V spojení s našou “Partneri v starostlivosti” program financovaný UJA-Federation of New York, Y bude obsahovať rozhovory od šiestich miestnych ľudí, ktorí prežili, aby lepšie porozumeli príbehu každého jednotlivca. Tieto rozhovory budú prezentované v galérii Hebrew Tabernacle “Zažiť čas vojny a ešte ďalej: Portréty temperamentných preživších holokaustu”. Galéria bude otvorená v piatok 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(fotografoval 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.
In 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, a 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.
Tento rozhovor viedla Halley Goldberg z iniciatívy Y’s Partners in Caring a patrí do YM&YWHA z Washington Heights a Inwood. Použitie tohto materiálu bez písomného súhlasu Y a osoby, ktorá vedie rozhovor, je prísne zakázané. Viac informácií o programe Partners in Caring nájdete tu: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebrejský Tabernacle's Galéria zlatých krídel Armina a Estellev hrdom partnerstve sYM&YWHA z Washington Heights a Inwoodvás pozýva na nášnovember/december, 2013 Ukážka“Zažiť čas vojny a ešte ďalej: Portréty temperamentných preživších holokaustu” s fotografiami a sochami od: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW a ROJ RODRIGUEZ. V spojení so špeciálnou službou na pamiatkuz75výročie Krištáľovej noci - Noc rozbitého sklaSlužby a otváracia recepcia umelca, Piatok, 8. novembra, 2013 7:30 popoludnie.
Vyhlásenie od Y : ” Washington Heights/Inwood Y je už niekoľko desaťročí, a je aj naďalej, útočisko pre tých, ktorí hľadajú útočisko, rešpekt a pochopenie. Mnohí, ktorí vstupujú do našich dverí a zúčastňujú sa na našich programoch, prežili skúšky a súženia, ktoré si ani nevieme predstaviť. Pre niektoré, kto bude súčasťou tejto výstavy, jeden taký horor sa stal svetu známym jednoducho ako „holokaust“ – systematické vraždenie šiestich miliónov Židov v Európe.
My v Y spomíname na minulosť, ctiť tých, ktorí v tom čase žili a zomreli, a chrániť pravdu pre budúce generácie. V záujme nás samých a našich detí, musíme odovzdať príbehy tých, ktorí zažili zlo vojny. Je potrebné sa poučiť do budúcnosti. Rozhovory dokumentuje Halley Goldberg, supervízor programu „Partners in Caring“.. Tento životne dôležitý program bol umožnený vďaka štedrému grantu od UJA-Federation of New York, navrhnutý na zlepšenie vzťahov so synagógami vo Washington Heights a Inwood. “
Naša spoločná výstava obsahuje portréty a rozhovory tých, ktorí prežili holokaust, Hannah Eisnerová, Charlie a Lilli Friedmanovci, Perla Rosenzveigová, Fredy Seidel a Ruth Wertheimer, všetci sú členmi Hebrejského svätostánku, židovská kongregácia, z ktorej mnohí nemeckí Židia utekali pred nacistami a mali to šťastie, že prišli do Ameriky, vstúpil koncom 30. rokov 20. storočia. Okrem toho oceníme aj Gizelle Schwartz Bulow, ktorá prežila holokaust- matka nášho umelca Petra Bulowa a preživší 2. svetovú vojnu Yan Neznanskiy – otec hlavného programového riaditeľa Y, a zároveň byť stĺpom nádeje a sily.
Špeciálna sobotná služba, s reproduktormi, na pamiatku 75. výročia Krištáľovej noci (Noc rozbitého skla) predchádza vernisáži výstavy Gold Gallery/Y:Služby začínajú okamžite o 7:30 popoludnie. Všetci sú pozvaní zúčastniť sa.
Otváracie hodiny galérie alebo ďalšie informácie získate v synagóge na tel212-568-8304 alebo vidieťhttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgVyhlásenie umelca: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion sa narodila v Minneapolise, MN a vyrastal v Izraeli. Je absolventkou všeobecného študijného programu Medzinárodného centra fotografie. Ben-Zion je príjemcom rôznych grantov a ocenení, naposledy od Puffin Foundation a od NoMAA, a jej práce boli vystavené v Spojených štátoch a v Európe. Zo svojej tvorby vydala dve monografie. So svojím manželom žije vo Washington Heights, a ich dvojičky chlapcov.
Vyhlásenie umelca: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Moja matka ako dieťa, sa počas holokaustu skrýval. V priebehu rokov, jej skúsenosti, alebo čo som si predstavoval, že to bola jej skúsenosť, mal na mňa veľký vplyv. Tento vplyv sa odráža v mojom osobnom aj umeleckom živote. Narodil som sa v Indii, žil ako malé dieťa v Berlíne a vo veku s rodičmi emigroval do USA 8. Mám magisterský titul vo výtvarnom umení v sochárstve. Som tiež príjemcom grantu, ktorý mi umožní vyrobiť obmedzený počet bronzových búst preživších holokaustu. Prosím, dajte mi vedieť, ak máte záujem byť súčasťou tohto projektu.
Vyhlásenie umelca :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Moja práca odráža moju cestu z Houstonu, TX – kde som sa narodil a vyrastal – do New Yorku – kde, vystavený svojmu etniku, kultúrnu a sociálno-ekonomickú rozmanitosť a jej jedinečný pohľad na prisťahovalcov– Našiel som obnovený rešpekt ku kultúre každého človeka. Vyučil som sa u osvedčených fotografov, veľa cestoval po svete a spolupracoval s mnohými špičkovými profesionálmi v tejto oblasti. Od januára, 2006, Moja kariéra nezávislého fotografa sa stala procesom prijímania osobných fotografických projektov, ktoré vychádzajú z môjho vlastného chápania spôsobu, akým zdieľame svet a ako celok uplatňujeme svoju kreativitu.
