.
While hiding in the convent, Ruth remembers, “I did the sign of the cross with the left hand, you are supposed to do it with the right hand! Then they brought me to church and I didn’t know anything. Everyone was going into a booth so I went too. It was a confession booth. I didn’t know what that was…I didn’t know what to do…I became so Catholic, that you didn’t know that I was never not Catholic.” Ruth stayed in the convent for about a year until the war was liberated.
After the war was liberated, Ruth stayed at different OSE homes. For two years, Ruth did not know where her brother was. She and her brother finally reunited at one of the OSE homes. They then lived in Limoges, France and then near Paris before traveling to America together.
At the age of 15, Ruth, her brother, i 72 other children traveled to America together on the children transport. They landed in America on September 7, 1946. The boat was overcrowded and many of the children were sea sick. When they arrived in New York, there was a strike at the pier and they could not dock. The OSE was able to arrange for a small boat to come and take the children ashore.
When Ruth first got to America, she lived with an aunt and uncle and says that it was very difficult for her. Shortly after, she moved to Queens with another relative. This relative had a daughter around the same age as Ruth. She remembers starting school and that her relative’s daughter went to a better school than she did. Ruth had a difficult time managing in school and her relatives told her that if she did not finish school, they would kick her out. Because she was having such difficulties in school, Ruth was kicked out in 1948.
Since June 1948, Ruth has lived in Washington Heights. She realized that she had to learn a trade in order to survive so she decided to go to beautician school. She attended the Wilfred Academy and fell in love with her courses. She went on to receive her beautician’s license. Hebrew Tabernacle was the first synagogue she joined since she came to America and she has been a member ever since. She has one son and two grandchildren who live in Wisconsin.
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.
