Never To Forget
Never Will We Forget Their Truths.
This site is dedicated to all of those who have survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Let their stories live on; let their experiences and their memories not be in vain.
For all of those who look for truth and light in the hardest times, let them be an inspiration. Above all, let us never forget the tragedies and triumphs they have endured. Let us remember the Holocaust to ensure that it never happens again.
The Adopt-A-Survivor Program is one of the many courses offered at the Merkaz Regional High School for Judaic Studies. The program is run by Marjorie Krubiner and Margery Verlezza. In total, around 150-200 Jewish students from all over Fairfield County, CT attend classes on either Tuesdays or Sundays.
The Adopt-A-Survivor program was a staple in the Merkaz curriculum for years and "paired students with a community Holocaust survivor to learn their story and pledge to preserve their memory." Click here to learn more about Merkaz and the life changing programs that it offers.
The students in theory "adopted" their survivors. They spent an enormous amount of time learning about each other in a personal way. The students promised to help the survivors' memories live on. Students met with the survivors multiple times throughout the year to listen, record, and learn more about the life of the survivors. At the end of the course, the students created posterboards dedicated to their survivor. The posterboards included basic information about the survivor, their Holocaust story, and pictures from each survivor's life.
The students truly developed an inspiring and lifelong bond with the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories with them. The students pledged to all meet and share the stories of their survivors in 2045 in Washington D.C., 100 years after the Holocaust.
However, I believe that it is important to share these stories now, and the bonds the students created and the deeply powerful stories and photographs of the survivors should be easily accessible to this strong Jewish community. On this website, you will find the 40 survivors who participated in this program throughout the years, often times being adopted by more than one student.
Unfortunately, some of our survivors have passed, something that is becoming more and more common as the Holocaust becomes farther away. The goal of these students and of this site is to ensure that although the survivors will not live on, their stories will live on forever. The Holocaust must not be forgotten. The voices of the Jewish people must never be silenced.
When you click on the name of the survivor, you will be directed to their basic information ID card which lists general information about the survivor's life. Holding the mouse over the name of the survivor will bring up two boxes: the story of the survivor and the photographs of the survivor. Click on the respective link to view the powerful components of each page.
-Idalia Friedson
Merkaz '11
Greens Farms Academy '11
Amherst College
Irving Roth, a Holocaust survivor, was a part of the Adopt-A-Survivor program and is the founder of the Holocaust Resource Center in New York.
