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Life after tragedy: Holocaust survivors and family members share stories of survival and enduring love

Hartford Courant - 6/24/2022

Elaine Sandler had a very personal reason for wearing her late mother’s scarf.

Her mother used to travel to different schools throughout the state to share her story as a survivor of the Holocaust, Sandler said, and after she spoke at Connecticut College during a sponsored Anti Defamation League Holocaust Education Day, teachers gifted her with this scarf that she cherished throughout the years.

To this day, Sandler said, the scarf carries her mother’s scent of baby powder and Yoshiki perfume.

Sandler said her mother’s memory and strength to share her story with others, even when she was in pain with arthritis at times, encouraged Sandler to accept the invitation to be a panelist for the recent Mental Health Conversation with Holocaust Survivors and their Families.

Hosted by Jewish Family Services and Voices of Hope, Sandler and three other panelists shared their experiences as Holocaust survivors or children of Holocaust survivors, answering questions of what it means to return to life after tragedy, and how recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of antisemitism, the war in Ukraine and more impacted their well-being.

The lone Holocaust survivor on the panel, Dr. Leon Chameides, shared a little bit of what life was like for him after World War II, when he was 9 years old.

Before he became founding chair of pediatric cardiology at Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, chair of pediatrics at Hartford Hospital for 10 years, and a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Chameides said that after his liberation in July 1944 by the Soviet forces, he was in a monastery in a small town, located in what is Ukraine today.

He said he spent two years in the Greek Catholic monastery, but when the Soviets came in, they began to persecute and arrest the priests; many of them were killed. This caused Chameides to flee to the small town in Ukraine.

A rabbi, a friend of his father who was also a Holocaust survivor, arranged for him to be taken in by a woman, who took care of him, Chameides said. The woman had already lost her entire family, was saved by her maid and had to stay hidden for two years. Only 35 years old, her friends told her that she was too young to take in a child, but she persisted and took him in anyway, Chameides said.

Chameides said some issues he was dealing with at the time included that only he and his brother survived the war, having to learn new two languages, learning the Christian religion, and adjusting to the new environment.

“I was now living in a home as an only child, in contrast to group living in an orphanage, which in itself was a big adjustment. I had to relearn after two years, how to bathe and how to brush my teeth, which I hadn’t done in two years. Most importantly, I had to learn how to respond to someone who truly loved me,” he said.

Panelist Dr. Lois Berkowitz, director of psychological services at the state Department of Children and Families shared her late father’s experience as a Holocaust survivor. She said that her father had a happy childhood in Poland until 1939, when the Soviets took over his town. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, his family was placed in a ghetto, where there was a lot of starvation and death.

In January 1943, her father’s family was deported to Auschwitz where his parents were murdered, she said. He spent the rest of the war being tortured and starved at Auschwitz, and then several other camps, she said.

However, Berkowitz said, despite this traumatic experience, he eventually found love, joy, family and a life where he was successful in all that he did.

“One of the things that he would often say is — my family laughs — if you don’t expect too much, you’ll never be disappointed. It’s funny, but I think that there’s also a grain of truth to it. In terms of the philosophy that he came out of the war (with), he definitely lived that way for most of my life,” she said.

As a clinical psychologist, Berkowitz also shared the most important things to make available to individuals experiencing trauma or other traumatic events, such as the Holocaust.

She said that there must be an understanding that people experience trauma differently. While some people can readily overcome trauma and move forward in their lives, others may have a more difficult time, as the trauma can be so overwhelming for them and their lives may get derailed.

“There’s no one road from trauma. … What individuals experiencing trauma need also depends largely on how they respond to the trauma that they’ve been through,” she said.

Her first recommendation includes validating the survivor’s trauma.

“You need to acknowledge that what happened to them was terrible. Not say (things like), ‘It’ll be OK. Don’t worry.’ You need to listen. Trauma survivors just need you to listen,” she said. “Sometimes you just need to listen. Sometimes you just need to sit in silence. You really need to take your cues from the people who experience the trauma.”

Berkowitz also said that it is OK to admit you do not understand what the survivor may be going through.

“(You can) say something like, ‘I can’t begin to understand what that was like for you,’ because you can’t. Accept that they don’t want to talk. Keep checking in. … The big thing that people and trauma survivors need is a community. They need people around them,” she said.

She also noted that if people know their loved ones are struggling with basic functioning skills, such as eating and getting out of bed, they can be helped to find the professional help that they need.

Panelist and Jewish Family Services Senior Case Manager Erica Kapiloff, MSW and State Coordinator for Programs for Holocaust Survivors Miriam Brander said the Holocaust Survivor program focuses on providing support exclusively for survivors. Some of the support they provide includes counseling, emergency assistance with unexpected expenses, ongoing assistance with the cost of home care, help with applications for reparations and compensation programs sponsored by Germany and other formerly Nazi-occupied nations, and use of the Anja Rosenberg Kosher Food Pantry.

Brander said that while a lot of people may think of a Holocaust survivor being similar to Chameides, who became very successful, this is not the case for many of the clients that they work with in the program. “The majority of the clients we deal with are very low income, whether it’s a result of the trauma or whatever the reasons,” she said.

Kapiloff said that many of the Holocaust survivors they work with are Russian survivors who came much later to the United States than Chameides, or were educated in Russia and could not find jobs here.

“The typical Holocaust survivor that many people think of (are) people that were in a concentration camp, but there were also many survivors that had to flee, so they fled to Ukraine,” she said. “They fled to Poland. They fled from the frontlines of Russia into the mountains. They are not the survivors that many people think of. There are plenty of survivors that are really struggling in terms of financial needs.”

For more information about the Jewish Family Services Holocaust Survivor program, survivors and their families can contact Miriam Brander, state coordinator for Programs for Holocaust Survivors at 860-236-1927, Ext. 7094 or at mbrander@jfshartford.org.

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